- If you're one of those creators
who feels like you just can't make money on YouTube because
Google set that, those requirements
too high for your channel to be monetized,
that's absolutely not true.
You can make money on your channel
through a lot of different things,
and today I'm gonna walk you through some of the things
that I've tried and the experience that I have
of what's worked and what hasn't worked.
That's coming up.
(electronic music)
Hey guys my name is Tim Schmoyer,
and welcome to Video Creators.
This channel is all about helping you
grow your YouTube audience so you can spread a message
that reaches people and changes their lives.
And in order to do that, we need to make some money, right?
So that this can be financially sustainable for us,
to keep investing into the content, into the community,
into everything that we're doing for our audience.
But if your channel's too small
to be eligible for the YouTube partner program,
let me give you a few other ideas,
and these are all ones I've done myself
that have all far exceeded the amount of money
that I have made through AdSense.
In fact, when this YouTube channel
had only 3,000 YouTube subscribers,
it was earning over $10,000 a month.
And I have a link in the description below
that goes to a podcast episode I did
that walks you through that exact story,
and the process I followed, and how you can
follow that exact process too completely for free.
Go check that out down there.
One of the first things I tried though,
as a lot of creators try to do,
they jump straight to physical products.
So, I got these t-shirts made, right?
And I still have some of these.
I tried selling a lot of these and other physical products.
And what I learned very quickly
about trying to sell physical products,
is that the margins are really low,
so you gotta pay a lot of money
to have these things created,
and then you can only sell them for, you know,
only a few dollars more.
And the amount of time and hassle it takes
to do all the order fulfillment,
and be running to the post office,
and doing all that, it really quickly became
like not worth it for me to do physical products.
And so I quickly shifted over to digital products,
which would be like my eBook,
30 Days to A Better YouTube Channel
and my video courses and things like that
that really were like a lot easier for me to deliver,
'cause as soon as someone paid for it,
they instantly got access to it.
I didn't have to do any order fulfillment.
Like so much of it was just automated.
So I personally really liked doing digital products.
Before you jump into all that though,
it's important to know why people subscribe
and watch your videos in the first place.
What value are they getting from you
that makes them want to watch your videos
and come back and watch the next one,
and the next one, and the next one.
Once you know what that value is,
or maybe you just determine that's gonna be the value
and you're just gonna grow an audience around that value,
then you gotta think, okay, how do I deliver, like,
one x of this value through my videos for free on YouTube,
but then have this other avenue
where they can get 10X that same value
in a format they're willing to pay for.
And that process works the same
whether you're an educational channel, like mine,
you're teaching people something,
or you're an entertainment channel
where you're just providing entertainment value
whether it's vlogging, gaming, comedy, stand-up, sketches,
you know, something like that.
The next step is to start selling it and promoting it.
And there's a lot of different ways to do that,
and we're not gonna get into
all the different strategies here.
You can simply just announce it on your channel,
or lead up to like showing people behind the scenes
of you making this thing, getting them all excited,
and then have this big launch.
You could also just naturally integrate the products
into your videos whenever they make sense.
Like for example, I actually have a full video course
that walks you step-by-step
how to turn YouTube into your career.
How to make money on YouTube even with a small audience
and small views and doing like what I did on my channel,
and what I've worked with thousands of other careers
who have done this same thing.
Going full-time on YouTube with very small audiences
by developing a business model around their channel.
So if you want to know exactly how to follow that process
on your channel, check out my course that's called,
Turn YouTube into your Career.
And it will walk you through that exact process.
Link to it down in the description.
Now you see what I just did?
You guys are watching this video
'cause you want some value,
I'm giving you like 1X the value here.
I wanna help you, I wanna give you
something that's gonna serve you well,
but, this is only like a few minute video.
If you want hours and hours of step-by-step,
detailed processes and formulas and everything,
and resources, and everything you need,
that's like, that's probably like
100X the value actually of this video, that course.
Another popular way that people make money on YouTube
and integrate their products and sales under their channel,
is they actually don't really talk
about their paid products on their channel.
In fact, they just give away a free thing in every video.
Like you'll see the end of this video here,
and I do this in all my videos,
I just show you the cover of my free eBook.
It's called, The Secret to Building your YouTube Audience.
And people can click on that, they go download it,
in exchange for giving me their email address.
Then what a lot of people do is,
once they have your email address,
they'll just start sending you automatic emails
one after another that eventually leads
into a pitch or a sale for one of their paid products.
I've also sold an event, like here in Cincinnati.
People flew in from all over the world,
you get training for a few days.
It was amazing, I loved it.
Maybe doing like physical, in-person live events
might make sense for you and your audience
depending on the value that you're providing.
Maybe it makes more sense for you
to provide some sort of service for your audience,
you know, like consulting, or coaching,
or some sort of subscription to something
that you're, you know, in exchange for something
you provide for them on a regular ongoing basis.
Fan funding is another thing that I've done,
a lot of creators have done with Patreon,
or some sort of membership site
that they set up on their own.
I've actually been doing a lot more and more licensing
of my content where a company will reach out to me,
say hey we're making this commercial,
and we really love this video clip
of you and your family doing this thing.
Can we license that clip from you?
And those can pay, you know, usually in the ballpark
of several thousand dollars per 10 second clip.
Or maybe another thing that might make sense for you
is becoming a public speaker and start getting paid
to do a lot of speaking gigs in your niche
and in your industry, around the country,
at different events, in conferences, in camps and retreats,
or business meetings or whatever.
Just avoid the temptation here
of jumping straight into trying to figure out that product
before you do due diligence in the beginning,
which is knowing what the value is that you're providing,
who wants that value, who is that specific customer
in that target audience you want to attract to your channel,
developing content that does that,
and earns the trust and the credibility,
and the know, like and trust factors,
all that type of thing so that
when you do get to the sale,
that everything's already lined up
so that sale makes sense for the people on your channel.
And it's not at that point just about you
trying to extract value from them,
it's about like hey guys I'm giving you this value for free,
this awesome, now here's 10X the value
and I can't wait for you to have it.
Like you sell a lot differently
when you make this thing that you really believe in,
because you know the impact,
and the change and the difference it can have on people
if they just bought this thing
and went through this process.
Becomes less about please, guys, I need money,
can someone just buy this thing from me,
and more about like, you need this thing
in order to really reach the goals
that you're trying to reach, you know, or whatever.
Like, it's just totally different.
What are some of the things that you do
on your channel to make money outside of AdSense?
Share those ideas down there, the rest of you,
read all those ideas that other creators
are leaving down there.
You will learn a ton from them.
I'm looking forward to getting
more ideas myself from you guys,
and if this is your first time here,
I would love to have you subscribe,
because at Video Creators we're just all about
helping you guys grow your YouTube audience
so you can spread a message that reaches people
and changes their lives, and earns them money
that makes all of this sustainable.
So thank you guys for letting me be a small part of that.
Subscribe, and I'll see you guys on Mondays.
See you then, bye.