Taking the "Tier Redesign" Plunge

[SethRing]

I started my Patreon page back in September of 2018 and have had pretty good success with it. However, as I hit my 5th month, I found myself on the dreaded plateau. No growth for the last two months. I’ve gotten a few new patrons but they have been offset by existing patrons leaving. Thankfully, one of the focuses from the patreon team over the last month has been this issue and I feel like I am on the cusp of understanding what I need to do in order to inflect and increase my patron count.

To that end, I am taking the following steps:

1. Redesigning my pledge tiers - Most of the advice points to this as the driver for pledge growth so I am going to give it a go.
2. Running a special event - I’m giving away a physical product for the first time in ever, but only for a limited time.
3. Social Media Push - I’m going to try to set up a solid posting schedule with planned posts to drive traffic to my Patreon.

This is where I’d love some feedback and advice. Do you have any go-to tricks for increasing the number of eyes that see your Patreon? Are there services you could recommend that will help with getting my name out there, or maybe increasing the reach of my social media posts?

Is there a reciprocal sharing group for Patreon creators? If not, can we start one?

[laurab]

Awesome @SethRing! I know you want to hear from creators, but I also wanted to join the convo.

Congrats on the redesign- simplifying tiers, adding bullet points, and clarifying pledge levels can definitely lead to a nice bump in earnings, as can a Special Offer.

What merch are you thinking about offering? I’d make sure to consider price of shipping when you choose the cost, and maybe only offer for domestic patrons? Maybe you could do a digital downloadable something for international folks.

Regarding the social media push, we do have a livestream tomorrow about running FB and Instagram ads. I’m not sure if you want to be spending any money, but since the timing is what it is, I thought I’d share. Here’s the link: www.patreonworkshops.com The talk is led by Suzanne Yada, you’ll see it toward the bottom of the page.

In general, with a social media push (the free version), using bright images, maybe going live and chatting with patrons, and putting out fun, engaging content with a clear Call to Action is effective. Talk about the benefit itself, run a countdown as you start approaching the last week. Share patron testimonials and thank your patrons as you go.

We have a bunch more information in your handbook, as well as links to case studies and examples, which you can find in the offers tab, and have livestreams each month. I think we also have one tomorrow

Hope this is helpful!

[SethRing]

Thanks @laurab, those are some really good considerations. I didn’t even think about international shipping.

I’m certainly not averse to spending money on advertising and I don’t feel confident about social ads so I will check out the livestream.

[IngridKVHardy]

As someone who ships artwork all over the place, all the time, taking shipping time and costs are definitely something you want to consider. The time it takes to prepare whatever it is you need to ship, how you want/need to ship it (and know there is always a risk it arrives to its destination damaged or not at all… rare, but it happens), and shipping prices vary greatly depending on where it’s going.

But after that, all is good!

[lrhall]

I used to do 10-day challenges once every three months the first year I was building my community on Patreon. I’d invite people to join my community by a certain deadline, then each day for 10 consecutive days, I’d post one action that patrons needed to take.

The last time I did a challenge in November 2018, I attracted 238 new patrons, bringing my patron numbers up to 823. Ninety days later, I’d say that I lost around half those new patrons. I’m not entirely sure if the ones who left were part of the 238 who joined back in November, but between the decline in credit cards and patrons who voluntarily leave the community, my numbers have dropped to 750-780 patrons bringing in just a smidgen over $5K per month.

I’m in a plateau right now, but my community will be celebrating a milestone in June 2019. I have 2 new books coming out, one that will only be for patrons, so I may use the special offer to drive my numbers up.

[SethRing]

@lrhall

That is a really cool idea. Can you share some examples of actions that you would have your patrons take?

Did the new patrons come from sharing on social media? And did you have to incentive participation?

[lrhall]

Happy to share more.

My writings centre on helping highly sensitive introverts unpack their unconscious biases. Part of unpacking unconscious biases is to recognize how our biases are hardcoded in our brains in the first place. One source is our families and the beliefs they’ve passed on.

So, in Spring 2018, I launched a 10-day challenge called Decolonize Your Ancestry. Many of my patrons did their DNA tests, got the results, and had no clue what to do next besides declaring their dominant ancestry on their social media profiles.

So, I shared the invitation to join the challenge through Facebook and Instagram, told them when the challenge would start, and people started to join my community. Then, we got started with the first action on Day 1. In one of the daily actions, I had patrons research the mythologies their ancestors once practiced. I gave them tips from my social history background on the best way to research that info. Then, they had to report what they found. If you click on the link above, you’ll see some of the other actions I had patrons perform over the 10-days. At least you’ll see the title of each action, but you won’t see the details within the post. I grabbed a screenshot of the actions for Day 5.

On the final day, the 10th day, we met over Zoom and had a celebration. It was in that virtual gathering that I shared my long term goals. I reminded them that although they joined to enjoy the 10-day challenge, my long-term plans is to film a documentary. They may come for the challenge, but I want them to understand that their continued patronage helps me reach a bigger goal.

I didn’t buy ads on Facebook or Instagram. I’ve been fortunate to have a few pieces of my writings go viral. When I launched the Decolonize Your Ancestry 10-day challenge, it was a few hours after a post I wrote went viral on Facebook (it was shared thousands of times). If memory serves me correct, I had written about why we can’t claim to be Indigenous just because the DNA results show 1% or 2% Indigenous ancestry. After seeing how many times my posts was shared, I quickly put together the challenge, then posted it thru my social media profiles.

[lrhall]

Just to echo what @laurab posted, I did LIVES first on Facebook, then on Instagram as a way to source new patrons.

I stopped doing LIVES on Facebook because FB throttles viewers the longer one hosts LIVES. For example, the first LIVE I did on Facebook, I had thousands of viewers. By the time I did my last LIVE on Facbook four weeks later, I was down to just a few dozen views.

I get why Facebook does that - it’s to show the potential reach IF and only IF one wants to pay for ads to move from dozens of views back to thousands of views.

I then moved over to Instagram exclusively and have found that the viewership for my LIVES are more consistent. When I was hosting them weekly, I’d get around 80-100 viewers. And every time I did a LIVE on Instagram, I attracted between 12-20 new patrons. Yes, every time I did a LIVE.

My process?

1. The LIVES were hosted 4pm Eastern every Thursday. So, on Wednesday morning, I’d post the topic of the LIVE as a post and asked people to invite their friends by tagging them in the comments.

2. Then, on Thursday morning, I posted a short video in my STORIES to remind people to join me.

3. Then, I did the LIVE at 4pm on Thursday.

4. And then, I took a clip from the video and posted it to my newsfeed to invite people to watch before the video went away in 24-hours.

I don’t do the LIVES on Instagram anymore because I found that I was spending more time prepping content for the LIVES than on focusing on the reason my patrons invest in me - to film the documentary and to write prompts to help them unpack their unconscious biases. But it can be a good strategy to attract new patrons.

(and I put the word LIVE in all caps to remind myself that I’m talking about a social media feature and not the feeling of vitality)

[SethRing]

@lrhall, first, your content sounds really interesting and valuable. Second, thanks for taking the time to share. It is helpful to hear concrete examples of a successful creator’s process. I will certainly be incorporating some of your strategies and tactics into how I approach increasing my subscriber base.

If you don’t mind me asking, how big was your social reach (follower on Instagram, friends on FB, etc…) when you started LIVES?

[laurab]

Hey @lrhall! Thank you for sharing your insights about LIVEs - its hard to keep up with and that is really valuable for me to know and look into.

Love this breakdown of your process, thank you so much!!

[lrhall]

Yeah, my content is unique. Writing prompts to help unpack unconscious biases for those who consider themselves highly sensitive and introverted. Who knew I’d get paid to create meaningful questions? I pinch myself at least once a month because Patreon has made this possible.

Anywho, I’m not sure about my Facebook numbers as I deactivated my account in August 2018. I believe I had 1500 friends, and I don’t think my follower count was any higher.

As for Instagram, I started using it more actively in March 2018 (if not a month earlier). I had a profile on Instagram since 2014, so I had around a 3,000 followers. I started doing the LIVES weekly starting in August 2018. I think doing the LIVES really helped because I climbed over 10K followers in January 2019 - organically and using NO paid ads.

[kayla]

What an incredibly cool event!