How to Sell Videos Online: Monetize Your Digital Content Efforts
Your videos are outstanding. You create detailed tutorials or maybe even documentaries and you seem to be really good at what you do. Is there a way to turn these efforts into a solid source of income? The video marketing industry has a variety of opportunities for every video content creator. So, how do you sell videos online?
Video Selling Tools and Platforms
Here are a few platforms that will help monetize your video creation efforts, broken down into 2 categories:
- Easier platforms: These are good if you are starting out. These will allow you to learn from your mistakes and brush up on your skills
- Professional platforms: These are good for professional filmmakers or more experienced video creators. Trying these platforms is the next logical step once you succeed at using easier platforms.
Easier Video Selling Platforms:
1. YouTube
YouTube is not an actual video selling platform but if you are into video creation, promoting your presence on YouTube is a must, at least for brand building purposes. With YouTube, you can create a channel to start showcasing videos.
As far as monetizing videos are concerned, you need to meet pretty tough criteria. More specifically, become a Youtube Partner, which means your channel needs to have at least 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months and at least 1,000 subscribers. While it’s tough to start earning big on YouTube, it’s been proven to be one platform that could work. Just find marketing strategies that’ll help extract maximum monetary value from the video content uploaded.
Alternatively, YouTube can be used to direct leads to premium content i.e. you may offer some of the best material on your YouTube channels and prompt viewers to buy directly from you — if they want to continue to enjoy more of your content.
2. Uscreen
- Minimum investment: $199/month
- Example: tmilly.tv
In an attempt to help amateur video makers make money, Uscreen offers its platform to users to upload their content and set their own pricing. As a user, you have the option to sell your video content via subscriptions, rentals, a one-time payment, etc. Higher-tier plans also allow you to create a custom smartphone app to allow subscribers to access videos from their mobile devices. You can upload images, audio and videos to Uscreen and customize with your branding materials before launching. Considering the hosting, marketing and content delivery that Uscreen offers, it’s a great platform to try.
3. Vimeo
- Price: $1 per subscriber per month
- Example: Adriene Mishler
Vimeo is another powerful platform to monetize your videos. Vimeo also lets users stream and download to a diverse range of platforms and devices — at their own pricing. Vimeo also has analytics that helps track how your videos are doing. The only downside here is that you have less flexibility with pricing your content. You’ll have to pay Vimeo for each subscriber you get, so any time you wish to give away your product for marketing purposes, you’ll have to cover the expense yourself.
4. Fiverr
- Price: Free!
Fiverr is another platform to help monetize your video marketing efforts. Add your video creation gig and make it clear how your service stands out from the crowd.
One downside of selling on Fiverr is their lack of support for sellers. They have plenty of tools and processes to protect the buyer, but there’s little to no way for a seller to get out of a poor deal (so you’ll have to deal with many clueless buyers). Another downside to Fiverr is that it’s getting too crowded. It will be tough to get noticed, so get prepared to build your initial customer base and get good reviews. Luckily there are many less popular alternatives, allowing you to sell digital content.
Professional Video Selling Platforms
1. Amazon
Did you know you can harness the outreach of Amazon’s service to sell and distribute your video content? There are two available options for this feature:
With CreateSpace, you can make retail-ready DVDs which can be listed on IMDb in colorful covers and discs. This product is professional, and with a rental fee of $4.95 per unit, you’re assured that your disc stays in production.
This option is only available for digital sales. Your content can only be sold or streamed on Amazon Video — Fire TV, tablets, phones, and other platforms capable of accessing Amazon’s service. You can earn royalties from subscriptions, purchases, revenue share and ad impressions. Also, you can monitor the performance of your video content with the in-build metrics.
Compared to Netflix, selling your video on Amazon Video Direct is reasonably easier. Unlike Netflix, you don’t have to attract the attention of their acquisitions team.
2. iTunes
Even though “user-generated” content (low-quality materials) aren’t accepted on this platform, Apple’s iTunes is yet another platform to earn big from your videos. All that’s required of you is to produce high-quality materials and teaming up with a certified Apple partner called “aggregator.” These partners are numerous, and for a fee, they’ll prepare your video for iTunes listing, thus allowing you to sell it.
3. Newsflare
Newsflare licenses videos, such as viral videos, to top media houses around the world. If the content is newsworthy, then it has the potential to sell. The platform also offers iOS and Android apps where users can upload their videos on the go. All that’s required of you to make money via Newsflare is to register an account. Although it might be quite challenging to make your first sale, Newsflare is also an excellent option to try.
