Grey Matters 9 – My Story

Digital Marketing is Tough: My Experiences on How to Make Money on YouTube

[0:00] – Introducing this episode of the Grey Matters podcast: How to earn from Youtube.

• Dealing with uncertainty and change is never easy, especially for someone who has enjoyed success through traditional marketing channels. Digital marketing is a completely different animal, and the online business realm requires a different approach and mindset.
  
  

[2:13] – My journey before I knew how to get paid on YouTube.

• The gradual shift to online business began in 2011, after a successful 16-year run on television teaching about tech and productivity. Live events and radio simply aren’t enough to bring in revenue, so some experimentation and adaptation for newer channels was necessary.
  
  
• Confidence is a major factor in being willing and able to enter the online space, but such hubris can also lead to failure without the right plan of action.

   

[2:13] – Learning under Mari Smith’s wing.

• In 2013, a chance encounter with social media queen Mari Smith led to a realization – the need to transition to doing everything online – as well as a long process of learning and making mistakes.
  
  
• At the time, Mari was about to sell a new course on Facebook advertising. An extensive period of preparation involving mail lists, webinars, and sales pages enabled her to develop an online course, promote it through email and webinars, and sell it to hundreds of people at $197 on the day it was launched.
  
  
• Pulling off such a feat requires far more than just simply promoting it on YouTube and relying on past marketing experience. An attempt to sell a similar tutorial centered on how to use to-do list managers, Evernote, and other productivity tools yielded meager sales that were greatly disproportionate to the amount of effort put into creating the course.

   

[9:17] – How to get money from YouTube: What NOT to do (and what to do).

• Mistake number 1: Getting ahead of yourself. Do not decide what your community wants to buy, before you even build a community in the first place.
  
  
• Mistake number 2: Relying on the feedback of friends who’ll tell you that your idea is a good one. No one will outright oppose you, or tell you that your idea is bad, because it’s natural for your friends to be supportive.
  
  
• Tip number 1: Build and nurture a community first.
  
  
• Tip number 2: Publish content frequently to build traction with your audience.
  
  
• Tip number 3: Have conversations with your audience: Listen to what they have to say, read and reply to every YouTube comment, and take their feedback to heart.

   

[16:11] – How do you make money from YouTube? Understand your audience first.

• Read between the lines of what they want, in order to understand what type of content they want and what they are interested in. Conversations and dialogue with your community will lead you to the right answers.
  
  
• So much of our pride and our sense of self-worth is anchored on taking care of those around us.

   

• You are going to face a series of challenges that you can't anticipate, so learn from as many people who came before you as you can. And while there is no blueprint for us all to follow, understanding that you need a platform is a crucial, fundamental step towards online business success.

   

[22:35] – What it really takes to succeed in online business.

• Have faith that you will find your way through this if you enter it with purpose, determination, and clarity. Your preconceived notions aren't always going to be the answers; you're going to have to be flexible as you go through the journey and make changes when they're warranted.

   

• Make sure you've got a support network that understands not only you as an individual, but also the journey itself. Forge ties with other content creators.
  
  
  

Resources

• Webinar Wednesday
• Patreon
• [email protected]
• Evernote