5 Steps to Success: How to Make $20k a Month As a Content Creator

If you’ve been wondering how to make $20k a month (or more), then becoming a content creator may be for you! 

Sure, content creation is fun for people who love:

• sharing ideas
• sharing information
• writing
• making cool things

…but did you know that it can also be EXTREMELY lucrative? Content creation earns me thousands of dollars a month doing something I love! It’s also incredibly easy to get started. 

In this article you’ll learn: 

• what content creation is
• who content creation is for
• income streams available to content creators
• 5 Steps to Success: How to Make $20k a Month As a Content Creator

You can learn more by watching this video or by reading below for a summary of everything I discuss.

(One quick heads-up before we get started…this description contains affiliate links, which means—at zero cost to you—I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!)

What is Content Creation?

Content creation is the process of generating ideas, planning, researching, and producing useful content for your target audience. Content can take the form of:

• blogs
• podcasts
• videos
• infographics
• social media posts
• or other formats

The aim of any successful content creator is to build a very specific audience (aka your ideal audience) which is made of your ideal customers. You want to create content that will attract your ideal audience while simultaneously repelling those who don’t fit within your ideal audience profile. 

The notion of “repelling” people might feel uncomfortable at first, as many of us have a natural instinct to want to please everyone. In reality, the bottom line is that if we attempt to speak to everyone, we end up speaking to no one.

While anyone can create content for fun (as a hobby), “content creation” is about producing intentional, purpose-driven content tailored to your target audience with the specific goal of leveraging that audience to earn revenue. 

Who is Content Creation For?

You don’t need to be a great speaker, designer, or writer to be a successful content creator. The main prerequisites to succeed in content creation are a love for the creative process AND a desire to turn this process into a profitable business. 

Personally, I never really loved speaking on camera (go figure!), but I love playing with new ideas, researching, writing, and creating new things. 

Content creation is also ideal for those who want to generate passive income. There is a lot of work involved (especially in the beginning), but because you’re no longer trading dollars for hours you’ll eventually be able to step away from operations when you need to and the systems you’ve setup will continue to run in the background.

Income Streams Available to Content Creators

Now let’s talk about those magical income streams that open up to us as content creators.

The YouTube Partner Program

One way to earn income with content creation is through the YouTube Partner Program. 

If you’re creating content for YouTube, the YouTube Partner Program will be available to you after you get 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours on your channel.

Once you’re into the YouTube Partner Program you can start generating revenue through AdSense. AdSense is ad revenue generated from display, overlay, and video ads that run on your YouTube channel.  

You can also generate income via your YouTube channel through:

• channel memberships
• Super Chat & Super Stickers 
• YouTube Premium revenue
• YouTube Merch Shelf

AdSense was the first revenue stream that opened up to me after starting my YouTube channel. I currently make anywhere from $1,500-$2,000 USD per month (which, if you’re in Canada like I am, translates to about $2,000-$2,500 CAD per month). This obviously isn’t an extreme windfall, but it’s definitely meaningful. 

You’ll learn that having multiple income streams adds up to some pretty significant earnings and also helps you diversify, so you’re not completely dependent on just one stream. 

Another benefit of the YouTube Partner Program is that if you suddenly stop creating videos (which I did after my son was born in 2020), you’ll still generate money from the videos you’ve already posted. 

Between September 8, 2020 and February 1, 2021 (almost 5 months!) I didn’t post a single new video, but I still generated $2,000 from AdSense during that time period. I was grateful to have that extra income while I was spending time with my new son.

Since starting my YouTube channel I’ve:

• created 102 videos
• generated $36,390 (and counting)

That means that I’ve earned about $364 per video. 

That’s pretty good, considering that it takes me roughly 4 to 5 hours to create each video, and that this is only one of my income streams. 

Affiliate Marketing

The next possible income stream, which I believe is the second one that I got in on as a content creator, is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is promoting relevant, useful products or services to your audience and getting a share of the revenue generated from each sale. That revenue share is usually in the neighborhood of 50%.

Unlike the YouTube Partner Program, there are no restrictions on when you can start. If you have even one person on your email list you can start earning affiliate income.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that the products or services you choose to promote to your audience must be ones you have used yourself and find valuable, and that you truly believe your audience will find valuable as well. 

Trust between you and your audience is critical. If you promote crappy products that you’re not familiar with and wouldn’t use yourself, you’re going to destroy that trust. Once you lose that trust you probably won’t ever get it back. 

I currently work with 2 main affiliate partners: 

• Creative Fabrica
• Publisher Rocket

I’ve been using their products for quite some time and I love them. Most of my community who have used them love them as well, so I’m thrilled to promote them. 

Some of the ways I promote them are through:

• my email list
• videos (usually in the form of tutorials)

In the last year I’ve generated $29,000 from all of my affiliate earnings which, combined with the $13,000 I made with AdSense, really adds up! 

Digital Products

Creating digital products is one of my favorite ways to generate income as a content creator. 

Digital products include:

• online courses
• ebooks
• workbooks
• templates
• presets 

The reason creating digital products is my favorite way to earn money as a content creator is that products you create are truly your own. There are no restrictions or earning caps and you can set your own prices.

After creating a lot of free content to attract your ideal customer, you can create premium content that your biggest fans will gladly pay for. 

For example, most of you know that I have a digital course, Low-Content Profits Academy, in which I teach people how to generate passive income creating and selling journals, planners, and other types of low-content books on the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. 

Before I launched my course, I spent 9 months creating free valuable content on YouTube for my target audience. When I launched my course, my target customers were ready to buy, which resulted in a successful 5-figure launch for me. 

Without my existing audience (who also became email list subscribers), I wouldn’t have had anyone standing at the ready to buy my course.

Sponsorships + Brand Deals

Another way to earn income with content creation is through sponsorships and brand deals. 

With sponsorships and brand deals, companies pay you money upfront to promote one of their products on your:

• blog
• podcast
• YouTube channel
• social media account 

Earnings from these deals can range from $200 to twenty thousand dollars a month based on your website traffic, downloads, views, or number of followers (depending on where you’re sharing your content). 

Once you start building an audience, you’re going to start getting emails from all sorts of brands offering you free products and/or cash to promote their products. It can be VERY tempting to accept these offers, especially when you’re just starting out. However, just as with affiliate marketing, you should only promote products and services that you know and trust. As I previously mentioned, once you lose trust with your audience the chances of ever getting it back are slim to none. 

Other Income Streams

A few other incomes streams that are open to content creators are: 

• merchandise
• private coaching
• Patreon / paid membership
• live speaking
• PayPal donate link
• grants

I don’t have direct experience with these so I won’t get into them, but I do know that there are content creators who have success with these streams as well. 

As you can see, the key to making $20k (or more) a month as a content creator is to create multiple revenue streams. Simply creating content on its own isn’t going to get you very far. 

5 Steps to Getting Started as a High-Income Generating Content Creator

So how do you get started as a content creator? It’s a LOT easier than you might think! Here are 5 steps to help you on your way to success. 

1. Choose a Niche

If you have a niche in mind, great! If not, don’t worry. Just choose a broad field of interest that you’ll enjoy creating content around and then start creating that content! 

As you build an audience and start noticing which content resonates with them, you can then refine your niche.

2. Get Clear On Who Your Ideal Customers Are and What They Want

To create relevant, valuable content for your fledgling audience you’ll need to know exactly who you’re speaking to. You probably won’t know all the details yet, but think about the likely demographics and psychographics of people within your chosen niche and fill in the blanks as you go. Once you have a general idea of who your audience will be, create content that speaks to them.

Again, you won’t have all the answers yet. Think about what type of content your ideal customer might find the most useful, then create that content and refine as you go. For help identifying your ideal customer, check out, “How to Attract Your Ideal Customer Like a Magnet!”

3. Choose a Medium and Platform

Once you know who your audience is and what they likely want, choose the medium and the platform that makes the most sense based on what types of content they consume. 

Is your ideal audience most likely to:

• listen to podcasts?
• watch YouTube videos?
• read blogs?

For example, I walk my ideal customers through creating and selling low-content books on KDP using step-by-step tutorials. These sorts of tutorials lend themselves well to YouTube videos, so this is where I create the majority of my content. 

4. Create Valuable, Relevant Content On A Consistent Basis

Once you know who your ideal audience is and what they want, start making content! The quality of your content is important, but so is consistency. If you’re not creating valuable and consistent content, your audience will forget about you FAST. 

Value, relevance, and consistency will build your know, like, and trust factors. This creates an environment where your ideal customers are happy and eager to buy from you, whether through affiliate links, your own digital products, etc.

The best way I’ve found to be consistent is to batch up a month’s worth of content and then drip that content out over the next 4 weeks. 

Here is the exact process I use to create my own content:

• brainstorm ideas
• batch-create 4 video scripts from these ideas
• batch-shoot 4 videos
• release one video per week over the next 4 weeks

5. Start an Email List

Starting (and building) an email list is probably the most important of these 5 steps I’ve outlined. It’s the entire reason you’re creating content to begin with. You’re building an audience to create a mutually beneficial relationship. Without an email list you have absolutely no way to capture your leads and market to your audience when the time comes. 

Sure, you can generate some revenue through some of the income streams I’ve mentioned (Adsense, YouTube, etc) but your email list is going to be the number one marketing tool for your business. 

Remember, you don’t own any social media platforms (including YouTube) so you’re at the mercy of their algorithms and rules. If they decide to close their doors one day, you’ve lost all of your followers and potential leads.

The best way to start an email list is to create a free valuable resource (aka a lead magnet) that your audience can download in exchange for their email address. 

Some examples are:

• a PDF guide
• a cheat sheet
• a checklist
• an audio or video file

For example, I started creating content in March of 2019 with the intention of creating and growing an email list. At the same time I was growing my list, I was also creating my digital course, Low-Content Profits Academy. 

My first lead magnet was a free guide called 3 Steps to Publishing Your First Low-Content Book in Less Than a Day (which you can still download today). Over the past 3 years this guide has brought over 20,000 people to my email list.  

By the time I launched my first digital course, Low-Content Profits Academy, I had a well-established email list which meant that I had a lot of leads. As a result, I had a $60k USD launch (almost $80k CAD). 

To summarize:

• create something of value 
• offer it to your audience
• start that email list!

If you’ve been wondering how to make $20k a month, now you know! If you follow the 5 steps I’ve outlined for you, you’ll be on your way to becoming a high-income earning content creator. 

Does it take a lot of work? Of course it does, but anything worthwhile usually takes work. Exceptional results require exceptional effort. 

However, if you truly enjoy content creation as much as I do, you’ll spend most days feeling like you’re working on a fun hobby rather than “work.” Additionally, you’ll be working toward building a bright future for yourself rather than working hard to help someone else succeed—such a rewarding feeling! 

If you’re looking for more help getting started to leverage content creation into a profitable knowledge-based online business grab, my free guide, The 4-Step No Time to Waste Online Business Start Up Blueprint. 

This guide walks you through ALL the steps of starting an online knowledge-based business, from idea generation all the way through creating an offer and marketing it to your audience, so definitely check that out!