Beyond the YouTube Ad boycott telling us that Big Brands are actually willing to cut ties with the powerhouse video platform, it also revealed how many creators on YouTube don’t know how to monetize their YouTube Channel without Adsense.
If you’ve been out of the loop, Google lost up to $750 million dollars in revenue, when massive brands like Walmart, Pepsi, Starbucks and a bunch of others, pulled their ads from YouTube, when they discovered that their ads were being inadvertently displayed on videos that were racist, homophobic or anti-semitic in nature.
The news rocketed through the YouTube community, as Creators realized that ads weren’t being shown on their videos due to so many Advertisers pulling out.
YouTube responded by tightening up their Partner Program, and only allowing channels with 10,000 or more views to join — which in return, gives YouTube a chance to evaluate an applicants channel as a whole and decide whether or not said applicant fits the Partner Program.
I mean, yes.
Of course, these Brands wouldn’t have even had this problem if they asked their advertisers to take three seconds out of their day while setting up their ad campaign to opt out of placing ads on content with hateful, shocking or any other negative messaging.
The reality is, the Brands have the money which means it’s YouTube’s problem even if it’s the Brand’s fault.
And what else can we expect but for Google to do what makes the most business sense for them which is to cater to their customer.
We’re now almost three weeks in, and slowly but surely, some Advertisers are coming back.
So what does this mean for you?
Well — Yay! Advertisers are coming back.
And if you’re new to YouTube, but serious about your YouTube channel, 10K views may seem like a lot but truly its only $10 in Adsense revenue and if you’re consistent with your channel, you will reach it in no time!
The real problem here is not whether you’re in the Partner Program or not but the fact that you don’t own your YouTube Channel–Google does.
This means that both Google and the brand’s that invest into them, can yo-yo with your money when they please.
And the only way to counteract this is to stop thinking of your YouTube channel as a channel, and start thinking of it as a Brand and Business.
In today’s post, I am going to share with you how to monetize your YouTube channel without Adsense.
Email List
The first thing you’re going to need if you want to monetize your YouTube channel without Adsense is an Email List.
Yes, I know, YouTube emails your subscribers whenever you put out a new video.
But did you know, it’s estimated that only 20-40% of your subscribers actually receive this email from YouTube? The rest have to somehow stumble upon it on YouTube’s actual subscription feed.
Unless your subscribers are clicking the bell in the right corner next to the Subscribe button, and asking to be notified about all updates regarding your channel, they’re most likely NOT seeing your new videos when you drop them.
In fact, most of your subscribers are NOT seeing your new videos. Your video views mainly come from YouTube Search.
So major tip, if you want more of the people that are interested in your videos to actually see them, you will want an Email List so you can send them an email whenever you put out a new email.
The second reason you want an Email list is because an Email List is going to allow you to monetize your audience, and make significant income without 100k YouTube views , 1000 ads, and a HUGE following.
An Email list is also going to allow you to make money without Brand Endorsements.
So what is so special about an email list?
People who give up their email are more likely to become actual customers because they trust you enough to give up their personal information.
And while we can’t guarantee that every person that watches our video content is truly interested in it, an email list contains a targeted group of people that you can be pretty sure actually care about what you have to say or offer, because they’ve offered up their personal information in exchange for the opportunity to build a deeper connection with you.
In addition, if your YouTube channel ever got mysteriously banned or deleted, you can always alert your email list of your new channel which prevents you from starting all over completely, or you could ask your email list to follow you on a new social media platform.
The best part of all of this is…
Once you have your email list, you can monetize YouTube without Adsense.
Let’s get into some examples…
If you have a cooking channel, you could create a CookBook, if you’re a Comedian, you could design a T-Shirt with your most popular catch phrase, Or If you have life coaching programs Like Us you can start selling the course who actually looking for.
A lot of Creators, think the only time they can create a product is when they have a hundred thousand or more followers.
What if I told you that is simply not true.
Here is how an email list can change all of that.
Let’s say you have a small vegan cooking channel with only 2,000 subscribers, and you average between 200-600 views per video and post two videos every week.
You create a small PDF with a week’s worth of vegan lunch recipes.
In the description of each of your videos, you leave a link for your viewers to download this mini cookbook.
5 people a day download this mini-cookbook in exchange for giving you their email address.
After 30 days, you have 150 email subscribers.
Let’s say that you come out with an actual cookbook, price it at $19.99 and only 2% of your audience purchases it within the first 24 hours. That’s 3 people. In 24 hours, you’ve made $60 from your cookbook.
Let’s say your email list is growing, you’re keeping in touch with your list, sending out emails to those who have yet to buy, and you get 5 more sales for a total of 8 sales over a 30 day period.
In 30 days, you’ve made $159 from your cookbook. Compare this to the $5 you would’ve made through Adsense from the video views of your small YouTube channel..
Now imagine your list growing and you’ve reached 2000 email subscribers.
You release a new cookbook, price it at $19.99, and again, only 2% of your audience purchases within the first 24 hours of its release. That means 40 people have purchased your product which means you’ve made $800 within 24 hours
You take the same steps as you did last release, and over a 30 day period, a total of 60 people buy.
Well guess what?!
You’ve just made $1200.
Your first 1K!
Even if your YouTube channel has grown to 5,000 subscribers at this point, and you’re averaging 1,000 views a day, over a period of 30 days, that’s only going to be between $30-$100 of ad revenue.
See where I’m getting at here?
$100 vs $1200.
Not even in the same ballpark.
Nor does this example even take in the fact that your conversion rate could even be higher.
In order for you to make the same amount of money with your Adsense, you would have to average between 75K-100k views on your YouTube channel per month.
In addition, your cookbook is passive income and you can keep sharing it with new email subscribers and continuously rack up new purchases.
Now couldn’t you just promote your cookbook on your YouTube channel and get any results?
Well sure!
But consider this — if MOST of your YouTube views come from YouTube search, that means that most of your viewers don’t really even know you like that when they stumble upon your videos to just buy your product.
And if you don’t have the social proof–I’m talking 20k-100k views per video–it may take a random stranger a few videos and sometimes before they trust you, but how can you guarantee that they will come back and watch more?
An email list and keeping in contact with your dedicated community, allows you to engage with your audience and build trust with them by giving them free valuable information.
And once you have someone’s email list, until they unsubscribe from you, you’re kind of in the friend zone and have permission to update them about what’s new.
So let’s dig into the power of 2000 email list subscribers vs. 2000 YouTube subscribers.
Email lists give ALL of your subscribed members a chance to see your content. And while open rates may vary, at least you’re given a real shot. This is why I gave the low conversion rate of 2% as an example, because for a lot of businesses, email sales conversion rates can average between 2%-3%. And while it’s not unheard of to see conversion rates as high as 10-15%, 2-3% is pretty average.
YouTube on the other hand, only alerts about 20-30% of your subscribers which means instead of 2000 people receiving an email from you, only 200-300 people will get an email from YouTube about your content. Now let’s take into consideration that only 50% of your audience actually opens their emails.
With an email list, that’s 1000 people who have opened your email, compared to at most 150 people opening up an email from YouTube.
See now why you have a higher chance of more people seeing your videos with an email list?
Or why you can actually make more money with an email list than a list of subscribers you can’t even personally connect with outside of YouTube?
The other good thing about Email lists is that they will capture both people that have subscribed to your YouTube channel and people that may have just stumbled upon your video, but forgot to hit the subscribe button.
The methods I described in this post will help you monetize YouTube without Adsense no matter if you’re selling physical or digital products or something like services. But if you want to monetize your YouTube channel without Adsense, you will need an Email List first.
If you found this helpful and want to know more about How to Make Money Without A Large Following, be sure to check out this training and learn the exact step-by-step formula you will need to put in place.
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Bianaca Daniali
16 November
Woww, I could have not thought about this, I have read many blogs on monetizing YouTube channel but they all had the same content about Adsense, this is completely new information and amazing idea. You must also write something on Brand Tie-Ups and Sponsorship for Youtube channel as for me Brand promotion helped me earn the money I could never even imagine. Please make some write-up for that also.