How Course Creators Can Make Money on YouTube

Growing a YouTube channel is a great way to get more exposure, promote your business, and create additional revenue streams.

Whether the point of your YouTube channel is to express yourself or to advertise a business, there are different ways to monetize your content on this platform. In today's article, you will learn the ways to make money on YouTube and how you can do it.

There are two primary ways to monetize YouTube: you can either use this platform to indirectly sell digital or physical products (ex: promoting your business with video content) or directly monetize your content by running ads.

How to Grow Your YouTube Channel

Before you think about making money on YouTube, you should focus on growing your channel to the point when it becomes profitable. You cannot simply start a YouTube channel today with zero subscribers and hope to monetize it right away.

Whether you apply direct or indirect monetization strategies, you need a decent number of subscribers and some level of engagement in your videos. But how can you get to this level?

Start by creating free content. The first step to growing a YouTube channel is adding videos to it. If you want to grow your subscriber list, these first videos should focus mainly on providing value, offering insights, sharing free information, etc.

This doesn't mean that you cannot start selling something right away. If you have an online course, you can mention it in your videos. However, your main focus should be to provide great value and gain new subscribers.

If you are scared of creating free content because you worry that it will devalue your online course, check out this article from our blog: Why Creating Free Content Won't Hurt Your Online Course Sales [Plus How to Do it]

Post new videos consistently. Another important step to growing your YouTube channel is consistency with your publishing schedule. Whether you can post a new video every day or once a month, try to stick to your schedule and increase it with time. As long as you can maintain quality, the more you can post, the faster you will grow. In general, it is good to aim for 2-3 videos a week to be able to start seeing growth.

Engage with your audience. Once you get a few subscribers and people liking or commenting on your videos, make sure to engage with them, reply to their comments and answer their questions. You can also go to other people's videos in your same niche and answer people's questions by providing valuable answers.

Repeat. If you create informative content that your audience finds valuable and entertaining, you will see your subscriber count rise. Once you reach a certain level, you are ready to monetize your audience by promoting other products you are selling or by running ads on your videos. Let's see how to do this below:

#1: Promote Your Online Course on YouTube

YouTube videos are a great fit to promote an online course: they can offer a preview of your course, and teaching style and get your audience connected with you on a deeper level.

Promoting a course in your YouTube videos offers a very easy way for subscribers to continue learning from you.

For example, let's say you sell an online course that teaches others a home improvement DIY project. Your YouTube videos can be a preview of your online course: you could create entertaining videos where you summarize your DIY projects, show the before and after or teach a part of the process.

At the end of each video, you can mention that you also offer a course that gives people more resources and guidance to start creating their own DIY projects, where instead of watching, they can follow your step-by-step process.

People who search your videos on YouTube are likely your ideal customers who would purchase your online course.

To do this successfully, you need to make sure that your YouTube videos address your target audience and solve a specific problem for them - and offer the same result as your online course. The only difference is that simply by watching your videos on YouTube, subscribers can get an idea of the solution but would likely need to enroll in your course to get the full picture or learn more in detail.

#2: Offer Lead Magnets

Are your YouTube subscribers really your audience?

Well, technically, they see your videos and follow your content. However, they are restricted to the platform. This can be enough if your main business lives on YouTube, but for online course creators, eventually, you want to bring those subscribers out of the platform and into your paid course.

How can you do this? In the previous step, we covered how you can promote your online course by talking about it in your videos. This is great if you have a highly engaged audience who is ready to buy.

If your YouTube subscribers are not ready for purchase, you should offer an alternative. This can be offering a free lead magnet.

A lead magnet is a free (or very affordable) product you offer with the intent of gathering the email address and personal information of your audience, so you can then communicate with them more directly and send them email newsletters.

Learn more about creating a lead magnet here: How to Create a Great Lead Magnet That Converts to Promote Your Online Course

Let's use the same example of before, where you are selling an online course about home improvement DIY projects. You could create an eBook or worksheet that helps your audience with a specific project and link it under one of your videos.

This way, those who are interested in the lead magnet will leave you their name and email address, and you can insert them in your funnel or simply start contacting them by email and sending them more info about your online course directly in their inbox.

#3: Direct Your Subscribers to a Community

This is very similar to the lead magnet idea. If you have a private community associated with your online course, you could promote it with your YouTube videos.

Whether your community is free or paid, it can be a great way to further engage with your YouTube subscribers, create a deeper connection with them and insert them into your ecosystem.

Using Heights Platform, you can create your own online community and structure it as you want. Check out this article from our blog to learn more: Why You Should Build an Online Community of Engaged Customers and How to Do it

#4: Review Products with Affiliate Marketing

So far, we have covered some indirect ways to monetize your YouTube channel (by promoting your business in the videos). A more direct way to make money from a YouTube channel is with affiliate marketing.

As an affiliate, you promote someone else's products and receive a commission for every sale you make for them. The brand or product you promote gives you a unique affiliate link that you can share with your audience: once someone clicks on the link and purchases the product or service you promote, you receive a commission from the sale.

Affiliate marketing can be useful if you create videos about tools you use in your business. These kinds of videos can be helpful for your audience, and you can create an additional revenue stream from YouTube.

To get started with affiliate marketing, research if the tools you want to promote offer an affiliate program and sign up to become an affiliate!

#5: Turn on YouTube Monetization through their Partner Program

You can make money by displaying other people's ads on your videos if you have enough subscribers and views.

With YouTube ads, you generate revenue when viewers watch ads displayed on your videos. Your videos must meet certain requirements in order to turn on ads. You can check Youtube's Partner Program requirements which are currently 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time. Also, check these guidelines to see if your type of content is eligible: Advertiser-friendly content guidelines

How much money can you make with YouTube Ads? That depends on your content and the number of views you get. Generally, YouTubers gain $3 to $5 per 1,000 video views.

To turn on YouTube ads, you need to apply for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP).

#6: Create Sponsored YouTube Videos

Another way to make money on YouTube is by getting paid to create videos and promote a brand or product. YouTube creators with large audiences and high levels of engagement can easily attract this kind of deal.

In this scenario, a company reaches out to a YouTuber to help promote their product, and the YouTuber records a video where he or she talks about the product to their audience.

YouTubers usually collaborate with brands that fit their channel genre, topics, and personal interests: this way, sponsored content better resonates with subscribers and target audiences.

To earn brand deals, your channel should have a decent audience size and level of engagement. Focusing on a very specific niche can help you attract more brand deals without having millions of subscribers.

One of the easiest ways for YouTubers to connect with brands who are looking for sponsorships is through dedicated sponsorship websites. One of them is YouTube BrandConnect, a platform where advertisers can connect with YouTubers and find the right channel for their message.

#7: YouTube Premium

YouTube Premium is a subscription service offered by YouTube where users can watch videos without seeing ads and access YouTube's Original content.

Users pay a monthly fee to join this program, but what about YouTube creators?

YouTube shares some of its Premium revenue with the creators. Based on how much watch time you earn from premium subscribers, YouTube will share some of the revenue with you.

You don't need to be a Premium user for your videos to appear on this service, but you do need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program.

Start Monetizing Your Knowledge Today

YouTube is a great platform to promote your business and even create an additional revenue stream with ads, brand partnerships and affiliate marketing.

If your goal is to monetize your knowledge, creating an online course can give you the freedom to set your own price, build a program you are proud of, and start your own knowledge business.

Heights Platform is the all-in-one course creation software that lets you structure your business how you want and create engaging courses, membership sites, challenges, communities and coaching programs.