This is an updated and expanded version of my popular online marketing course. I’ve got the next section of videos ready to go live, including a whole section on YouTube Marketing.
While I was fortunate enough to earn a six-figure salary as a digital marketer, I’m well aware there are many challenges associated with making a living as an independent contractor.
This is especially true if you’re trying to do this full-time.
That’s why I’ve put together this course to help you navigate the ups and the downs of being a freelancer in the digital marketing industry.
You’ll learn how to get your first thousand YouTube subscribers, build a profitable online store, and make extra money with affiliate marketing.

Why YouTube?

If you’ve been following my channel, you’ll know that I’ve been passionate about YouTube for a very long time.
In fact, I’ve got nearly a hundred and fifty videos on the platform, and I continue to grow my audience every single month.
I can regularly get hundreds of thousands of views on a single video. A lot of my audience members watch my entire channel from start to finish, from the very first video I ever made, all the way through to the most recent uploads.

That’s a lot of eyeballs!
And it’s all because YouTube is the second largest video hosting platform (after Google Videos).
With one billion users, there’s always room for growth.
Plus, since its inception, YouTube has allowed creators to earn a living from their videos.
In the beginning, all you needed was a decent camera and a computer to run it on.

But as the platform grew, so did the opportunities for digital marketers, content creators, and other internet marketeers.

You can become a YouTube Partner, making money from your videos with ads and gaining the ability to supplement your income with a small amount of affiliate income.
You can also run your own YouTube channel, and become your own boss, creating and posting videos on your own schedule.

All these options make YouTube a great place to build a brand, engage with fans, and eventually grow a lucrative audience.

The Basics Of YouTube Marketing

If you’ve been paying attention to my channel, you’ll know that I’m a big believer in, and advocate for, creating value for my audience.
I don’t just throw up videos with useless information and then run away with the money.
I try to put a lot of thought into each video, and into the process of creating content in general.

This is especially important on YouTube, where your videos can live forever, accumulating tens of thousands of views, likes, and shares over time.

With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at the basics of YouTube marketing, including video creation, content strategy, and analytics.

Video Creation

You don’t need an expert camera guy to produce a professional-looking video.
All you need is a computer and some basic software (including free video editing software like VideoPad and Premiere Pro).

If you’re finding the editing side of video production challenging, there are entire studios that offer a complete editing service, specializing in video for marketing and social media.
You can outsource the editing of your videos to a professional, or take on a few hours a week, learning how to use basic video editing tools yourself.

Content Strategy

When it comes to digital marketing, content is pretty important.
You’ve got blogs, websites, social media, and now, even videos.
Each platform allows you to post content that is perfectly suited for a viewer, depending on their interests, location, and more importantly, their mindset.

From my experience, every platform has an algorithm that serves up content based on your previous actions and behaviors.
If you’re not familiar, think of the Google Search engine. It’s algorithmically categorized websites and blogs based on your previous searches and interactions with ads, products, and content that is similar to what you’re looking for.

On YouTube, you can take advantage of a unique feature called Content Recommendations. This feature looks at what other content you’ve already consumed, and helps discover content that is suited for you, based on similar interests.

Analytics

If you’ve been paying attention to my channel, you’ll know that I’m a big believer in tracking your video’s performance.
You need to know what’s working and what isn’t, in order to improve your overall strategy and maximize your results.

There are a variety of tools you can use to track the performance of your video, from click-throughs to watch time and viewing habits. 

You can also use web analytics tools like Google Analytics to track the performance of your website, using the same data to track the performance of your video.

This can be a bit tricky, as you’ll have to input a specific code into each video’s metadata, or tagging, so that the video can be properly analyzed.

Once this is done, you’ll be able to track your video’s performance in detail, identifying habits, interests, and audiences, so that you can continually refine your strategy and improve your results.

If you’re looking for detailed video SEO information, I recommend checking out my mini-course, which incorporates SEO, video creation, and content marketing. It’s called, “How to Get YouTube Stars“. 

Build A Brand

One of the things I cover in my course is building a brand.
When I first got into the industry, I distinctly remember talking to clients, and saying that brand building wasn’t a priority. Sure, they might want to think about it when creating content, but they didn’t have the time or the resources to develop a brand identity, let alone promote it on social media.

Since then, I’ve seen countless examples of brands, both large and small, thriving on social media platforms, such as YouTube.

If you want to take your channel to the next level, develop a clear strategy for building your brand. How are you going to introduce yourself to the world?

You might choose to develop an identity on social media, starting with a Facebook page, then branching out to Twitter and YouTube. Or, you can do the reverse, and get more specific, with unique identities for each platform.

You should also look into establishing a consistent identity across all your social media platforms. Does your logo look the same, or very similar, on all of them? Are your colors the same?

These are all very basic questions, and they’ll help establish your brand, so that you can move forward, confident that you made the right decision, and invested the time and effort, into creating a brand, that will speak to your audience, and ultimately, make you money.