How To Monetize a YouTube Channel WITHOUT Subscribers

As you may know, the most common way to get monetized through YouTube is by having 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time. So essentially when you meet those requirements, you become a part of the YouTube Partner Program. This means you get paid when people click on the YouTube ads that surround your videos (AKA: ad revenue).

 

My YouTube channel recently just passed the 1000 subscriber mark, which I'm very proud of, but I still am working at getting my 4000 hours of watch time. And even though I haven't technically reached the point of YouTube monetization, I made over $10,000 this past month from my YouTube channel.

 

Today, we're going behind the scenes, and I'm going to show you how I've been able to achieve "YouTube monetization" without being a member of the YouTube Partner Program. I'm going to show you this in hopes that content creators can see YouTube monetization from a whole new perspective.

 

Now let's get into the best practices that have made is possible for me to get discovered on YouTube and then lead that to affiliate program sales, online courses, coaching programs, that kind of stuff.

 

Step 1: Create The Right Content

 

 

Now, you don't want to be making content just for the sake of making content and gaining the most amount of video views.

 

You want to be strategic with this if you're going to get discovered by the right kind of people through YouTube-and then point them to the different products and things that you have to offer, like your coaching programs, online courses, affiliate programs, etc.

 

So what I'd recommend for your first step; let's say you're helping people with fitness, it's a really easy example. We will go into the search bar inside of YouTube, and we're going to type in, "How to bench press". 

 

Right off the bat you're going to see a bunch of video content such as: "How to bench press more weight correctly", "How to bench press with dumbbells", "How to bench press for beginners without a bench", "How to bench press for chest growth".

 

What's cool here is that each one of these are recommended by YouTube because people are looking this stuff up, they are genuinely curious about how to do this.

 

And when you have a problem or you're trying to figure something out, you go to a search engine like Google or YouTube. Google owns YouTube, so your video content can show up in Google searches as well.

 

So make a list of these recommendations, and you can create this with content. You can also use different words like, "How to deadlift properly for beginners".

 

All of this is content that you can then create that you know your target audience would be looking for.

 

But what's cool is that you can go a little bit further. You can say, "How to bench press..." and then the letters A, B, C and you're getting different search results: "How to do incline bench press chest workout", "How to bench press in a competition". 

 

Okay, so if you're a competitive coach helping people get into competitions with deadlifting, you can teach them about this stuff.

 

What's cool too is that instead of how to bench press, you can also say, "What bench press". And you get: "What does bench press do to your body?", "What grip for bench press".

 

The idea is to be thinking about making content that your target audience, the people that you can best help, would be looking up on the internet and trying to do themselves.

 

So that's one great way to get you started with creating content that you know people are looking for.

 

And the other thing that you can do is something I like to call content hacking.

 

This blows people's minds. It's a little controversial, but this is just how you grow on YouTube because people are doing this everywhere.

 

So you find YouTube creators who are doing things that you want to be doing-these are what I call your heroes. Jeff Nippard, for example, has a strong online presence and is a successful youtuber. He made a video, "How to bench press with perfect technique (five steps)".

 

You can make a video similar to Jeff, but don't rip off exactly what he's doing. Jeff is Jeff, but you are you. So bring you to the table. 

 

But there's things that you can learn about what Jeff and other video creators are doing that is proving successful.

 

So what you can do is go to Jeff Nippard's YouTube channel, go to videos and then click on popular. What this does is organize his videos with the most watch hours from top to bottom over the span of his entire YouTube career. Here you have hours of video content where you can discover how he structures things and the topics that he's talking about.

 

Again, don't just rip off exactly what Jeff is doing to increase your number of views. You can't be Jeff first and foremost, sorry.

 

 

So don't take exactly what he does for his thumbnails, video descriptions, titles, intros, or his content itself. But the good news is, you can learn bits and pieces that are working for him.

 

Like this particular video here: "The fastest way to blow up your bench press for science based techniques". Jeff is really big on bringing science to fitness, which is really cool, and it's what makes him different and one of the reasons he has a big fan base.

 

Look at the before and after, you're like, "Oh, that's a great thumbnail. I really like something like that". You can make your own version of that thumbnail and even just the topic, the fastest way to blow up your bench press.

 

But then you can go into a totally different niche and type in something like, "How to bake bread".

 

Then you can find different thumbnails from bread baking that you can apply to bench press. The idea is looking for inspiration outside of your niche as well.

 

Like this: good, better, best. That's a cool idea. And you can come up with something like, "Three different ways that people do bench press", for example. And it could be a three part thumbnail and you could turn that into your own video.

 

It's finding the things that are already working on the platform related to the topics that you know people are looking for.

 

So when you start creating the right kind of content that's helping the right kind of people and getting you discovered through YouTube views, now you want to move on to the next step.

 

Step 2: Get People Off YouTube

 

Now, I know this is incredibly controversial, especially if you're a YouTube expert.

 

What YouTube wants is for people to stay on the platform so that they can get more ad views. Because when people click on those YouTube ads, YouTube makes ad revenue.

 

But we as content creators, especially if we're smaller channels, we want to get discovered by the right people, build a relationship through our content, and then take people off of YouTube so that we can build an email list.

 

Because when we build our email list, we can then start making offers.

 

We can promote our affiliate products, our coaching programs, or our digital products in the back end. That's how you increase the amount of money coming in through various income streams.

 

So the big question is, how do you get people off of YouTube? The best way you do this is by creating valuable and high-quality content  so people are actually willing to get off of YouTube for you.

 

In your content, you want to offer a lead magnet.

 

So all a lead magnet is, is something free that you give people in exchange for their email address. Essentially, it's just a piece of content gated behind an email opt in.

 

To create a great lead magnet, just ask yourself this question: "What is a persistent problem my audience faces, and how can I quickly solve that for them in a short PDF or video?"

 

There's many different types of lead magnets that you can build such as a short PDF guide, no more than ten pages long, or a little one page checklist, or a short video. These are great assets.

 

For example, if you're a fitness coach teaching people how to bench press, you can give them a one page PDF that is a short checklist with different cues so that they can hit the perfect bench press every time.

 

All they have to do is download it by giving you their email address. So the next time they're in the gym, they can look at it, read through and say, "Okay, I'm going to do these different things, and then I'll be growing my bench press from there". You can also do that with deadlifts, back squat, dumbbell technique, whatever you want.

 

Once you have your lead magnet built, you want to create what's called a landing page or a squeeze page.

 

This is just a simple page that has a little bit of text on it. It basically says, "Here's what you're going to get with this guide, put in your email or your name and email, click the button and download the guide."

 

Right now in this example I'm using Kajabi, which is my favorite tool, but you can use LeadPages, Squarespace, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign. A lot of these come with different landing pages that you can use to collect email addresses.

 

The last piece is just to offer your lead magnet.

 

So inside your videos, when you're making content that people are looking for, offer it. Let people know about this thing. Like, "By the way, if you want to get the five best cues to the perfect bench press every time, go to mysweetwebsite.com/bench and you can pick up the guide yourself." This points them over to the landing page.

 

If you do this in every video, each video turns into essentially an employee that gets discovered by your audience, adds value to them, builds trust, and takes them off of YouTube to join your email list where you can make more offers for your business.

 

So once you've done this, you want to move on to the next step.

 

Step 3: Create a Marketing Funnel

 

All a marketing funnel is: taking someone from just getting to know you, which means they're finding you through your YouTube channel, to ultimately purchasing a product or booking a phone call with you.

 

And the most simple, easy landing page funnel that I would do if I were restarting my YouTube journey right now, on top of everything else I've taught you here, is to take advantage of the thank you page.

 

This is the page that people land on right after they opt in, from your squeeze page where they give you their email address. The reason we do this is because every time somebody opts in for, in this case, your bench press cues, they're going to land on this page.

 

And instead of you just saying, "Thanks for opting in, check your email" you're going to add a little bit of text or a video by you that says, "Hey, thanks so much for picking up that guide. The fact that you did shows me that you are serious about getting stronger at benching. If you really are serious about getting this result, I want to help you out. Which is why underneath this video, you can book a 30 minute consultation with me. We'll sit down. I'll help you game plan how you're going to execute this. Click the button below. Book a time on my calendar and I'll see you very soon."

 

It can be that simple.

 

Again, every YouTube video is essentially your employee. You're getting discovered, adding value, getting people off of YouTube on autopilot. Because YouTube videos are always working for you, even when you're not working.

 

Last year I had a guy who found me by searching something and ended up binge watching about ten of my YouTube videos. He found value in my videos and he opted in. He then booked a call with me.

 

My YouTube channel essentially sold him on working with me, and he felt that he already knew me just by watching my video content.

 

And what I see is another appointment on my calendar. We got on the call and this guy was a perfect fit and he paid in full to work with me for coaching. That is the power of using this strategy.

 

If you want to make money from your YouTube channel, regardless of your subscriber count or watch time, focus on:

 

• Creating valuable and high-quality content that's going to bring in the right kind of people that you can help
• Help them in your video content
• Get them off of YouTube by offering something free that's going to help them on their journey
• Get an email address which lands on a thank you page where you can make some sort of offer

 

The good news is, it can be that simple. And that's what I did when I was first getting started with my YouTube account.

 

If you want to learn more about marketing funnels and how they can get a lot more sophisticated, read this article here. It's going to show you a proven marketing funnel that has increased the earning potential of creators like you and me by millions of dollars.

 

So take what we learned here, get out there, make something happen. I will see you in the next one.