Many experts tell us HOW to livestream: how to look good on camera, how to come up with content ideas, and how to find the best equipment.
But what’s often missing – and this is REALLY important – is how do we actually make money from livestreaming?
That’s why in this post, I want to share exactly how you can leverage the power of live video to create CASH for your business!
I’m going to share 9 ways to do this…and you’re going to want to make sure you read the whole post, because one of them has the power to create up to 6 figures of revenue in a very short window of time!
Why Live Video?
Before we dive into the 9 tips, let’s talk about live video in general. Why should we do it? What are the benefits? Is it REALLY worth all the effort?
As you may already know, I’ve been in the online space for almost 30 years. And you know what? I’ve never seen a better mechanism for building that know, like, trust factor than live video.
Webinars are still pretty big. So you might be wondering: why live video? Why not webinars?
Well, if you’ve ever done a webinar, you know how much work they are! You have to create and edit the content, and then advertise it…and then MAYBE 25% of people who signed up actually show up.
With live streaming on the other hand, you just show up and there’s an immediate audience. In the early days of Periscope, I could literally have thousands of people watching my lives…and to get those same numbers for a webinar would have been nearly impossible!
Another huge advantage of livestreaming is that you’re able to connect and actually talk with people. You can see their comments, and actually have a back and forth conversation in real time.
And honestly, live streaming just keeps growing and growing, with no signs of slowing down. So even if you’re just starting out now, there is still TONS of opportunity for you to get on board when it comes to live video!
8 Ways to Make Money Livestreaming
Here are 8 ways I make money from my live streams…and you can too!
1. Sell Merchandise on Your Lives
This could be t-shirts, mugs, bags…whatever. The point is you can show these products on your livestream, and then direct people to your online store so they can buy them.
The nice thing is you don’t even need to carry any inventory. The ability to offer custom merchandise is at your fingertips these days – and you don’t have to house anything.
You can literally just start a store and do dropshipping through companies like Printify or Printful, and immediately have your own line of mugs, shirts, pillows, etc.
This is a GREAT way to make money live streaming…and you can even promote your shop on your Facebook page, Instagram, website, or anywhere elsewhere online.
2. Brand Deals and Sponsorships
A brand deal is when a company wants to get their product in front of your community, and is willing to pay for it. This could be a physical product or a digital product like software, but is usually a one-off arrangement.
Brand deals come in all shapes and sizes. In the early days of brand deals, for instance, a company might have reached out to give you a t-shirt to wear on your live stream. The value of that t-shirt might have been $25, and you may have felt that was enough compensation to get in front of your community.
My recommendation? Don’t do this! You need to put a value on getting in front of your community, and it’s probably a lot more than a $25 t-shirt! Instead, make sure you’re getting CASH for these brand deals…not just an inexpensive product.
Sponsorships are a little bit different. This is where you charge a company a set fee to regularly get in front of your audience. For instance, Restream sponsors my weekly live show, and I get paid a set monthly fee for this.
I have no problems sharing it, because it’s an amazing tool. So as long as you actually believe in the product, this is a great option to make money live streaming!
3. Donations or Tips
This probably isn’t the most lucrative one on this list, but it can be a good one when combined with other strategies.
An example of donations would be your viewers giving you stars on Facebook. For every star a viewer gives you during a livestream, you get $0.01 USD.
YouTube also lets creators set up Super Stickers, which are digital stickers or images viewers can send you during your lives.
Another example could be using a third-party tool like Buy Me a Coffee to collect tips. I actually just set up a page to try it out, and you can check it out here.
This is a fun way to collect donations for the content you work so hard to create!
4. Affiliate Marketing
Many people think you need a huge volume of viewers to make affiliate marketing work. They wonder how they’ll make money when they’re only earning 10, 20 or 30% revenue off each sale.
But the beautiful thing about affiliate marketing is that you’re making money from naturally sharing things you would recommend anyway. For instance, if someone asks you for the name of a great dentist, wouldn’t you happy to recommend yours?
Affiliate marketing is an extension of this. Here’s an example from my own business. You know I love sharing great tools! Anytime I find a great one I know my audience will love, I share it…but I’m not necessarily just doing it out of the goodness of my heart.
I want people to know about it, but I also want to make money!
Here’s an example. A company I have an affiliate partnership with is Rev.com. They offer a great payout of $100 every time someone signs up through my affiliate link.
So if I’m going to talk about anything related to this in my livestreams, it just makes sense to share it.
Keep in mind that affiliate partnerships can be one-time payouts or recurring fees. For instance, with Rev.com, I get a flat rate of $100, but then never generate another dollar from that traffic I sent them.
Recurring revenue, on the other hand, is when a company pays you a certain amount every single month for the traffic you’ve sent them (e.g., $10 each month the person stays with them). This is GREAT for generating passive income, month after month after month!
5. Subscriptions
It’s easy to start your own subscription service using Patreon.com.
This is a growing phenomenon, but one many people aren’t really familiar with.
Subscriptions are when people are willing to pay for your gated content. Think of it as your own personal Netflix!
You would stream to your webpage, and people would pay to get that content because it suits their needs. They don’t need to hunt and peck for information…they get it all in one place.
This is exactly why people pay for courses: they buy a course, not because the content isn’t somewhere else in the world. They buy it because it’s all in one place.
Want to create your own subscription service? You don’t need to have mad tech skills!
You can use a tool like Patreon, or you can even do it right within your own WordPress site using a membership plugin like AccessAlly.
You can even use a Facebook group to support this process. Since so many people are on Facebook, that’s where they’re going to be consuming content…so why not deliver certain types of content – for a fee – inside a Facebook group?
For instance, I’ve had a membership site for years (it’s called my Business Builder’s Academy). I’ve had as many as 2,000 people paying me $97/month for this…so it can be a pretty substantial revenue stream.
6. Product Launches
The majority of my sales don’t come from me just posting something on social media. Instead, I sell in my online communities through my live videos.
I like to share some education around a particular topic or problem…and my product gives the solution to this problem. I’m able to share how I understand the struggle, and then let my viewers know I can offer them the solution.
You can also use this strategy if you have a physical product like a book, or a digital product like a membership…as long as your product is the solution to the problem.
This can be an incredibly powerful strategy!
Years ago I created a Periscope training course. So many people were asking me how to use Periscope, so I figured, why not create a course for them? I told my team on Monday, and by the following Monday, we put it up for sale.
I went on Periscope, and let people know how to leverage it for their own businesses. I highlighted the problem, agitated it, and sympathized…as I’d had the same problem.
Then I let them know I had a solution. And guess what – I created 5-figures in sales in just 12 minutes!
Will this happen every time? No! But it will absolutely get you used to talking about how to help people solve their problems…and it will definitely create long-term sales for you.
7. Standard Ads
This is probably the strategy to make money live streaming, you’re most familiar with. Think YouTube ads: relevant ads that come up during your videos.
Both YouTube and Facebook have certain requirements you need to meet before you have access to ads, but once you get to a certain place in your business, you can absolutely take advantage of this strategy!
YouTube in particular has a really sweet monetization plan…so once you meet their requirements, you can start earning passive income through ads on your livestreams.
These requirements currently include:
- Living in a country where the YouTube Partner Program is available
- Having more than 4K public watch hours in the past year
- Having more than 1K subscribers, and
- Having a linked AdSense account.
8. Free to Profit Model.
I promised you a strategy that’s working REALLY well right now…and this is it.
Many people are doing free 3, 5 or 7-day challenges right now. For me, the 5-day challenges have been the magic formula.
One of my students has actually used this model to create 6-figure launches.
Coach Christie Miller uses the power of live video inside a Facebook group at a specific time each day, for 5 days. The reason this is so powerful is that it really gives people the chance to connect with her, and to build the know, like, trust factor.
For the first four days, she goes live and does the actual training. Then on the fifth day she does a masterclass, and sells them into her group coaching program.
The last time she did this she had a 6-figure launch, and converted at around 70%!
Another student of mine, Narelle Todd, recently did a challenge. She only had 30 people in the challenge, so not a huge number. But of those 30 people, nine of them purchased her group coaching, earning her almost $20K in revenue.
As you can see, these free challenges are an AMAZING way to monetize live video in a very short amount of time!
Wrapping it all up
The nice thing about these strategies to make money live streaming is you can (and should!) use a combination of them.
For instance, in my business, people pay to be part of my Business Builder’s Academy, where I go live in the training group. I also mention my merchandise and do affiliate partnerships in my lives, as well has having sponsors for my weekly live show.
And on top of this, I repurpose all my lives: for instance, transcribing them and turning them into blog posts (which is what I did with this post!), using short clips from my lives on my stories and social, etc.
There are just so many ways to use live video to connect and engage with your audience…and to make CASH while doing it!
Which of the strategies above are YOU going to use? I would love to know! Share in the comments below!
About Author
