These Are The Secrets To Having A Money-Making YouTube Car Channel

7 years, 10 months ago - 16 May 2016, Carbuzz
These Are The Secrets To Having A Money-Making YouTube Car Channel
The task is hard, but not impossible.

Car-based YouTube channels are constantly sprouting up. There are bloggers like Shmee150, reviewers like ThatDudeInBlue, and juggernauts like Top Gear and now, The Grand Tour. In the highly competitive world of YouTube, how can you possibly compete with the well established channels? Enter Jumpcut Academy, an online program that helps people start their own YouTube channel. They give out tons of advice that is applicable to all types of YouTube channels, but cars are a little bit different. Still, there are some tips that can help.

Car videos are very informational. When you review a car, you have to tell people the 0-100 time, the top speed, miles-per-gallon, and that's before you even get to your opinions. That is why car videos are a little bit tricky. On YouTube, Jumpcut recommends that you stick to a certain formula to create "infotainment." Based on the most successful channels, the recommended formula for a video is 20% information and 80% entertainment. This makes it pretty difficult for car channels. When your subject matter is comedy, it isn't that hard to break a viral video while spending a small amount of money. In order to make an impressive car video, you'd need a six-figure supercar and access to a race track!

Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to drive a McLaren and and have a billionaire dad with a race track in his back yard. Take someone like Salomondrin for example. His Hyper 5 video may be the closest thing to Top Gear that we have ever seen from one person, but his investment in those videos is very large. He even purchased a McLaren 675 LT for an upcoming video, which he intends to get rid of as soon as the video is over. 99.9% of us are not like Salomondrin, so what hope is there for normal people who want to start YouTube channels about cars? Well, we hate to break it to you, but an automotive YouTube channel has many barriers to entry.

Content is the most important thing on YouTube. This doesn't mean that your production value needs to be at a Top Gear-level. In fact, the editing is far less important than the actual content. However, with car videos, the actual car is going to be the content. This means that unless you have a really nice car, or access to really nice cars, you are probably out of luck. Unless you can find a way to make YOU interesting. Look at all of these car YouTube channels. Do you come back to a certain channel because of the cars that are featured, or because you like the host? If you can find a way to be entertaining, people will come back.

It doesn't matter if you don't have a $1,000 camera and professional editing software. If you can find a way to turn your passion, in our case cars, into something that people find entertaining, then you can be successful. You don't need millions of subscribers to make money on YouTube. YouTubers only really make about $1 per 1,000 views. Don't be discouraged if your videos start off with less than a dozen views. You may start to think that there is no way you can compete with guys that own Ferraris, but perhaps you can find a way to make not owning a Ferrari an advantage! As long as you enjoy what you are doing it won't feel like work and you will eventually grow.

Like we said before, views are not the most important thing. Even if you only have 10,000 subscribers, you can still make $5,000 per month. With sponsors and crowd sourcing, if you are popular enough, you can learn to monetize your videos without having a crazy number of subscribers. That is what makes people like Shmee150 so successful. It is not always just about how many people watch their videos, it is about how you learn to monetize yourself. Unfortunately with cars, having some money in the bank does give you a huge head start. It is easier to get home when you are starting on third base. Just give it a shot, you never know what could happen!