How creators are leveraging YouTube to grow their audience and make more sales

Demonetization.

It’s a word YouTube Content Creators have become all too familiar with over the last year.

To put it simply, it’s YouTube’s ever-changing policies and guidelines for “policing” their platform.

Recently one of their bigger and more controversial headlines to date arose when they announced that smaller content creators would no longer be able to monetize their videos unless specific benchmarks were met.

With this new policy these smaller creators would need to grow their subscriber base to over 1,000 subscribers with over 4,000 hours of video view time in the past 12 months.

While this change did cause many to speak out, it was really more so just the cherry on the top of many long standing frustrating issues with those on the platform.

• Non-existent communication between Youtube and it’s creator community.
• A lack of transparency into the why’s and how’s of certain policies.
• Unreliability and inconsistency in the YouTube algorithm and its tendency to demonetize a perfectly good standing piece of content.
• A sense of unfairness, hypocrisy, and an overall distaste to how many faithful creators are being handled.

Many of these views being voiced by some of the largest contributors on the platform.

But while there are obviously always both sides to the good and bad of these changing policies, nearly everyone agrees on one thing…

Diversification.

Gone are the days where you could solely rely upon YouTube ad revenue.

The Google Slap, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica romance, and Youtube’s very own “Adpocalypse” which happened earlier last year, are all simply more proof of what we already know...what works today, could be gone tomorrow.

So as a digital marketer and entrepreneur, the need to diversify both traffic sources and how your income is generated has never been more important.

Just as a stool has more than one leg to keep it upright and foundationally strong, so too should your online business. Relying upon the single good graces of a billion dollar publicly traded platform is a dangerous bet. But only always.

From Pipeline To Profits

So to be clear...this is not an article to tell you how bad YouTube is or that you should leave it entirely. Not at all. We use it here at Kajabi every single day.

Considering it has over 2 billion users and is the 2nd largest search platform next to Google and bigger than Bing and Yahoo combined...it’s an excellent platform to find and connect with your ideal audience.

So, of course, use it!

But instead of solely relying on it as your main revenue stream, we’re seeing more and more Knowledge Commerce entrepreneurs use it as more of a pipeline to increased profits.

One side of the pipeline is connected to the vast ocean of prospects on YouTubes incredible platform. The other side is then connected to their own business, email list, and products all easily located on Kajabi.

This takes you from being dependent on the hopeful accuracy of an algorithm or the mood swings of a YouTube employee, to you yourself owning the media, the platform, and all the profits.

2 Million Subscribers Case Study

One of our #kajabiheros Peter Hollens has been doing exactly this.

Over the years he’s worked hard to build up an incredibly large and loyal subscriber base on YouTube. With nearly 2 million subscribers, it’s probably safe to say he knows a thing or two about growing an audience.

Yet his goal isn’t just to grow his audience on the platform.

As a successful artist and vocal educator, his mission is not only to make an incredible living teaching what he loves, but also continue teaching others for as long as he can and always be finding new ways to deliver even higher quality content.

Which is way selling digital products like online courses, ebooks, and access to membership sites is an easy transition. Even offering some form of group or 1-on-1 coaching.

All of this is simply giving more to what you’ve already been giving for free on YouTube.

This allows someone like Peter the power to send an email to his list and immediately make sales that same day.

It gives him the assurance that even if tomorrow YouTube released some new policy which completely shut down his ad revenue for whatever reason, he still has multiple legs of his business and he could go on standing.

So if you’re already on YouTube and are looking for ways to create addition sources of income, here are 5 simple steps Kajabi can help you take today...

Custom Website - No Coding Necessary

Everyone knows they need a website, right? But sometimes that’s easier said than done. It starts out looking easy, then quickly cascades into a plug-in and custom coding nightmare.

But not with Kajabi.

Not only do we provide the hosting for free, but we also have professionally designed, pre-built templates with everything ready to go. You simple drop in your logo, graphics, and any specific messaging and you’re all set.

No custom coding and no plug-ins. It’s all the bells and whistles with your own blog and product library, just without all the usual tech headaches. And it can be set up within just a matter of minutes.

This then allows you to drive traffic from your YouTube account, directly to a media you own.

Your Email List - The Media You Own

As you’re driving your subscribers or viewers from YouTube to your website, you’ll want to always be making an effort to capture their email address. This is how you quickly flip the script and own your media.

Luckily Kajabi makes this easy with done for you landing page templates and a built-in email marketing platform. These tools allow you to offer digital downloads as valuable opt-in bribes.

Once you get a new subscriber to your list, Kajabi mail gives you the option to segment each person using different tags so you can communicate personally and specifically.

You can choose to send on the fly broadcast emails or build out automated campaigns with all the features of any high priced email marketing software. Or you can do a combination of both. It’s completely up to you.

Kajabi mail is focused on helping you sell your Knowledge Commerce products, which is the next step...

Your First Product

This is where it starts to get really fun. As opposed to solely relying on YouTube ad revenue and whatever percentage they dictate you deserve, as a creator of your own digital products you’re the one who decides how much each product is worth.

You can sell everything from a $7 quick and easy downloadable pdf, to a premium priced $2,000 in-depth online course covering multiple solutions to your prospects biggest problems.

This is where Kajabi excels and the main reason we’re the #1 Knowledge Commerce platform for digital entrepreneurs, because we truly are an all-in-one solution for those wanting to teach what they know online.

You choose the product you want to create and we automatically show provide you a course outline and build out the pages to sell it. All at the push of a button.

Plus we even host your videos!

After working with thousands of new online entrepreneurs, we think a mini-course is the absolute fastest and easiest way for most to get started. It’s a simple, easy to create, bite sized version of a full online course.

We recently just released our brand new FREE 3-part video training series which shows you how to create your own mini course in under 60 minutes.

The first video is immediately available and you can get it right now by clicking the link below:

CLICK HERE TO GET ACCESS

Another way to leverage your YouTube audience after you’ve brought them over to your email list is to start asking them questions...

Everyone Loves Quizzes

If you’re on Facebook you’ve undoubtedly seen one of the millions of quizzes which have become increasingly popular.

Well they’re popular for good reason...we love learning about ourselves! And as business owners this is fantastic news because this sort of information can help you in more ways than one.

With Kajabi’s built in quizzes and assessments tool, you can create a fun, engaging, quiz or survey in a matter of minutes.

This could be used on a landing page to gather specific information for future targeted follow up, or it can be used within your courses as assessments and checkpoints, adding a more professional feel as you help your customers remember more of what they learn.

You can use all of this information to improve your products and create more offerings aligned with what your customers and prospects are telling you they really want.

It’s All About Community

Just like on YouTube, community is the most important part of your online business success.

Taking care of your customers in the right way pays off not only monetarily, but also in goodwill as more and more people continue to talk about the great experience they’ve had dealing with you.

Since Kajabi knows this personal touch is hugely important and is what most customers are searching for in the first place, we made it easy for you to give them what they want.

This is why we created a robust, yet easy to use membership platforms for any sort of monthly subscription you’d like to offer.

Instead of having to hire programmers to custom code an entire site for you, you can use our membership pages to create a near perfect solution for a gathering place for your community and subscription based products.

Plus there’s also the option for in-course discussions which creates a more active and engaged overall experience.

From YouTube To Knowledge Commerce

If you’re already on YouTube, then you’re already someone who knows how to serve and create content. You already know the opportunity which exists for those who want to teach others online. Now it’s simply a matter of taking action and getting started.

We know that you have something to teach the world. We also know there are people out there who want to learn what you know.

That’s why we created Kajabi. It’s a full-featured platform that allows professionals like you to create their own businesses from home.

You’ll get an online course builder, coaching platform, podcast tool, and membership management software. Plus, we pair it with sales and marketing tools like a website and email marketing platform and insightful analytics to help you spread the word about your products and earn more revenue.

Of course, launching a business represents a huge commitment. We understand that.

To help ease you into the process of creating a Knowledge Commerce business of your own, we offer a free trial. Start your free 14-day trial of Kajabi today!

Get unfettered access to our tools, templates, and other assets so you can fully explore what Kajabi has to offer.

Are you ready to become your own boss? Now’s the time.

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