5 Ways To Make Real Money on YouTube (Without 1,000,000 Subscribers)

Key Takeaways

youtube is the second most visited website in the world nearly 2 billion users log in every month who devour 5 billion youtube videos every single day if you're wondering how to make money on youtube then look no further today i'm going to show you five strategies to earn income from your youtube channel [Music] it's a common misconception that all youtubers make their money from getting a ton of views on their videos a million views is not really that attainable for people that are just starting out so let me teach you how you can make money on youtube without having to rely solely on views make money on youtube with affiliate marketing what's affiliate marketing affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other companies products so basically you find a product that you like you promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make how to become an affiliate so to get started you'll sign up for an affiliate program there's no shortage of affiliate programs out there so whatever industry you're in you'll be sure to find one once you sign up then you'll get a unique link and you'll put that link in the description box of your youtube videos that link tracks how many people have made a purchase after clicking on the url and then you get a kickback some common examples of items you could earn commission on are clothing technology or food items like anything in life you will need to be consistent with your affiliate marketing efforts join as many affiliate marketplaces as you can try clickbank reward style and amazon associates you can even reach out individually to companies that run their own affiliate programs some classic ones are glossier and majuri if you're in fashion godaddy and hostgator are great if you're in tech spend about an hour on google doing some research in your niche and start firing off emails introducing yourself and inquiring about the program how much money do affiliates make now if you're wondering how much you can make it'll vary but for example shopify affiliates on average make 58 dollars per conversion cheap flights will pay you about 45 cents every time someone clicks on your link however they don't necessarily have to purchase in your video you can explicitly guide viewers to take advantage of the link or you can discreetly drop the link without mentioning it at all it's up to you and whatever you feel comfortable and successful though it sounds like a numbers game affiliate marketing is also an art it takes tact to balance organic versus sponsored content and to avoid looking like a walking advertisement remember that your audience is your biggest asset and you could lose their trust because you're posting too much promotional material so rule of thumb is to only promote products that you can personally back and that will resonate with your audience join the youtube partner program and earn money from ads what is the youtube partner program youtube partner program lets creators monetize their videos through ads so if you've ever seen a skippable ad before or ads overlaid on top of a video those are the youtube partner program ads like the name suggests it's a partnership where youtube is providing the platform and its users are creating the content and then together revenue from the ad is shared between youtube and the content creator how do you apply to the youtube partner program now to be a part of the youtube partner program you need 4 000 hours of public watch time in the past year and you'll need a thousand subscribers if you have those requirements you're going to want to apply to apply go over to the creator studio hit channel then under monetization hit enable you'll accept the terms link your adsense account and then set your monetization preferences set these preferences on how you'd want your ads to appear on your videos hit apply and once your account is approved the account status will update to monetization enabled how do you make money through the youtube partner program so here are some tips to help you make the most money possible without having a million subscribers first you're going to want to carve a niche out the more niche your channel the better position you'll be in to work with brands that are looking to target a specific audience so you want to pay close attention to your analytics to see if there's a skew anywhere that's going to indicate whether you do have a niche keep an eye on the gender and the age of your audience and where they're located so let me give you some examples of how you can create niche content if you wanted to create content surrounding fashion how could you make this more niche instead of just posting videos of what you bought you might want to only post videos of what you bought at thrift stores and then how you reworked the pieces or take this channel for example we're making educational videos for entrepreneurs and small businesses that are looking to grow online next you'll want to post often try one to three times a week and keep at it stick to it for a year and surprise yourself with how much traction you'll actually gain and of course have high quality videos nowadays you can get really good equipment for pretty reasonable prices if you have an iphone and natural light you're golden and you can even edit your videos on your phone with adobe rush i'll link that in the description box below for you guys how much money can you make from the youtube partner program you'll get paid on an rpm basis rpm refers to the revenue per thousand views youtube will take a 45 cut though so you want to factor that in however the amount of money you make is not black and white it will vary from creator to creator so for example lifestyle vlogger megan purit is a micro influencer with 42 000 playbacks in the month of march and she made 100 whereas business influencer catherine manning has over 200 000 subscribers and made around five grand in the month of june so hopefully that gives you a rough idea outside of your niche and the type of content that you make your earnings will depend on various external factors it will depend on what kind of ads are being placed on your videos and what's going on in the world around you so right now is a really good time for content creators since everyone is online either on youtube or netflix but in 2017 during the adpocalypse content creators weren't making as much from ads on youtube the adpocalypse by the way is a term that refers to mass advertisers like pepsi and walmart pulling out of ads so the amount of money that you make will fluctuate it's not predictable and since you really have no control over this you're going to want to diversify your revenues which leads us to our next point selling products or merchandise selling physical and digital products how to sell products using youtube you can have complete control over your income by running your own online business and using youtube to sell physical goods services or digital products this is what's called a lead magnet now a lead magnet is a marketing term for free content made with the purpose of eventually making a sale so let me give you an example say you have a business selling toys you might want to film videos of kids unboxing your products and then drop a link to your ecommerce toy store in the description box now let's take a real life example so let's look at deliciously ella deliciously ella is a plant-based cooking guru and she has her own cookbook she uses youtube to post how-to videos for her recipes 99 of her videos are tutorials making her content super focused and niche and these videos will act as warm leads for book sales snack line and her brick and mortar location so as you can see she has a ton of different ways that she makes income so here are a few ideas of how you can start your own biz ideas of what you can sell on youtube you can use a print-on-demand service to make your own t-shirts pillows and coffee mugs if you're really focusing on creating video content primarily and the business part second the beauty about print on demand is that it's a semi-automated way to sell customized merch and it requires very little to no effort on your end you can also sell services like consulting and online dance classes alternatively you can sell digital products now digital products are some of my personal favorites because they are infinitely scalable and they allow you to make money while you sleep consider selling online courses pdf books workout plans and gated content whatever you're selling you'll want to link it in your description box i recommend using a trackable link with utm.io so you know which videos are making the most sales also speaking to it somewhere in your video either verbally or as an info card will help increase conversions marketing is a deep topic so if you're interested in learning more register using the link below to gain access to a free 30-minute webinar that will help you level up your marketing by changing the way you think of your store's marketing funnel learn how to go from first day to first sale in this free training course crowdfund your next creative project so what's kickstarter kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects every project creator sets their project's funding goal and deadline if people like the project they can pledge money to make it happen if the project succeeds in reaching its funding goal all backers credit cards are charged when the time expires funding on kickstarter is all or nothing so if the project falls short of its funding goal no one is charged if a project is successfully funded kickstarter applies a five percent fee to the funds collected backers pledge money for different reasons some backers are rallying around their friends projects and many are just inspired by a new idea others are inspired by a project's rewards so to incentivize more donations you can offer a copy of what's being made a limited edition or a custom experience related to the project project creators keep 100 ownership of their work and kickstarter cannot be used to offer financial returns or equity or to solicit loans some projects that are funded on kickstarter may go on to make money but backers are supporting projects to help them come to life not to financially profit how to film a promotional video for kickstarter film an explainer video of what your business is and what you plan to bring to the world and upload it to youtube check out this video made by final straw they made this video to raise money for their new business idea and they were wildly successful the video obviously has high production value as they did put a few dollars behind it but the magic really is in the founders personality and how the information was creatively communicated they end the video with their logo and available now on kickstarter your call to action at the end of the video will direct people to the crowdfunding platform like kickstarter or indiegogo so that they can learn more about you and pledge money let your audience support your work through fan funding what's fan funding youtube fan funding is integrated into the platform and available to anyone who is a youtube partner however going with an external fan funding platform like buy me a coffee and patreon is accessible to anyone patreon lets your favorite fans become active participants in the work that they love by offering them a monthly subscription it gives you the freedom to create what you want and what your audience loves so that you don't have to tailor your content to sponsors needs by receiving direct support from your fans it breaks from the constraints of ad-based monetization models and having to appeal to a mass audience using an interface like patreon makes processing payments clean and easy for both the fans and the creator how does fan funding work the content that you produce has to have an aim and benefit the viewer in some way do you create educational content or entertaining content then once you build a fan base you'll tell them that there's a way that they can support you your fans will mostly be supporting you for the pure reason that they enjoy your work and they want to appreciate you for what you do however it's always nice to add an incentive to thank them for their kindness so let's say you're a musician you could give away free mp3 downloads or you can give shout outs to your supporters at the end of the video is fan funding right for you i would recommend starting a patreon once you have an established audience that's invested in you and your content like with any of these tactics you'll want to focus on growing before you monetize alright guys so don't just take one of these ideas i recommend you try most of these ideas in order to exhaust all the possible ways that you can monetize your youtube channel when you do this you'll put yourself on a fast track to making youtube a part-time gig that can eventually lead to full-time so what you just saw is five killer tips to get you on the road to building a successful youtube channel if you found this video helpful make sure that you're hitting that like button learn with shopify is a channel dedicated to small business owners with big plans make sure that you're hitting that subscribe button so that you don't miss out on any future videos i'm your host michelle thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in the next one