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The Think Media Podcast
360: How to Make Money on YouTube in 2024 (6 Ways for Small Channels)
00:55:17
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com on the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your growth. This class is 100% free and you can watch it now on demand@think masterclass.com now, let's jump into today's show.
- [00:38]
B
In a recent poll, 68% of our think Media viewers said that they have not started making money with their YouTube channel yet. And then in a separate poll, 28% of that audience said that their biggest issue on YouTube is not knowing how to make money. So the good news is, is if anyone is watching that and they're a part of that group, then this episode is for them. I am here with the founder and CEO of Think Media, Sean Cannell. Sean, you have been on YouTube for over 14 years. Across your channels, you have amassed over 4 million subscribers. And then on the back end of those channels, you also have an eight figure business. But I do understand that it's not always been like that. And it's really just been the case over the last few years that things have really taken off for you and your company and your journey has been a lot of trial and error in a combination of a few different tactics. And you've got some crazy stor that I'm super excited to get to today. And truly there is no one else I'd rather be here with today to chat about the best ways and strategies to make money on YouTube with a small YouTube channel. So, Sean, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Very excited to get into it.
- [01:45]
A
Logan Lorton, pumped to be with you. Community Care Director of Think Media and here we are.
- [01:51]
B
Here we are. I have one question that I kind of wanted to get out of the way. First and foremost, can you make money with a small YouTube channel? Even if you are not monetized, can you bring in an income?
- [02:04]
A
Yes, you can. And you sometimes have to think outside of the box because when people think about YouTube, they think you got to get a thousand subscribers, 4,000 watch hours, and that can kind of be discouraging because you think, man, it's going to take so long and YouTube oftentimes can be slow at the start. But absolutely, there are ways that we can discuss that you can start making money even before YouTube starts paying you through what's called the YouTube Partner Program.
- [02:29]
B
Amazing. That's good news. We're in luck. We're in luck. One thing it does remind me of is in your YouTube secrets playbook, you talk about your Christmas light story, and I would absolutely love if you could share that. I feel like it's really applicable to this topic.
- [02:45]
A
Yeah. So I think my favorite way to make money, if you're not monetized yet on your channel, or even if you are, maybe you're listening to this, you're further along, is called affiliate marketing. And that's basically where you talk about a product that you use or have in your garage or even somebody else's garage. Just something around your house. You talk about it and then you link to it, and you get a commission if somebody purchases that product online. So the Christmas light story was interesting. I discovered YouTube and the fact that I could talk about different products, link to them, make money. So I started, like, as I was living my life, just noticing things. And one of the things that I noticed one year was at a local Smith's grocery store in Las Vegas, where my wife and I were living at the time, I saw a big old display of Christmas laser lights. Now, have you seen those before? There's like the classic lights that have bulbs, and then there's like, it's the tiny thing you put in your yard, and it just shines these lights on the house. And sometimes it has animations and stuff. Have you seen those?
- [03:47]
B
Is it the one with the music? You drive by and you can set.
- [03:49]
A
Up whole thing they can react to, and they dance all over the house. What's your opinion of them?
- [03:54]
B
I love them. I think they're amazing. We live in a small town, so we have, like three houses, I feel like, that have Christmas lights, and they're all the animated ones.
- [04:02]
A
Okay.
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B
And you roll up, you tune it to the AM radio, and you get a whole show.
- [04:07]
A
My wife hates them. Oh, no, she would prefer the Chris. National. National. Oh, yeah. She would prefer National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
- [04:21]
B
Okay.
- [04:21]
A
Chevy Chase. Like the proper white and red bulbs that you have to staple on the house and on the roof and hang on the gutters. Takes you three days to set all your lights up. And when you look at those laser lights, she thinks they're the lazy lights. Because all you do is you take one thing out, you just put it in the yard and just shine it on the house. You're done playing music, and now, like, There's a snowman. It's kind of weird looking, but that's besides the point. I went to Smith's and I saw a big display of like, wow, I've seen these on a couple houses now. Let's take you back. This is 2016. I saw these on a couple houses and I thought, if these are in like a grocery store, they're probably getting more popular and they're probably being sold more. I want to actually say originally it was a TV infomercial called like the Star Projector or something. There was like a really early version of these lights. And so I'm like, man, okay, this is now more mainstream. So knowing what I know about YouTube now, and this is where listeners could do this for themselves, you spot maybe an opportunity for a product. You could talk about a product that would relate to your YouTube channel. And then what I did was I went home and I started doing some keyword research and started looking around on the Internet, like, are these being sold on Amazon? Is anybody searching for these? And what keyword research is, is like best Christmas laser lights. And I'd be like, oh, wow, you can look, you can find that 2000, 3000, 4000 people a month or something are searching for that particular product. And when you use tools like that, those numbers, it's not that it has to be like exact, that you could still get a hundred thousand views on that video. But what you're doing when you're searching is like verifying, oh, there's like people looking for this. Like people are shopping online for this particular thing. So from just kind of verifying that there was interest and sort of spotting that this was going to be a trend, I thought, you know what, if I made a video, did my own research, ordered some of these Christmas laser lights off Amazon for $25 and then another one for $35. And if I made a video after reviewing these and I made a video called Best Christmas Laser Lights and I talked about three different models and I put that video out and as a result I caught a trend that first year because I would still pretty early to these lights coming to online shopping. And I want to say that video got a little over a hundred thousand views and earned over $4,000 that year from Amazon.com because I talked about the lights. I put links to the lights in the description and those are my affiliate links. So by signing up to what's called the Amazon Associates program, I then can have my custom links. And so when somebody watched my video clicks the links, purchases a product, then I make income. And it actually is kind of crazy what happened since then, but that was. That's an interesting story about how randomly talking about learning lawn, randomly talking about lawn and garden accessories for the holidays can actually be something that people make money on. And anybody listening to this could start thinking about what, what do you use in your life, your hobbies, what do you have in your garage? What is your passion? What are the things you already spend money on? What are the last a hundred purchases on Amazon? Is there something you could talk about? Those all could be turned into a YouTube video that makes you money on YouTube without being monetized yet.
- [07:39]
B
That's amazing. And if 2016, that was about eight to nine years ago. I'm curious what your YouTube channel looked like at that time. Was that like your first major breakthrough with affiliate marketing?
- [07:52]
A
Yeah, so it. By that time, I was kind of midway on my journey. I started that channel. It was just my personal name. I think originally it was called Sean Thinks. My name is Sean Cannell. And I called it Sean Thinks because I had started thinking media, even though I wasn't really posting there as much. And the channel was kind of what you would call a lifestyle channel, meaning I just sort of talked about the things in my life and a lot of different products that I may use. So that's where I learned this was originally making side income from sort of just. I've learned lessons since then. I didn't really have the best niche. Like, it might sound random to talk about laser Christmas lights. And the truth is it was. But I was also creating strategic videos that were essentially getting in front of trends. And so I started that channel around 2010. And so this is six years after that. The channel was not huge yet, but, you know, my first breakthrough in affiliate marketing. And that's really glad you asked this question, because I talk about earning $4,000. That was six years after I started the channel. I remember my first ever affiliate payment from Amazon.com was $2.12. That is, I think, a much more realistic number to imagine. And early on, I would talk about, like, I made a video called Gift Ideas for Him. And same idea. And we're talking about the holidays. You can do this any time of the year that you want. But around the holidays, people were searching for Christmas laser lights. And around the holidays, a couple years earlier, people were searching. I'm like, they're probably searching for the term and the phrase gift ideas for him. And then what I did was I was like, all right, what if I made A list. And I went around my house and just was like, oh, this was a cool book that my wife got me about being a gentleman. This was. Here's our GPS from our Honda Civic back when, like, everyone had a Garmin so you could get them this. And it was actually just stuff I had and I talked about and like, held it up in the video. Here's just some ideas and if you want to actually purchase any of these products, just links in the description. And it started slow, so slow that I made $2.12. But I was kind of wanted to click my heels like a leprechaun in excitement because I was like, whoa, this actually works. I got to make $2 on the Internet. Like, what if I could turn that into $200 a month? What if I could turn that into $2,000 a month? And as you know, that's one thing we're so passionate about helping our whole community with, because that's practical. And this is also not this. It's not get rich quick stuff. This isn't like, become a Millionaire on YouTube overnight, $2.12 or even $2,000 a month. That's not millionaire money, but that's life changing. $2,000 extra for your family, $2,000 extra going into investment and then scaling them, scaling it up, depending on how much time you want to spend doing this.
- [10:37]
B
I think that's such a great expectation as well, because had you not started with the $2 in affiliate, I'm sure you probably wouldn't have gone to the Christmas lights video and making over $4,000. So the excitement from the $2, I want to know what it was like seeing that affiliate income from the Christmas lights video especially, that's a big jump from 20 bucks, 50 bucks to thousands of dollars. What was that like for you once you saw that?
- [11:04]
A
Yeah, I think that because I'd had, I think about it kind of like baseball where you might have base hits and you might bunt and it's kind of ugly, but you barely get on base. But then you might get a home run someday and if the bases were loaded, you might get a grand slam. So I kind of think about that baseball analogy in YouTube that a lot of times you're just putting out a video and trying to get a base hit. And so like, you know, put a gift ideas video up. And early on, my wife, Sonia, she did gift ideas for her. We lived in Vegas at the time. We were working at a church, and then we were in Irvine for a while and we were campus pastors while still working at a church. So this was all a side hustle, you know. And so once we found kind of an idea, we'd go really deep that we went deep on that series. She did gift ideas for her, a couple versions. I did, like gift ideas for creative people. And so it was just kind of that, that grind of putting out videos, learning, making mistakes. But I started to kind of figure out, okay, I'm getting better at it, better at spotting trends, better at using the tools. And so then when you'd have a breakout video, that Christmas lights video was like a grand slam. Because also what's crazy, Logan, is I was just looking it up and the first year it got about 100,000 views. But then actually the next Christmas, the next holiday season, Dang. And fast forward to today, it actually, it got 7,000 views in the last year. And it's not the holidays at the time of recording this podcast, so it might get like 30. It's going down because now it's pretty, it's older, but it's, it's over 500,000 views now. And that's called a ranked video. So this is a major grand slam. It just, it made $4,000 in that first year. It's over $10,000 now, one video. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't want, you know, to mislead listeners to think, like every single day I just print a video that makes $10,000 in its lifetime. But I think, you know, what we're obsessed with here at Think Media is like working the system. Like we have a seven step system. Like, let's just keep working the system. And maybe sometimes you get $2 and sometimes you get 20, and sometimes you have a video that pays you $200 a year for the next five years. And so I, I remember the emotions I was feeling because in 2016, we had barely started Think Media. It was very chaotic. Meaning Think Media had been started on the side. We had gone all in Risk is what it felt like. It's my wife and I, no kids at the time, two Chihuahuas, Sophie and Rosie, and just like, heads down, trying to, you know, be like, can this thing work? Can we, can this thing actually take off? And also kind of scattered because that wasn't even a Think Media video. But I like to do things that were case studies. But also when I saw an opportunity, it was nice to have a channel to experiment on. And so having a win like that was so encouraging because we needed money for the mission like it was. We were always just like, yeah, let's put another one out. And so having a breakout video. But the other way I like to think about it is I always like to think about, I like if YouTube videos pay my bills. I mean, who wouldn't want that? But like it's kind of a dream. I'm like, what if essentially I could invest in something and then it's something I would want to invest in anyways. But then YouTube pays for it. Like, yet let YouTube pay the bill. So what do I mean? It's like, what if YouTube could pay for all my Christmas decorations this year? What if YouTube could pay for my. Our travel? And we started to experience that. Especially once you learn the skills to be like, okay, if we want to buy a drone and buy a camera and buy some plane tickets. And that could get into all this stuff about when you really stick to stuff. Seriously, you're now no longer doing it necessarily as a hobby, but it's now a business and it's kind of even a tax write off. Like, what if, what if YouTube could support my lifestyle besides just the income, but even the way you think about it. So seeing that video, I was like, this video paid for all of our Christmas gifts, obviously made our money back on the lights. And I'd like to encourage people, you don't have to buy something. But that's what I started to do each holiday season. Meaning you could just go to your garage and start making videos about the tools you already have and whatnot, and tap into the power of affiliate marketing. But I would start shopping in preparation for the season, lining stuff up that I would make videos about, lining stuff up that I would test. Of course, once you start building momentum, brands will send you things for free. But I would like to, I'd buy a lot of things, like things that I'd research, purchase it with faith by this time that the system works. And I always thought in my mind if I, if I purchased, in the case of our main channel, talking about tech, if I purchased a 200 light kit, besides my time and energy, I'm like, all I have to make back is $201. And this made money and I have the light kit. And so I would start kind of thinking about strategically, okay, what videos could I make? What maybe things are people interested in at the intersection of also my hobby, which is like tech and cameras and all this stuff. And so it's kind of exhilarating. I mean, and it's kind of a little bit risky, but you also start kind of seeing through the matrix almost where you're like, you know, I'm kind of starting to learn how to rank videos and maybe I have a dud or two, a couple failures. But then you got the Christmas laser lights that does 4,000 and then over the next five years does over $10,000. And that rising tide lifts all ships financially. And that's also. Those are the kind of things that helped us ultimately scale our company into what it is today.
- [16:32]
B
Yeah, I love hearing the evolution of that and I think that's such a great reminder that you don't have to go and buy something, you might actually already own that. And then you're authentically sharing as well, like your Christmas list guide for him. Those were things you did love. So you're being authentic. You're connecting with your audience and your community. So I absolutely love that reminder. Okay. Another thing I want to know is about your wife. How did that impact the both of you? You are business partners, but you are also partners and a married couple. And it sounds like there was kind of a grind for those first few years. You get this awesome income. How did your wife handle that? How did it affect your relationship and kind of what were the next steps as well after that one breakout video?
- [17:13]
A
Yeah, well, it certainly was a grind. And I think talking about the weight of being married to an entrepreneur, being entrepreneurs together since we're co founders, co owners of the business, but also the grind started before then. So even just to honor the hustle she put in when we. She's always been, today she's our chief financial officer and like lead bookkeeper. And it's crazy we're adding to the team, but it's wild what she is handling at Think Media. But all the way back to when we barely had any money to manage, she was always like managing our checkbook and the finances and always we just would communicate. And I, one of the things that's so amazing about her is her belief and support of kind of the God given vision I've always had. And because I, you know, honey, I want to invest in this or make this purchase and probably never did she really oppose it. She's like, I've, okay, let's take that risk. Let's take that step. Maybe like, oh, maybe now is not the time. But it was always like, let's figure it out. Let's, let's do that. So she's very much a woman of faith. And so it's been, it was a hustle up to starting YouTube. Almost like when we finally got to starting it, we were like tired when we were starting. So it was, we were then excited because I was like, well, we're going all in. But when we actually started YouTube about a year before the Christmas lights. And what I mean is when we went full time, it was October of 2015, a year earlier. And the reason we went full time was because I had three freelance clients. That was our main income. And all three fired me in one month. And that was stressful. And I want to. I don't know if she was worried. She probably had like more faith than me, like, I think we'll be all right. And I was like, I don't know. And we were six months away from zero in our bank account, you know, in October 2015. But then at that point, instead of pursuing other video production clients, I went all in on our personal brand, our personal channels. And so we were just in that first year of, of now as a couple starting. And we're talking, you know, people say, should you set up an LLC if you're starting a YouTube channel and like get things official and whatnot? Wisdom probably is if it's serious. We have a good episode with Tyler Chow, who talks, she's a creator's attorney. We'll link to that in the show notes where she talks about some of that stuff. But we didn't. It was chaos. It was like my Social Security number was the entity. So there was no llc. We're all dialed in today. But it was like, you know, we have Amazon income coming in, some YouTube income. We're trying to kind of take that money, trying to scale it up. And you know, on the, on the flip side, I also think we go into it, we're already a little fatigued, shaken from the previous season we'd come out of working at a church, but also kind of, I think, excited. And honestly, like looking back now, you feel overwhelmed. The learning curve is intense, the pressure is real. But actually we look back, it seems like simpler days those. And by the way, we had no kids, so it was simpler days. Now we have a two year old and four year old boy. It's a whole different. And so season of life, that kind of stuff matters. So it was really, we were just like kind of ride or die together. And, and she was super supportive. But what was also funny is, you know, she hated the Christmas lights. But I was like, sonia, trust me, she's like, I just want better lights. I'm like, trust me, because those are the only ones I actually literally left up at our house that year. And then around January or Whatever. I was like, babe, you know, around $4,000 has come in from Amazon affiliates from this and now she's like, I love those Christmas lights. Like now wait a minute. The different. I don't love the way they look, but okay. And so it was weird. It was almost like she would just get behind my like quirky creative ideas and man, and so fun because while very emotional roller coaster, you know, for those that are starting YouTube, thinking about starting, just embrace the joy of the journey. You know, try to remember to breathe, have fun, embrace the chaos, embrace the uncertainty. It was all of those things, but it was a huge blessing. And she's always been a massive pillar and rock for not just then, but for where we are today.
- [21:32]
B
Wow. This might be a little off topic, but it makes me think of other creators who are just starting out. They have a small channel and maybe they have a partner who's not supportive or they really just don't have one or two people in their community to come alongside them and be a pillar of faith or at least an encourager. Do you have anything to speak into that or to encourage those creators who might be facing that?
- [21:55]
A
Do you want to escape the 9 to 5 but feel like YouTube success requires millions of views and viral videos? Well, think again, because we are hosting a one day intensive online workshop revealing the shortest path to real income on YouTube, even with a small audience. It's called YouTube Money Secrets. And during this live virtual event, you'll learn how to pick high paying video topics, master new opportunities in affiliate marketing, and even attract high paying clients. If you go to tubemoneysecrets.com you can get all of the details and grab your ticket. This is a no fluff event packed with tactical information and an accompanying workbook so that you can implement these strategies right away. Plus, I'm also going to be sharing my most lucrative video secrets to show you how to get your channel monetized fast. And the timing of this event is highly strategic because the fourth quarter of the year, as well as New Year's itself, is the most perfect time to ride the wave of online shopping and maximize your YouTube earnings. Limited spots are available, so go to tubemoneysecrets.com to register for this powerful virtual event. I think first and foremost accept that like it just is lonely. If you have a partner or a close friend that supports you, that's a huge blessing and pretty rare for most. And you could call this entrepreneurship. Even though you might just be doing this as a side hustle or a, you know, Hobby kind of on the side that you'll make some money from. Entrepreneurship is lonely. It is the rebel path. It's kind of the renegade path where you're venturing into the unknown and into something that is uncommon. And you have to have a level of vision, not certainty, but faith yourself that is internal for you that maybe this could work. I'm going to keep trugging along in the darkness. I'm going to. I see something. Entrepreneurs by nature have a vision. And a vision would be seeing something others don't see. Eyes of faith, seeing something that is a possibility on the horizon. So just accepting that you might, nobody else might see your vision, nobody else might might not believe in what you believe in and what you can see for your future. But be willing to walk the lonely road. Many have walked it before you. And when I think about that, I also think about it's kind of a sidetrack to your sidetrack. Where Think Media is today. The channels are established, you're here, the team is incredible, things are growing, we're doing a lot. And sometimes people even still think like, wow, Sean, you post a lot of content. I'm like, well, kind of. But it's also because we're cutting it up and we have a social media manager and they post it too. And I heard this quote from John Maxwell that said, in the beginning I got less credit than I deserve, but today I get more credit than I deserve and because today the team makes me look good. But in the beginning I got less credit than I deserved because people don't see the long nights and the stress and you wanting to quit. And a lot of times your spouse doesn't even really know the full pressure you're going through or the self doubt or the insecurity. You get less credit than you deserve because nobody sees it yet. The breakthrough hasn't happened yet. So I just connect that to you. Starting this thing is going to feel lonely. It's going to be a solo path, possibly for a while. I think secondly would be, can you enlist your partner? And I wouldn't, I would expect them not to trust you and believe in you. It's kind of a weird way to say, but sometimes they're like, wait, you want to start a YouTube channel? And there's all other things going on in your relationship. Well, I already might feel like my needs aren't being met or like the last thing you did didn't work out or I've stressed because of the pressure I'm feeling. And now you want to do something else. So I think if you think holistically, honey, how could we do this? Honey? This is what I see. Maybe having some conversations about the creator economy stats and like, you know, the creator economy is going to double in the next three years. Goldman Sachs research said having some conversations of like, hey, this is something I would want to do. What would it look like to have your support and not expecting them to support you? They don't see the same vision or they don't listen to the Think Media podcast, or they haven't seen all the stats. So having some conversations to process those issues together, that not feeling entitled to their support without giving them information, allowing them to ask questions, and then maybe proving yourself and then following through. Be consistent not just with, like listening to this podcast, but be consistent with posting, like, what would. What would it look? What would show you, honey, that I'm taking this seriously? And if I do this, how could you be bought in? What would it take for you to be bought in? Well, I just really need help with the kids on Saturday. So if I did that, like, could I start working on my channel on Tuesday nights? Yeah, I think, like, so, like, make a plan together, like, have a conversation, like, really talk it out. What's the vision? Maybe how many hours a week are you going to do at the start? And then I think lastly is connect with the community. I know that pretty much every other year we do an event called Growth Video Live in Vegas. And it's always like, it's like heaven on earth for creators. Other people wouldn't even like it. But if you're like a creator, all the lonely people get together. Like, here's the people that understand me. Like, here's the other people who know what I'm going through. And there's something about 99% of people that you run into at Starbucks or Dutch Brothers, you know, aren't going to probably understand this whole content creator, creator economy type of stuff. They're not going to be able to relate. So it can feel lonely even still on the journey. But then when you get around somebody else who does, there's just a vibe, there's a connection. And so the cool thing is there's a lot of virtual communities. And so get into something, find a group, as we have groups that people could be a part of and we can link to those and, you know, show notes and stuff. Because I definitely think, like, I heard a quote that said, if you want to know who you're going to be in the next five years, just look at the books you're reading and the people you're around. And so that's going to be a picture of who you are. And I think the modernization of that quote would be you want to know who you be in the next five years, what podcasts are you listening to, what audio books are you listening to, what YouTube channels you subscribe to. And then like what groups are you in? And that's could be accountability. In fact, I would, I heard one of the secrets to Mr. Beast's success and I know he's had some controversy recently, but no doubt about it, he's built massive success on YouTube and he talks about though when he was small, when he was just getting started, in the early days, he was on the Joe Rogan podcast and he explained that he created a group of what he called five other YouTube psychosis, YouTube geeks, people that are just obsessed with YouTube and they met on Skype at the time every single day for a thousand days in a row. And so maybe there's nobody else, but if you could get one, two or three other YouTube geeks in your circle, we see that consistently in other forms of business. People that they, they form what are called masterminds. And that has, you could join, there's paid opportunities, there's also ones you could do for free. You could make your own, try to get around some people. Iron sharpens iron and I think not only is that helpful if you feel kind of lonely, I think it's actually critical to success. It's a fundamental principle we've seen historically in a lot of industries. If you can link arms with other people that are doing it, it's really going to help you get there faster. Not just on the practical tip side, but the psychological, emotional side for just what it takes to embrace the challenge and pressure of really the creator career.
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B
Wow. Thank you for derailing with me. I love the transparency behind that, especially for those creators that are watching and do feel lonely to know that it is just a season and if you do get people around you, things will look up. And you're so right. People have gone before us and before other creators as well and have experienced it. And how crazy. First Skype, I kind of forgot what that was for a second and a thousand days. That commitment is insane. And I know we can think about what ifs and all of those scenarios, but it's really interesting to think if your partner hadn't been supportive in a pillar of faith for you, where this company would be. And I'm sure your God given vision has Shifted as you started out as a small channel and it's morphed into a company with over 30 employees for you. But I love hearing her pillar of faith for you. I think that's really special kind of getting the train back on the track. So your original channel was more reviews and products that you used and loved. What would you say for a creator with maybe a different niche that doesn't. Just looking at the channel, it doesn't necessarily align with affiliate marketing. So for example, maybe like a gaming channel or maybe like a Bible study channel or a kids channel. What advice would you have for somebody in a different niche that maybe is having a hard time seeing outside of the box of how can they make money with affiliate marketing?
- [31:08]
A
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean if we use those examples, I think a big thing for success in affiliate marketing is also your entire channel doesn't have to be devoted to product reviews or even be super aligned with it. You only just need a couple of videos. So if you're a gaming channel, you could do a video on your setup, you could do a behind the scenes video of your office. And then in that case, here's the PC I'm streaming with, here's my capture card, here's my light kit, here's my gaming chair. And you could do some affiliate marketing type videos. You know what's kind of cool is there's new stuff like YouTube shorts are not just now up to three minutes, but they're also connected to YouTube Shopping, which is another form of monetization. In this case you only need 500 subscribers, I'm pretty sure to start doing this and 3000 hours of watch time. And then you could do affiliate marketing directly through YouTube itself. So for example, if you made a YouTube short about your gaming chair, then you just connect the product right to it. And listeners might be familiar with TikTok shopping. There's Amazon inspired now, it's kind of like shopping on Instagram. It's integrated right there. Well, you can start doing affiliate marketing on these vertical videos. So maybe some of the shorts on your channel, your gaming chair. Now if you're a bible study channel, again, maybe you're typically doing Bible studies and it wouldn't be relevant to talk about products, but you could maybe talk about your five favorite study bibles ranked and then link to those five study bibles as affiliates in the description. And whether that's Christian booksellers, distributors, website or a website like Daily Grace company, they have an affiliate program, Bible pens, journals, these different things of Course, different products on Amazon that could be. I always use rulers when I underline and I use. I'm very meticulous about the pen I use for my scripture reading because I don't want the pen to bleed through. And I need the point. I need a 1.1.0 on the ball pin ballpoint, not the 0.5. That's too thin, not 1.5. It's too thick and it needs to. And I get the red and the blue, usually Bic. And that's what I use there for my journal though I don't use those. So you know, maybe you're. I use G2S in my journal pilot. G2. What a pen.
- [33:28]
B
Wow. You heard it here folks.
- [33:31]
A
Links in the description down below. And so. Just kidding. But no, we probably should anyways. And so, you know, I think that's the Bible study channel. Now if you think about the kids channel, that actually is not something we're going to be able to do because you can't market to children. And technically YouTube kids might be under 13. You could be on YouTube if you're over 13. I think FTC has some things where again you can't be promoting products to children. And I'm not sure what age that really is. Not only that, how are they going to buy it? Like does this 12 year old have a credit card? So then you might get into the idea, well, okay, but what if parents are watching the video? Okay, well is that relevant to your channel? So if you had a kid's channel where you're reading kids books and it's for entertaining kids. Like listen, my kids, my 2 year old and 4 year old, they're like not capable of like completing a purchase right now, you know, from watching a YouTube video. I know some people are like, yeah, but those in game app purchases like a hundred dollars of like rubies in your game, you know, like turn it off parents. And so, you know, it's just different things. That's, that's going to be a question of what is the best way to make money on my channel. So I wouldn't say affiliate marketing is for everyone. It's probably for 95% of channels. But whether it's kids, there's a few niches where it doesn't work as good. And I think the point is not to make your entire channel about it in many cases. The point is that certain videos could be relevant where a lot of times it could be your behind the scenes or the stuff you use. And it doesn't have to be so Linear. Sometimes people just want to know if you had like a business based or service provider based channel. It's a lot of times the stuff you use, it's your office tour, it's the tour of your tool truck, it's the stuff you use to clean up your garden or pressure wash your house siding and all kinds of things. And we know that Amazon is the everything store and when we think about it, there's pretty much everything, there's products for everything, software, maybe email that you use in your business, like, you know, email software. It's pretty endless. And so again, we talk about so many different ways of making money. We're doing in our that YouTube Secrets, YouTube Money Secrets event we're doing, we're talking about like over 10 concrete high earning strategies. Even if you have a small audience that are not all based on affiliate marketing, there's a lot of different ways you can make money on YouTube. And so affiliate marketing is one of my favorites. But you want to find the best one that aligns with your channel.
- [36:12]
B
I'm so glad you touched on the kids channels because we get so many questions about people wanting to start a kids channel and possibly, you know, affiliates or what it could look like to make a product which is a whole separate thing. But thank you for sharing about that. I know it can be kind of hard to find information on YouTube regarding that. And one thing that I've heard you talk about also, it's a super niche tip, but to find the affiliate program with the highest commission and a student that I know you've interviewed and I've seen you on Coffee with Candle with her is Jacqueline and she really hyper leveraged raised garden beds for a higher paying commission. Did you want to speak into that? I know you've spoken with her, but I love her story. I think it's really inspiring.
- [36:54]
A
Yeah, man, I love Jacqueline stories as well. And so when I think about her story, while Jacqueline was growing her channel and I want to say she maybe had gotten it to close to 10,000 subscribers, maybe, you know, maybe quite a bit less still working her full time job, making videos only on her phone. I believe she's upgraded since then, but she's like, you know, I'm working a full time job, I live in Florida. The channel is called the Wild Floridian. And she's making videos about what she loves, how to garden in that climate. And she's making videos on her phone, editing on her phone. If her kids are watching Bluey, she'd be just opening up simple editing software. From a simple video she shot. And she was looking for ways to make extra money on the side and even have that path to doing this full time. And so she started asking, okay, what kind of affiliate programs would be related to my channel? Well, of course there's tools, gardening tools on Amazon and whatnot. But she, one of the things I would encourage people to do is look for specific websites specifically related to your channel topic that potentially offer you better terms than Amazon. So she found this raised garden bed specialty website and they offered raised garden beds that were like rust proof. Very key for her climate because of all the humidity and all of that. So this, this speaks into the mindset you would put into this. Okay, what is a good product that really could be related to my niche that other people in a climate like this, Florida or not, but if it's humid, like it could be a great solution to their problem. So this gets into the aspect that, you know, again, our ethic at Think Media is not to not just make shallow videos quickly about products as a cash grab, but to realize this can be a win, win, win when the audience loves the product that they find. And then a retailer gets some promotion through content creators that are micro nano influencers that are making videos. And so she found this raised garden bed company and I want to believe that she might have by the time she had, you know, let's call it 6,000, 7,000 subscribers, so established but not huge and still working her full time job. I think she emails them and they actually agree to send her a free bed to test. So it's something people could start doing. You don't need a huge channel, but it's helpful if you're in a specific niche because they're like, what is a perfect channel? And their hard cost of goods is a lot less than even the price of the product. Right. Because they have marketing whatnot. So she gets one of these raised garden beds, tries it out, gets the whole thing going, loves it like sees the quality, sees the build. And the other cool thing about this website was there are all these unique shapes, heart shaped garden bed, like crescent moon shaped like different things. So you're just finding something super cool. Take the time to test it, buy it if you need to. Maybe you've already invested in it. Maybe it's something somebody else knows about. Like wait a minute, like, you know, my, my other gardening friend is telling you about something that's so amazing they can't stop raving about it. That's the kind of word of mouth we're Talking about, it's like YouTube is word of mouth and people are looking for cool things. And then she finds out that they offer between 10 and 20% commissions. So there's like a rate sheet on Amazon, like for cameras, we get 4%. If you had like a grocery channel, you were talking about pantries, but it's like 1%. If you're talking about pantry type stuff, cool, but a lot lower. If you had a, if you were talking about luxury goods, luxury purses or things, it's like 10% on Amazon. So knowing the percentage is important. If you're thinking about how much money could I earn? Well, this website also discloses anybody can sign up for the affiliate program. You go through the terms. If someone's listening to this and they're like, how can I find if there's an affiliate program? Think about a brand you like or search for different brands and companies and products and search product name affiliate or product name associate program or product name influencer program or referral program, like Google those different terms. And then when you go to their page, they'll explain how it works. And this website says the average order value is $500. Because a lot of times people buy two to three of these raised garden beds. And we're going to give you 10 to 20%. And the way that works is right when you start, you get 10%, but if you do enough volume, call it a couple thousand dollars in sales a month, you then bump up to a higher amount, 15% or 20. So she also following we our main program is called Video Ranking Academy. So it's not only just how do you structure the video, how do you title it? The goal is we're trying to do a Christmas laser lights video, a video that we post today and that for the next five years keeps getting views. And sure enough, that's what she does. It's about, you know, raised garden beds. Something about maybe the search term what people will be looking for would be the climate she's in. And I think that first video did around 77,000 views. Keeps getting views every day, every year. It continues to. And if someone sees it and like, oh, those raised garden beds look really awesome, let me click that link and make that purchase. And when she was telling us her story, she talked about how she launched that video and did enough sales to get up to that 20% commission level. So on, on $500, which they say, you know, average cart value, that means 10% would be $50, 20% would be $100. So if she does $5,000 for that, you know, website. Then that's, I don't know what the math is. 10% would be $500, 20% would be $1,000. So she has $5,000. People click the link they're purchasing, you know, and fast forward today. She's earned over $10,000 from these raised garden beds and stretched that out too.
- [42:46]
B
Now wait, over 10,000?
- [42:48]
A
Over 10,000.
- [42:49]
B
I think I missed that in her original story. She made over $10,000 because of raised garden beds.
- [42:56]
A
Well now, I mean, fast forward to today. This is a couple years of income, I think, spread over.
- [43:01]
B
Okay.
- [43:01]
A
And I know we could, we could check the numbers. She's earned thousands of dollars for sure. And of course we actually, I actually had, I asked Caleb in preparation for our event to get the exact numbers for sure. It's thousands.
- [43:12]
B
Wow.
- [43:12]
A
But I went back and by the way, now she has three or four or five or six videos, two year update, this version, this test of them and whatnot. So we can fact check thousands for sure. And a lot of that being passive income because she, she did like a 30 day vlog of daily gardening tips and whatnot about other stuff. So it's like if you're listening to this, she talked about all these different things, but she has four or five or six ranked videos up linking to that website. And then I'm, if I'm sure, month to month, whether you're in compliance, you're going to get at least 10%, but if you do enough volume you get 15. If you do enough, 20. So we might even be able to, you know, Caleb will know in the next couple hours the exact number.
- [43:55]
B
But that's insane.
- [43:56]
A
It's wild.
- [43:57]
B
Yeah, that's what some people make in a year. And just from her one video accumulating those views and that commission from a program outside of the Amazon affiliates, that's incredible. I also see that a lot in our community of people asking about, hey, how do I find an affiliate program? So I love that simple tip of just searching a brand that you like and their affiliate program or their partner program based off of that. Though, there's a lot of scams that people email as you're getting bigger. Even if you have a couple hundred subscribers, people get lots of emails of companies wanting to send them their product. Do you have any tips? Maybe just one tip that you're like, steer clear of this or don't do this if you're excited about this email you just got. But be on the lookout.
- [44:45]
A
Yeah. What happens once you get an established channel. And one of the things to make sure you do is go to your about page, connect an email that you're checking because what different brands will do now is they'll look for influencers of all sizes. And the cool thing, I mean there's a lot of data on this. There's a big opportunity for nano and micro influencers. Nano is under 10,000 subscribers 1 to 10,000, micro is 10 to 100,000 and macro influencers are over 100,000. And brands want to work with nano and micro influencers smaller channels because they oftentimes have better engaged and more loyal audiences. I think that's the key. Wild Floridian Jacqueline is a perfect example. The subscriber, she has 20,000 now or 30,000 now. Like want gardening and want like Florida gardening in that climate and like they're engaged with her and whatnot. So someone might rather than somebody that has 300,000 subscribers. But it's not as aligned. They'd rather work with Jaclyn because it's more focused. So I think once you get though even a couple hundred subscribers you might start getting emails and chances are they may just want to give you a free product. And another reason why is because they want you to make user generated content. Meaning if they could just in a way I'll send you a free product if you make a video and then if you let us use your video on our website. So creators listening to this should be thinking about, you need to know your worth. Just because you're a small creator, you need to know the value of what you do. And part of that is your energy, your likeness, the fact that a video production company for a brand, even if you don't have any very many followers, that's a whole nother topic. We talk about a future episode called UGC User generated content where it's less about your influence. However, what can happen is some of these emails are scams. We'll send you a free product and so now they can get your information. Like we want your. I mean hopefully you shouldn't be really giving them, you know, your Social Security number or something crazy. But you know they're. Or they'll say you gotta pay shipping and they'll do this on Instagram DMS and stuff like we want to send you a free product but you got to pay. We want to send you free fashion sunglasses. You pay shipping and they're not that nice anyways. And so they're actually getting a sale from you in kind of a weird shady way and not Only that it also could be kind of a phishing scam, which is trying to get you to click and install some software. And there's all kinds of different ways people are trying to do malware and phishing, trying to get your information. So the advice would just be to just do due diligence to like verify the company, the brand. A lot of times, like, is it coming from a company website? So John at the brand name.com and then go to the company website. Google, is this company legit? If that company's products are sold on Amazon, they have a really established website. They look good with the better business, like, whatever. There's no. There's scam websites. You search it and I could go as far as trying to find that person's LinkedIn contact or seeing if the brand is on Twitter X and. And just sort of trying to. And in some cases it might be obvious. You're like, that's a main again, tech. If road microphones. You're like, yeah, Rhodes, an established company, if it's coming from Rhodes website dot com. Okay, that's road like there. But there's a lot of startups and there's a lot of new companies. So I don't want people to be paranoid. But that is a kind of new skill set to learn is sort of how to have digital safety and then count the cost as well. Like, do you even really want that product? Like, we'll send you a free fly catch electric fly catcher. You're like, what does that even have to do? And I did that. But early on, I remember I sent a video to my friend by Fred David. I was like, hey, check this out. Because there's this company called Famebit that would do brand deals with creators and they might send you a free product. And I did a video on like cool LED desk light.
- [48:35]
B
Okay.
- [48:35]
A
Is what it was. That was. The whole video was about a YouTube video about a cool LED desk light. And I tried to have good B roll and all this stuff. And I remember I said to David, I was like, check this out. He was like, yes, it's all right, you know, And I was like, why don't you like the video? I was thinking more about like the video aesthetics. He's like, dude, it's a desk light. Like, I mean, I'm not going to get excited. Yeah, it's nice. But it's a desk light. You know, I never forget. I was like, yeah, it's kind of a good point. So sometime, sometimes, like, how. What are we doing? You know, all These brands want these videos made like, you know, cool. This actually is pretty cool. But like, cool. Self cleaning kitty litter box. Great. It's exciting. And you, I mean, you might make a lot of money off that because people are like, I want to self, but you know, just different, funny as far as the excitement level. So these days there's all this e commerce, all these websites, all these. And the opportunity is real. But just grow your skill set of like being thoughtful. Just because you go get an email, don't jump on it. In the same way that I get phone calls where they're like, this is the irs. It's like an automated thing. And I remember when I first got that phone call, I was like, this is the irs. It's like, oh, it's a scam. It's one of the scams going on and they're getting more sophisticated. So you really want to be thinking about just being savvy to think things through. Vet the email. And I think if you just do a little bit of digging, you'll be able to find that it's maybe something cool to explore more.
- [49:56]
B
My takeaway was what are we doing? What is the channel doing? And is that brand aligned with what the creators really in the direction they're headed. So what are we doing? We're doing it. They're doing it. And be careful because they're getting very sophisticated with the phone calls, with the emails.
- [50:15]
A
Yes.
- [50:16]
B
And even just something as simple as looking at who the email was from. If it was road, but it was from Bob, you say expand and it's.
- [50:26]
A
Like road the day or some other weird email with a bunch of weird characters. You're like, okay, it's not even from. And they can like sometimes spoof domains and you might even look up the person on LinkedIn. It could be a fake LinkedIn profile. Oh, I mean, we're just creating paranoia at this point. But I mean, it's real. I think that ultimately, yeah, it's. And you can't move in fear. Just be careful and make as steady steps as you can. I mean, think media podcast. This channel got hacked once, you know, scary. But hey, we got it back and it was pretty sophisticated hack. But I knew like 10 creators personally that also got hacked and so YouTube was doing their best. I think cyber security type stuff is just sort of like the way of the future. You can't move in fear end of the day. But you could be smart and increase your skill sets of, of just learning and always continuously learning about how to be wise because just Kind of comes with the territory.
- [51:22]
B
I feel like I have about 20 more questions for you, but I'm going to wrap this episode up with the last question. So going from that first Christmas light story of making $4,000 with your Sean Thinks channel to today, I am super curious and I've heard creators talking even with bigger channels that maybe their videos aren't performing the same with adsense and making money. I'm curious if we what the Think Media channels made this year, so 2024 and how it's performing compared to previous years.
- [51:56]
A
Yeah, so Think Media, it's pretty wild. And of course these numbers results are not typical but you know, and we're a team of creators at Think Media now, but our peak is right around $475,000 in ad revenue in a year, just ad revenue. And this year if we cross 400,000, we'll be pretty pumped. That's almost 10% down, you know, 8% down and actually pretty good compared. Now I've heard, you know, people listening to this, maybe you've been doing YouTube for a while. I've heard from a lot of people, they're like, man, YouTube kind of feels hard now. My views feel are down, my ad revenue is down. But when we do surveys on our community tab on both channels, it's always just split. It's, it's like 30% of people are like, my views are up, 30% are like it's the same. And then 30% are like my views are down. And then 10% are like I haven't started yet. So ultimately there's so many factors like if I'm just speaking to what's happening for us, if it's empathy for if maybe things are down a little bit. We have had different seasons where we've had different content creators on the team and there was one season when those content creators were doing two videos a week each, plus me and another person, four of us total. Our pipeline of long form YouTube videos was crazy. And it was like, wow, that was one of the years when the revenue was highest. It was like. And it was also around the pandemic and everyone was at home and they had tons of time to watch YouTube. And then there's other seasons too where advertising spending is up and down. How much money are brands spending? And it's also sometimes you judge your YouTube channel by the last two or three months when it goes up during the holidays because brands want to promote their Black Friday sale and it goes down at other times. And so there's something I Think about just being resilient and just being in it for the long haul. And that's having now gotten to do this. Ever since I started a YouTube channel for my church 2007, and I did video since 2003, I've been doing video for 20 years, YouTube for 17 plus. I've seen just so many weathered, different seasons and storms. It's like, just, just don't quit, you know, keep going, keep learning, keep adapting, keep pivoting. If you don't reinvent your content or some people have made maybe some of the topics, there's always new people starting. We always want to help those people. And sometimes people are transient as an audience, I don't blame them. They spend six months with you, a year, a year and a half, learn it, and then leave the nest. You know, it's like. And they kind of get what they need. So you just. That's what I would encourage people as far as. Yeah. When it comes to finances and if anything, always be thinking about there are external factors, but never blame the external factors. Think about how you can adapt, pivot and innovate. Because those who outwork out, learn out, strategize and outlast the competition will always win.
- [54:52]
B
Sean, thank you so much for your honesty and your openness. I think it can be sometimes discouraging to see people say, anybody can do it and we're all going to win and everybody's going to succeed. But to actually see numbers and hear your experience, I personally just really appreciate you sharing that and the vulnerability. So thank you so much for being here today and sharing how other small content creators can still make money even without getting monetized, and maybe the journey to get there as well.