Everyone knows that YouTube is a legit and rewarding career, and you can make money on YouTube. But the fact is, only a top 0.25% of all the channels on YouTube make money or get monetized.
So while it is possible to make money on YouTube, you need to be in the top percentage of creators to make your efforts worth it.
However, making money on YouTube is not limited to getting monetized by Google Adsense and then getting paid by YouTube itself.
If you own a business or sell affiliate products, then using YouTube as a lead magnet and generating leads for your business is one of the best ways to monetize YouTube.
Many businesses and influencers use YouTube today to solely get people to their website, webinar, affiliate page, and email list.
Because at the end of the day, YouTube is also a kind of social media with a mammoth user base, and there is not one but many ways to take advantage of that user base.
In this blog, we’re back with Rachel Pederson after learning from her how to make money on TikTok. Today, the popular social media strategist will help us learn how to make money on YouTube even without Adsense monetization.
Why YouTube
YouTube is kind of a monopoly platform. Thus, it is far more controlled and does not give as much freedom to its creators as other platforms like TikTok. There are many restrictions, countless guidelines, and YouTube can demonetize or ban you at any time.
But still, it is one of the best platforms if you wanna reach the masses. One of the biggest benefits of YouTube is the prolonged shelf life of the content.
You see, on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, no matter what you post, it feels like the content runs out of steam in a day or two. The shelf life of posts is only so much. After a couple of days, it stops getting all the engagement.
It is not the case with YouTube. YouTube is one platform that has the snowball effect where your content might not get many views initially, but as it grows, you start showing up on the discover and recommended page, and it keeps working for you even when you sleep.
Obviously, not every piece of content or video is evergreen. But the virality aspect is always there where your video can go viral and keep getting thousands of views even after many years from the publish date.
How to Create Engaging Content
Whether you want to make money from Google Adsense or use YouTube as a lead generation platform, content is always the king.
If your content is not engaging, valuable, or entertaining, then nobody will click on it. And if nobody will click on it, neither you’ll get views nor leads. So, how to create content that works?
According to Rachel, create massively valuable content that gives people a reason to click. The best way to figure which content is worth clicking and which is not is to put yourself in the viewer’s shoes.
Step back, and think if you were not the person you are, or you were someone else who doesn’t know the current you, would you still find a reason to click on the content or not? If the answer is yes, then go ahead with that video.
Many people want to create content about themselves, showing what their vacation looks like, what their day is like, how their life is. If you wanna be a vlogger, then it’s fine, but this self-centered content rarely works.
The key to creating engaging content on YouTube is simple, give people what they want. Things that are searchable, things that people are looking for, and things that answer a question.
How Much Value Should You Give in Your Videos
People who have a business or sell a course or digital products always have this doubt about how much value or information they should give upfront on YouTube, so the viewers are still interested in their paid products.
Also, if you give away everything on the front end on YouTube in order to maximize value, will people still have that motivation to go and pay you for it?
Many internet experts will advice you to only share the what and the why in your content but never the how. And it does work many times, so nothing is wrong with this advice.
But Rachel, for a long time, has been sharing the what, why, and the how as well. What’s surprising is sharing the how as well is working better.
The reason why it works is because people think, if this is how much value this person can give for free, then I can’t wait to see what their paid stuff looks like.
Yes, there is an audience of freebie seekers, but that audience isn’t always the action takers. So even though they might never buy your stuff, you can at least deliver value. Because who knows who their friends are and who they end up sharing your content with.
How to Start Getting Views on Your Channel
Starting a YouTube channel is all fun and games until you upload your first video and…
… nothing happens. You don’t get enough views because your subscriber base is non-existent.
So, how to get views when your channel still doesn’t have thousands of subscribers? Is there any method you can apply?
The easiest, most straightforward way to get the initial views and subscribers is to leverage your existing audience on other platforms, of course, if you have any.
For example, Rachel has a larger audience on TikTok than YouTube. So after releasing a YouTube video, she drops a 10-20 second trailer on her TikTok to get those views initially.
If you don’t have any audience anywhere, then the best idea to build from scratch would be to follow YouTube SEO and focus on organic methods to get initial subscribers. Or if spending money is not a problem, then YouTube Ads are a great way to build an audience fast.
How to Make Money on YouTube
As mentioned, there are two ways you can make money on YouTube: Google Adsense, meaning getting paid directly by YouTube, or using YouTube as a lead magnet for your business.
YouTube income is not sufficient unless you have millions of views and subscribers. For instance, Rachel, with around 20000 subscribers, has only made $450 from Adsense in 5 years.
So if you think your channel has that potential to grow exponentially and you can produce regular high-quality content that YouTube likes, then well and good, you can go that route.
But this blog is focused more on the second way of making money with YouTube i.e., using it as a lead magnet.
So, how to use YouTube to generate leads? Well, first and foremost, every single one of your videos should have a direct call to action, meaning the next logical step one should take after watching your video.
Your call to action can be anything that your ideal audience would be interested in: a free download, content upgrade, webinar, etc.. Basically, anything that your ideal customer would be ready to drop their email for.
Building an email list is crucially important to make money because even if you don’t have a business right now. An email list of people with a common interest can be monetized anytime, anywhere in many different ways.
You can launch your products, sell affiliate products, collaborate with others to advertise their offer in front of your audience. The possibilities are unlimited if you have a loyal audience on your side.
