Successful content creation isn’t just about making money from every new video. In fact, the most successful content creators continue to make money from past videos and other ventures. This revenue is called passive income because, while you’re not actively working on that project, it’s still earning you money.

Here’s how to generate passive income from your YouTube channel.

Ask sponsors for affiliate links.

Whenever you do a sponsorship, ask the company you’re working with for an affiliate link you can use to continue to promote their products. You can list these links in every video description. Every time a viewer clicks on it and makes a purchase, a bit of that money will go to you.

The Amazon Influencer program makes it easy for content creators to generate affiliate links for virtually any products they recommend. All you have to do is create an account, add products to your storefront, and share the link with your followers. Find out how to join the Amazon Influencer Program in this post.

Ensure all of your older videos are monetized.

Most of your YouTube-based income will come via ad revenue through your monetized videos. However, if you have videos uploaded from before you monetized your channel, then you may be missing out on possible ad revenue.

To monetize videos you’ve already uploaded, go to your Video Manager. Then, select the video you want to monetize and either click “Monetization” for YouTube Studio Beta or the dollar sign for Creator Studio Classic. From there, choose the types of ads you want to run and save your selections.

Categorize your videos into playlists.

Once you’ve ensured all of your older videos are monetized, you should start promoting them again. Playlists make it easy to promote old videos. All you have to do is organize your videos into playlists and link them to your new video descriptions.

You can make playlists by video series, genre, collabs, etc. If you have several older videos that are similar to your new one, put them all in a playlist and link them at the top of your new video’s description.

Discount old merchandise.

To generate more income from your online shop without releasing new merch, simply put your older merch on sale. Share the sale dates or coupon code with your followers so that they know to get to before it’s gone.

In order to get more of your fans to buy the things that are on sale, set a time limit for it. For example, you may put all of your older merch on sale for a week only and then reserve what’s left for future giveaways.

You can also add a “mystery shirt” or a similar listing to your online shop. When fans purchase the mystery item, they’ll receive a surprise piece of older merchandise.

Set up channel memberships.

Finally, if you have at least 30,000 subscribers, then you can increase your passive income by turning on channel memberships. This Patreon-like feature enables subscribers to support your channel for a certain amount each month in return for exclusive digital rewards.

Maintaining your channel memberships requires minimal effort once you’ve already shared the digital rewards. However, by staying more involved with your channel members, you can encourage more subscribers to join. 

A truly successful content creator knows how to keep making money from past projects. Use affiliate links, playlists, and merch sales to generate more passive income from your channel.