Greetings, dear readers! YouTube is the second most popular site in the world. Every day, people spend more than 1 billion hours watching videos, with an average of 40 minutes spent on the platform. In order to monetize the channel, it is not necessary to be a star: it is enough to find your audience, create relevant content and choose ways of earning. How to make money on YouTube and what strategies should be used, I will tell in the article.
How much you can earn on YouTube
In 2023, the number of channels with six-figure income on YouTube will increase by 40 percent, and with five figures – by 50. But this does not mean that you will start earning immediately after the release of the first video. First, you will have to build an audience, gain their loyalty and regularly publish quality content.
Earnings will depend on the following factors:
- number of subscribers;
- engagement: number of views, likes, comments;
- topic of the channel;
- geography of impressions (advertising deductions differ in different countries);
- monetization methods (read more about them below).
How to monetize your YouTube channel
There is no one-size-fits-all way to make money on YouTube. I advise you to choose two or three strategies that are optimal for your earnings and combine them.
1. YouTube Partner Program
This is a way to get paid for the ads that appear when you watch a video. To join the affiliate program, you must have at least 1,000 followers and 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months. After that, you can create an AdSense account.
2. Crowdfunding
This is called one-time or permanent funding from people who support your project.
One-time crowdfunding is a collection of funds with a specific goal: to buy equipment, shoot a music video, arrange the release of bags, open an animal shelter. As a rule, people who participated in fundraising receive a benefit: a gift, a discount, or participation in a discount program.
One of the most popular crowdfunding platforms is Kickstarter. Register there and describe the project, then promote it in your YouTube videos. Make a spectacular trailer about it, tell about the goal, the ways to it, the bonuses that await those people who donated money.
Permanent crowdfunding is a way to support an already existing project in which the target audience is interested. Most often, this is exclusive useful or entertaining content: educational videos, travel guides, video game reviews, music videos, etc.
To do this, register on the Patreon platform, where your “patrons” can make one-time or regular donations of any amount from $ 1. Post the results of your creativity on YouTube.
3. Sale of goods
One of the most popular ways to earn money among YouTubers. If you already have a product line, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to creatively showcase them in videos. If you still don’t know what to sell, we advise you to think carefully about your strategy:
- Analyze what will be in demand among your subscribers: t-shirts and mugs, snacks and smoothies, maybe scarves or phone cases. The best thing is to involve the audience in this process and find out what product they are missing.
- Consider the nuances of production and delivery in order to calculate the optimal price for goods and not remain at a loss.
- Do not launch many products at once: start with one or two, analyze the benefit – and then expand the line.
- Think about where you will send customers. It can be a website, a landing page or a store on e-commerce platforms (Etsy, eBay, Amazon). Don’t forget to link to it under the video.
- Promote products. Demonstrate them “in action”, share customer reviews, show advantages. Do you produce clothes? Take lookbooks and give advice on how to combine things and care for them. Do you sell spices? Publish video recipes, talk about the secrets of storage and use. Create artificial hype by offering limited quantities of the product, entertain and intrigue to find a format that will interest potential customers.
4. Sponsored Content
The advantage of the strategy is that you do not share the revenue with YouTube. The scheme works simply: you conclude a contract with a brand, advertise its products in a video and leave referral links in the description. When users follow them or buy a product (depends on the contract), you get a deduction.
I will talk about the nuances that should be taken into account:
- Find a brand to collaborate with. You can contact companies yourself or register on intermediary platforms that select partner programs (for example, YouTube BrandConnect). The main selection criteria are the match between the target audience of the channel and the brand, the number of subscribers and their engagement.
- Be honest with the audience. Don’t promote products you haven’t used yourself or don’t believe in. The deception will quickly be discovered, and you will lose the trust of the viewers, therefore, and the income.
- Tell that the content is sponsored. Google’s advertising rules require you to tag #sponcon or #ad. In addition, transparency is also useful for a trusting relationship with the audience.
- According to statistics, nano-influencers (from 500 to 5 thousand subscribers) earn an average of $315 per advertising video on YouTube, and larger bloggers (from 30 thousand to 500 thousand) – $782.
5. Deduction from YouTube Premium
This method is relevant for those who are registered in the partner program (we talked about it in the first point). Your channel’s viewers may include YouTube Premium subscribers who watch ad-free videos. In this case, you will still receive a deduction, but according to a different scheme.
The amount may vary depending on the number and duration of views (statistics are available in the analytics section of each account). As in the case of the affiliate program, YouTube promises that you will get about 55 percent of the revenue from the subscribers’ monthly contributions.
What else affects monetization
It’s not enough to create and launch a channel: to develop it, monitor statistics, protect content from theft and try different promotion methods.
Analyze the target audience
Understanding the target audience and its needs is the foundation for successful channel development and collaborations with brands. Regularly go to the analytics section of your account, study data about viewers and their behavioral habits: age, gender, geography, average viewing time. Be interested in the opinion of your subscribers: organize a survey about what content they are interested in and what videos they are missing.
Brand and protect content
Develop a corporate style of the channel, by which users will be able to remember and recognize you. Use the logo as an avatar, and corporate colors and fonts – in the design of the cap and intro (screensavers for videos).
Another important task of the logo is to protect content from theft. To do this, it should be placed on all videos as a watermark. Various online generators such as Logaster help to create such a logo in a couple of clicks.
Promote the channel
To get as many people as possible to know about your video channel, promote it on other platforms, for example:
- talk on social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram , TikTok ;
- add a link to your site, blog, e-mail;
- Invent collaborations with bloggers with a similar target audience and promote each other.
Conclusions
Making money on YouTube requires both creative and marketing skills. Follow blogging trends, analyze audience requests, invent new ways of presenting content and actively promote the channel. Remember: the more followers you get, the more successful monetization will be.
Now you know exactly how to make money on YouTube.
That’s all I have. Before meeting!
