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What if I told you…

That you could create a marketing machine that pumped out money – and all you had to do was feed it traffic via YouTube?

That’s exactly what Jeven Dovey has created.

So we asked him to share his best tips on this YouTube Creator Summit with you.

A content creator and adventure filmmaker at heart, Jeven started YouTube because he needed a creative outlet. After realizing the potential with YouTube as a revenue stream, he started CreatorFilmSchool.com, where he now has three online courses based on a membership site model.

Learn how to build a membership site in order to monetize your YouTube channel with online courses while building your brand and fast-tracking your channel growth:

How To Get YouTube To Do Your Marketing For You

YouTube, like Google, is incentivized to show the best and most relevant search results when people type keywords into their search bar.

To succeed in marketing your online courses on YouTube, you want to use every opportunity to be found and recommended on the platform.

Audience Research Workbook

To do so, Jeven first recommends creating and optimizing search-based videos.

In other words, videos that people are actively searching for – like reviews and ‘how-to’ videos.

By doing so, you can rise to the top of those search results.

The second thing is to get YouTube to suggest your content.

70% of all views and traffic on YouTube is related to the videos it recommends to people through ‘suggested content.’

To tap into this, you need to look at the strategy from YouTube’s perspective – their main goal is to get people to watch content longer and continue to binge on videos so they can serve up more ads and generate more revenue.

And this all breaks down to three steps:

  • Step #1 – Get viewers to watch your video
  • Step #2 – Get viewers to watch until the end of your video
  • Step #3 – Get viewers to watch more content on YouTube

If you can satisfy these three steps, then YouTube will suggest your content to more people.

And if you have your courses built out, and your marketing formulated into each of your videos, you have free marketing from YouTube.

Why It’s Okay To Give All Your Content Away

One of Jeven’s top tips is to give everything away.

One way to do this is to break your online courses down into mini snippets and post them as bits of content on YouTube.

That’s exactly what Jeven did with his first online course “How To Sell Stock Footage”.

It’s solid content that is actually valuable and helpful to his audience – the only difference is it’s scattered all over YouTube amongst a crowd of irrelevant and distracting ads, and other videos served up in the recommended video section.

In fact, as Jeven mentions in his video above, if you were to dive into his channel and spend enough time piecing things together in order, you could probably get most of his online course for free – with the exception of a few extra resources (like workbooks) that he reserves for paying customers.

Selling Your Own Online Courses Versus Relying Ad Revenue

When it comes to your income, would you prefer to be empowered or enslaved?

That’s exactly what the difference is when it comes to generating income via online courses versus ad revenue.

As Jeven puts it, having your own product is essential.

The reason is that with YouTube ad revenue, your income is directly tied to the number of views you get on YouTube.

Consider this: for every 1,000 views you get $2. Or better yet, for every one million views on your channel, you could earned $2,000 from YouTube. That’s not a ton of money for the amount of work you have to put into getting those views.

If you’re a well-known YouTuber with millions of subscribers and views, then this strategy will work for you. However, for most content creators, this isn’t the way to go. Especially since YouTube could change its rules at any given time, leaving you and your business exposed.

By selling your own online courses, not only are you in charge of your business, but you remove limits to how much money you can generate from YouTube.

Jeven dives into more examples of how you can monetize such as affiliate marketing and brand sponsorships in the video. Watch his video above to learn more!

Download the YouTube Monetization guide

Be Your Own YouTube Sponsor

One thing that Jeven advocates when it comes to advertising your own courses is to be your own sponsor.

To paint the picture, imagine a YouTube video that transitions mid-video to “by the way this video is sponsored by XYZ company”.

The only difference is, it’s your company and your course that you talk about instead.

There is however, an art to this. It’s important to not come across as too forced or salesy.

You’re not creating a commercial, you’re just injecting your courses into your videos in a way that seems organic and makes sense context (hint: the topics must be related).

The key underlying factor is to be in tune with your audience.

In other words, really listen to your audience. Pay attention to your comments and see if they’re complaining about you selling products, or what feedback they have on the topics you’re covering.

To see how Jeven acts as his own sponsor for his online program, Creator Film School, as well as other ways he maximizes his online course promotion, watch check out the examples he walks through in the video above.

Why Choose A Membership Over A High-Ticket Item

There are pros and cons to both online courses and membership sites.

For Jeven, membership site platforms work better for his business model and goals. The main reason is that he’s constantly shooting new content.

If he used that content to build new courses, he’d have to wait for months before he could launch and sell them to his audience.

Instead, Jeven runs a membership site and charges $37 a month. Through the online membership, he gives his audience access to all his courses at once, adding in smaller products into the membership as he creates them.

Free related resource: For more details on membership sites, check out our free guide on How To Run A Successful Membership Site.

Why You Want To Create Your Own Online Course Platform

A point that Jeven really pushes in his video is to create a course platform of your own, using a platform like Thinkific, rather than setting up on a course marketplace like SkillShare or Udemy.

His primary reason? Course marketplaces devalue you and your content.

When you host your content on course marketplaces, it instantly devalues your offer because people have many competing options to choose from. Not to mention, they totally are in control of your pricing, and therefore your profits.

For example, rather than pricing your course where you think it should be priced at – let’s say $200 – one of those platforms might decide one day to do a flash sale, and price your course at $9.99.

And in an instant, you lose 95% of what you normally would have sold it for.

What Jeven suggests is to:

  1. Create your own course site on a platform like Thinkific
  2. Do your research on what people are actually willing to pay before you set you pricing

The Overall Process Of YouTube Monetization Summarized

To summarize Jeven’s YouTube monetization process, it all comes down to 3 steps:

  1. Create organic content on YouTube that matches your courses
  2. Have your courses ready before you release your YouTube videos
  3. Create ads in your videos that go naturally with the content

To succeed in engaging your audience on the platform, you want to prioritize creating stand-alone videos – content that people can consume in five to ten minutes, that will encourage them to keep watching your videos, therefore keeping them on the platform longer.

Ideally, you want people to stay watching through to the end of your video, then watch more videos. A great way to do this is to create playlists.

For more ideas and suggestions on how to implement this 3-step process for YouTube monetization, watch Jeven’s video above!

Connect with Jeven on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram


Get a roadmap to start creating your online course in our free guide below! You’ll learn the first five steps to take if you’re looking to monetize your video content through online courses.

Download the YouTube Monetization guide