Going from $6k to $12k a month on YouTube

[Modest guy]

Current stats of my channel:
* Around 60k Subscribers
* About 2m views a month
* Over 500 videos published
* Getting about 10k new subs a month

Let's start off with a short backstory... I am currently 21 years old. Been doing youtube on and off for probably over 4+ years as it was one of my first attempt to make money online, and it is for sure the most successful one. Over the past 3 month it averages about $6k a month from the Adsense revenue alone. But, getting payed only by Adsense is quite risky as the revenue can fluctuate quite a bit, for example at the start of the whole C0VlD-19 situation the CPM fell around 30-40% which leads to a very unsteady way to make money. Making the content for the channel takes about 3h per video, and I post every day. So, about 21h a week which is about the same as a part time job. Considering that the 6k a month is a nice income for the time required to be put in it. But, there is always some space to grow as the top channels that make very simillar content manage to get over 7m views a month which if Multiplied by the same CPM that I get would result in probably over $20k a month from Adsense alone.

Different solutions that I came up to possibly get me closer to the $12k a month from Youtube:
* Start a second channel on a different game and use the money from the Main one to help it grow faster.
* Start selling Merchandise, get sponsorships.
* Start a mods website and use the channel to generate traffic to it. Put some ads on it to generate revenue

Things that I tried to implement before:
* Amazon affiliate marketing - resulted in just a few $ a month, probably not the right niche for it(could work for tech channels).
* Posting twice as much(2 videos a day) - resulted in overall drop of views as Youtube recommended the videos a lot less often.

And lastly, why I even decided to write this thread... Mainly to get some feedback from the outside perspective and to share what I learned to the people who would want to start on Youtube themselves.

 

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[Martin.G]

Did you try to get sponsors? I always wonder if they paid better than Adsense and how much better.

 

[Modest guy]

Did you try to get sponsors? I always wonder if they paid better than Adsense and how much better.

I did try to get Sponsorships but for the most part they seemed to want to get Advertising almost for free. I was negotiating with a few companies and when I asked $2k for a month long(basically 30 videos) integration of their company ads(up to 30sec long) in the first 2 minutes of the video they just either ghosted me or say that it's too expensive for them. Cosidering the fact that for that amount they would get over a million people to see their ad the price in my opinion is fair. And for the most part the audience is quite targeted as the companies were selling either games or gaming gear.
Based on those experiences I would think that the Companies want to sponsor only the very big channels, probably 500k+ subs. And, if you are just a small-medium size channel they try to take advantage of you by paying just absurd amount of money for what they are getting out of it.

 

[Boychamp]

Whenever I see someone with a YouTube channel the first thing I always think is "can you create a newsletter/email list with it?"

Can you create content and get people to sign up? If so, your potential for making money is greatly increased and much more heavily disconnected from YouTube (ie giving you a lot more control. Also this can create a symbiotic relationship as your email list can still push people towards your YT channel). Would people in your niche (I think you said gaming?) be interested in curated content? Is there anything you could offer as a lead magnet in your descriptions to push people towards to sign up? From there, curating content, creating content, adding affiliate links to emails, courses (if possible) etc etc becomes so much easier and massively increases your potential earnings. Also, from there, let's say you start a new channel. Boom, built in audience you can try and harness. Launch a product? There's your first customers. Find a rad new XYZ? You've got people waiting to buy.

Regardless what you decide to do, congratulations on the success!!

 

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[Rabby]

I think @Boychamp has it. Start by getting their email addresses. That makes them really your market, not just transient YT traffic, and figure out what to offer them by email. Give them a good reason to subscribe and give you their email, and maybe they will. Lots of potential in that. Eventually, I suspect you would make more from your list than from ad revenue or sponsors... especially if there's a good product you can market to them.

 

[Xolorr]

You’ve really piqued my interest as I used to be a full time videographer, and I’ve managed a couple YouTube channels myself, so I know the effort that goes into keeping one going!

Another thing that’s fascinating is the thought of YouTube automation. There are a lot of guys selling this as a get rich quick thing online with courses, done for you, etc.

So here’s a thought, it sounds like you’re in the gaming niche, how much would it cost to hire a team of creators to generate content independent of you? This wouldn’t be typical gameplays etc. but rather having a “top ten fortnite plays” type of channel, where you hire independent voice over actors, scriptwriters, etc. That way you would manage the team and the channel, but be freed from the creation aspect and still get all the revenue.

On the same idea, have you thought of hiring an editor so that you can focus on just recording the content and thus freeing up time?

Other monetization ideas would be:

- Patreon for private content if you have a strong enough fan base

- Launch an ecom store in your Niche and sponsor/promo yourself (this would be good because you could get free traffic right away) imo merch is overrated and tied to your channel, rather use your audience to divert traffic to a store that’s independent of your personal brand and allows for more benefits.

- Email list is a great one as well, could outsource the writing

These are all that spring to mind, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the automation one as someone who’s in the game of YouTube

 

[Deleted81125]

I'd look at what successful similar channels in my niche are doing, find a way to skew & out execute them.
Cliché I know, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

 

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