How Do I Quit My Day Job?

[Anjim]

Hey guys,

I want to know from you're perspectives when you guys decided to quit your old job and commit to Youtube full time. I started making youtube videos on my channel since march of 2015, and now it's october 2016 and I have 793 subscribers as of today.

I wanted to ask you guys, when was the turning point when you decided you wanted to invest all your time into Youtube? I upload videos daily, constantly engage with my fans, and I slowly get about 3 or so subscribers every other day or so.

I get an average of about 100-300 views per video (some however, are in the thousands, either 1k - 10k, and 1 video 50k) so how do I get them up to thousands of views?

Sorry for so many questions, but I feel like this is going to take alot of time and I'm willing to put in the work I was just curious if anybody in their career had an "aha" moment in youtube that got them alot of success.

I am doing the same thing next year in spring 2016 and focus on blogging/YouTube/twitch streaming. Good Luck

 

[Jackie Pearce]

Tim Schmoyer at Video Creators has so much great advice about building a business from a YouTube channel. If you seriously want to go full-time, you can't just rely on Adsense. That could take forever.

 

[Bennett's Playtime]

There are a wide variety of strategies that can be adopted. You can allocate $x per video/day during the initial 48 hours -> 7 day period, you can allocate a certain amount per playlist, you can only promote your "gateway" videos, you can promote the videos with best % retention or highest view time, the lowest or highest view count, pretty much whatever you want. It depends what you want to achieve.

Currently, I run Adwords per playlist, especially for new playlists I want to build traffic for. I spread $x/day evenly across all the videos. After a while I can see which videos drive the highest subs and earned views. Then I disable the worst performing videos and continue with the best performing ones.

There are literally dozens of strategies you can employ.

Did you run Adwords from the very beginning, or did you wait until you already had a bit of a following on Youtube? Do you see a big difference between videos you promote via Adwords, and those you don't? I've never thought seriously about using Adwords, so this is all very interesting to me.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

Do you think I should guide traffic to my squeeze page? (My free ebook) or subscriptions to my youtube channel? I was thinking guiding people who watch the video to subscribe to my youtube channel because I personally feel that I'll be able to "indoctrinate" the followers easier with videos than with email. Although alot of internet marketers swear that email is the best way to sell anything.

When I was doing sniper sites I focused almost exclusively on seo and fresh content to rank. And of course Adwords to drive traffic to the site. I did experiment with some affiliate products and promoting them via niche sites and squeeze pages. I never used Yt though. So I can;t comment about using Yt to drive traffic to squeeze pages.

However, I have come across Yt channels that seem to do a good job in the affiliate space. I think the key is providing great informative content, that's useful and entertaining (let's say hair products for women). Then they drop affiliate links in description, annotations, etc. From what I've seen of how Yt works, the only key to success is to build an engaged audience first before sending them offsite.

Email marketing is so 00s. I read an article about Richard Branson banning emails in one of his offices for a few hours a day and get managers to actually walk around and connect. I think the key to IM going forward is to inform and connect to audiences, then sell. I think it will be very hard to get email subscribers via Yt - first you got to convince them to stay in the video to the end, then go offsite to your page via a browser app, then signup. I don't see it happening often.

The only IMer I respect is Pat Flynn of smartpassiveincome.com Check him out and how he built his business. He did find success in Yt by being an affiliate for BlueHost and having a "build a website in 5 minutes" video that drove insane traffic and affiliate commissions. If I was going to do IM again, I would follow his strategy.[DOUBLEPOST=1476772568,1476772023][/DOUBLEPOST]

was wondering if you could let me know how you do adwords for a playlist? Do you run it directly from adwords, or is there a promote button through youtube? I usually use the promote button next to the video.

I create a separate campaign in Adwords, then add all the videos from the playlist into the campaign. Then as mentioned, you can allocate traffic equally, or maximize for views. I recommend an equal allocation for 1 week to see which videos get the most subscribers and earned views. That let's you easily see what content is hitting home, and of course, make more of it! after a week, you can set to maximize views, as that obviously gives you best bang for bucks.

[DOUBLEPOST=1476773692][/DOUBLEPOST]

Did you run Adwords from the very beginning, or did you wait until you already had a bit of a following on Youtube? Do you see a big difference between videos you promote via Adwords, and those you don't? I've never thought seriously about using Adwords, so this is all very interesting to me.

That's a great question. I just checked. We started the channel mid Dec 2015, and the first Adwords was week starting 7 Mar 2016. The first few weeks were basically experiments and learning (and we had some great advice and pointers from FamilyToyReview).

I think in March 16 we had 1265 subscribers.

When we started, Adwords was used to bring traffic up for a video so it could rank and show up in search. Without it, a video generally got 200-1000 views. This was not enough to rank. With $10-$20 that goes up to 2000-3000 views. Not much in the Yt world, but because of the way things work, that is enough to bypass thousand and thousands of other startup channels and their videos and get higher search placements. When this happens across a wide variety of videos (and keywords), the channel gets greater exposure overall, much more so than the 34,576 other kids channels all competing for viewers.

Whether to use Adwords or not goes to the heart of how you believe Yt works. I believe it is a highly tiered and layered system. The most critical thing to growth is growth of subs and views. If this does not grow, the channel will remain in the lowest tier. Once you level up to 1k, 2k, 5k subs, and 1k, 2k, 5k, 10k per video, the algorithm bumps you up to higher tiers. This is where the absolutely most vital aspect of getting traffic happens - getting into suggested slots of high tier channels.

I think the Adwords strategy we used has been instrumental in our channel growth. But it is expensive, and you need a long term view, and belief in your content and overall business. But what business isn't expensive? A guy just opened a pizza shop a few streets away, it cost him $170,000 and he's trying to flog $5.99 large pizzas (I'm eating a slice now).

 

[KidsCorner]

When I was doing sniper sites I focused almost exclusively on seo and fresh content to rank. And of course Adwords to drive traffic to the site. I did experiment with some affiliate products and promoting them via niche sites and squeeze pages. I never used Yt though. So I can;t comment about using Yt to drive traffic to squeeze pages.

However, I have come across Yt channels that seem to do a good job in the affiliate space. I think the key is providing great informative content, that's useful and entertaining (let's say hair products for women). Then they drop affiliate links in description, annotations, etc. From what I've seen of how Yt works, the only key to success is to build an engaged audience first before sending them offsite.

Email marketing is so 00s. I read an article about Richard Branson banning emails in one of his offices for a few hours a day and get managers to actually walk around and connect. I think the key to IM going forward is to inform and connect to audiences, then sell. I think it will be very hard to get email subscribers via Yt - first you got to convince them to stay in the video to the end, then go offsite to your page via a browser app, then signup. I don't see it happening often.

The only IMer I respect is Pat Flynn of smartpassiveincome.com Check him out and how he built his business. He did find success in Yt by being an affiliate for BlueHost and having a "build a website in 5 minutes" video that drove insane traffic and affiliate commissions. If I was going to do IM again, I would follow his strategy.[DOUBLEPOST=1476772568,1476772023][/DOUBLEPOST]
I create a separate campaign in Adwords, then add all the videos from the playlist into the campaign. Then as mentioned, you can allocate traffic equally, or maximize for views. I recommend an equal allocation for 1 week to see which videos get the most subscribers and earned views. That let's you easily see what content is hitting home, and of course, make more of it! after a week, you can set to maximize views, as that obviously gives you best bang for bucks.

View attachment 38211[DOUBLEPOST=1476773692][/DOUBLEPOST]

That's a great question. I just checked. We started the channel mid Dec 2015, and the first Adwords was week starting 7 Mar 2016. The first few weeks were basically experiments and learning (and we had some great advice and pointers from FamilyToyReview).

I think in March 16 we had 1265 subscribers.

When we started, Adwords was used to bring traffic up for a video so it could rank and show up in search. Without it, a video generally got 200-1000 views. This was not enough to rank. With $10-$20 that goes up to 2000-3000 views. Not much in the Yt world, but because of the way things work, that is enough to bypass thousand and thousands of other startup channels and their videos and get higher search placements. When this happens across a wide variety of videos (and keywords), the channel gets greater exposure overall, much more so than the 34,576 other kids channels all competing for viewers.

Whether to use Adwords or not goes to the heart of how you believe Yt works. I believe it is a highly tiered and layered system. The most critical thing to growth is growth of subs and views. If this does not grow, the channel will remain in the lowest tier. Once you level up to 1k, 2k, 5k subs, and 1k, 2k, 5k, 10k per video, the algorithm bumps you up to higher tiers. This is where the absolutely most vital aspect of getting traffic happens - getting into suggested slots of high tier channels.

I think the Adwords strategy we used has been instrumental in our channel growth. But it is expensive, and you need a long term view, and belief in your content and overall business. But what business isn't expensive? A guy just opened a pizza shop a few streets away, it cost him $170,000 and he's trying to flog $5.99 large pizzas (I'm eating a slice now).

View attachment 38212

As always, some great posts! Few points from my end as well on adwords.
1) If you're interested in adwords, just start with it! Yes it's very intimidating, it's not the greatest designed tool from a GUI perspective and you will "waste" money in the beginning doing stuff that doesn't work. It will take you time to find what works best for you, your content, your audience, etc.
2) Make sure you start experimenting with 0,01 CPM! In my experience this will almost always work, it might take a day though before things ramp up.
3) Don't just hit promote video in Youtube (you can maybe do that to get started) but learn how to create your own campaigns from the site. You have a lot more options available if you do it this way.
4) In case you didn't get it yet, experiment, experiment and experiment! Try to target specific videos of your competitors for your ads, specific competitor channels, keywords, audience, language, etc or a combination of it all. Think of what you want to do with your ad and tailor the campaign. E.g. if you want subs, deselect "unknown" in the Demographics tabs so that you increase the chance of your ad to be shown to people with a youtube account.
5) Create playlists in your channel and add your video's in it for a certain topic. Go into the playlist, click the video you want to promote, copy the HTTP link and make an ad using that link to the video inside the playlist. This way you will have more chance of people clicking through to more of your videos and build up playlist traffic as well (make sure your video's have annotations and cards pointing to playlists and subscribing as well!).

 

[xxheathermarie]

I feel like there needs to be an AdWords 101 forum.

 

[Scandinavian Freckles]

Hi there,

I only have 60 subs but I won't stop my day job until I make at least the same on youtube as I do in my job right now. If you are in a position where you can stop working and commit to youtube without getting economical problems than of course you can do that, if you are passionate about it !

I would recommend you wait until you get at least 10.000 subs, or more ; or until you earn enought to get by in a month on youtube. That way you know you are safe !!

Have a good day !!

 

[martialartstutor]

When I was doing sniper sites I focused almost exclusively on seo and fresh content to rank. And of course Adwords to drive traffic to the site. I did experiment with some affiliate products and promoting them via niche sites and squeeze pages. I never used Yt though. So I can;t comment about using Yt to drive traffic to squeeze pages.

However, I have come across Yt channels that seem to do a good job in the affiliate space. I think the key is providing great informative content, that's useful and entertaining (let's say hair products for women). Then they drop affiliate links in description, annotations, etc. From what I've seen of how Yt works, the only key to success is to build an engaged audience first before sending them offsite.

Email marketing is so 00s. I read an article about Richard Branson banning emails in one of his offices for a few hours a day and get managers to actually walk around and connect. I think the key to IM going forward is to inform and connect to audiences, then sell. I think it will be very hard to get email subscribers via Yt - first you got to convince them to stay in the video to the end, then go offsite to your page via a browser app, then signup. I don't see it happening often.

The only IMer I respect is Pat Flynn of smartpassiveincome.com Check him out and how he built his business. He did find success in Yt by being an affiliate for BlueHost and having a "build a website in 5 minutes" video that drove insane traffic and affiliate commissions. If I was going to do IM again, I would follow his strategy.[DOUBLEPOST=1476772568,1476772023][/DOUBLEPOST]
I create a separate campaign in Adwords, then add all the videos from the playlist into the campaign. Then as mentioned, you can allocate traffic equally, or maximize for views. I recommend an equal allocation for 1 week to see which videos get the most subscribers and earned views. That let's you easily see what content is hitting home, and of course, make more of it! after a week, you can set to maximize views, as that obviously gives you best bang for bucks.

View attachment 38211[DOUBLEPOST=1476773692][/DOUBLEPOST]

That's a great question. I just checked. We started the channel mid Dec 2015, and the first Adwords was week starting 7 Mar 2016. The first few weeks were basically experiments and learning (and we had some great advice and pointers from FamilyToyReview).

I think in March 16 we had 1265 subscribers.

When we started, Adwords was used to bring traffic up for a video so it could rank and show up in search. Without it, a video generally got 200-1000 views. This was not enough to rank. With $10-$20 that goes up to 2000-3000 views. Not much in the Yt world, but because of the way things work, that is enough to bypass thousand and thousands of other startup channels and their videos and get higher search placements. When this happens across a wide variety of videos (and keywords), the channel gets greater exposure overall, much more so than the 34,576 other kids channels all competing for viewers.

Whether to use Adwords or not goes to the heart of how you believe Yt works. I believe it is a highly tiered and layered system. The most critical thing to growth is growth of subs and views. If this does not grow, the channel will remain in the lowest tier. Once you level up to 1k, 2k, 5k subs, and 1k, 2k, 5k, 10k per video, the algorithm bumps you up to higher tiers. This is where the absolutely most vital aspect of getting traffic happens - getting into suggested slots of high tier channels.

I think the Adwords strategy we used has been instrumental in our channel growth. But it is expensive, and you need a long term view, and belief in your content and overall business. But what business isn't expensive? A guy just opened a pizza shop a few streets away, it cost him $170,000 and he's trying to flog $5.99 large pizzas (I'm eating a slice now).

View attachment 38212

Interesting. So far I've managed to get about 72 people on my email list from youtube. The first thing in my description is my website that offers them a free ebook in exchange for their email address.

I've always thought about doing affiliate sales, but I have a hard time finding products I truly would buy myself in my niche (martial arts) and I've used clickbank but I think I might have an easier time doing amazon affiliate since I buy martial arts equipment anyways.

I swear kiddie toys, if you made an online course for how to do online marketing I would buy it Just an idea

 

[KiddieToysReview]

Interesting. So far I've managed to get about 72 people on my email list from youtube. The first thing in my description is my website that offers them a free ebook in exchange for their email address.

I've always thought about doing affiliate sales, but I have a hard time finding products I truly would buy myself in my niche (martial arts) and I've used clickbank but I think I might have an easier time doing amazon affiliate since I buy martial arts equipment anyways.

I swear kiddie toys, if you made an online course for how to do online marketing I would buy it Just an idea

A "how to build a profitable youtube channel" course is a great idea. But I think the channel needs sub authority first, I would not contemplate such a course until we had 1M subs. Maybe in about 5 years if we're lucky enough.....

 

[ChargunHD]

I don'y know dude YouTube is a huge commitment and it can one of two ways and you know what they are. I mean have you really thought this through and you are 100% you can keep yourself a float financially if you do? You have to have a back up plan or something dude this is something you need to really sit down and think about.