Creative Funding Show

In this episode, I do a crosscast with Richard Bliss from the Funding the Dream on Kickstarter Podcast. The episode will go out on both feeds and if you haven’t checked out his podcast, you really should. We talk about what it takes to lose your Patreon followers, how to get them back and a whole lot more. The post 028 Patreon vs Kickstarter (a Crosscast with Funding the Dream) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Jamie Jensen interviews the host on crowdfunding for creatives, discussing the impact of businesses, validating ideas, and common crowdfunding mistakes. They debunk misconceptions, emphasize pricing strategy, and explore using scheduling plugins for creatives. The episode dives into optimizing crowdfunding strategies, funding models for creatives, and the importance of community engagement in various creative industries.

Tom Boruta (Baruta) is a Software Engineer who created Graphtreon because he wanted to follow the progress of Patreon creators. Questions: For our listeners who did not listen to episode 4, what is Graphtreon? Why are analytics so important? What is new about the new system?   Links: Graphtreon The post 026 How to Get Advanced Patreon Analytics with Graphtreon appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Michelle Kopper has helped thousands of creatives, small business owners and entrepreneurs embrace self-promotion and selling as serving. Michelle’s combines her journey overcoming crippling stage fright, with her performance background and her ability to intuit aligned marketing language to help clients share their transformational message with full confidence. Questions: Why is fear such a challenge for so many creatives? Has fear kept you back as a creative? How did you overcome it? What advice do you have for creators when it comes to fear of criticism? Let’s talk about haters and trolls. What is a troll and how should creators handle them.   Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. About Michelle: Website: www.michellekopper.com   The post 025 Finding Your Courage and How to Handle Haters appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Stress and busy work are the biggest enemies of creative people. And today we have someone on the show to help solve that. Kim Sutton is the host of the Positive Productivity podcast, runs a team of 10 people and has 5 kids. So you can say she knows a thing or two about productivity. (Twitter handle, special requirements, etc.): https://twitter.com/thekimsutton?lang=en https://www.instagram.com/thekimsutton/?hl=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlyannesutton/ https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.anne.buckley Question: Let’s talk about Working with VA’s What is a virtual assistant? What are some tasks that VA’s can take off creator’s hands. Where can creators find good VAs? Upwork Virtual Assistant Jobs on Facebook Tips for working with a VA’s Mistakes creators make when working VA’s.   Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 024 How to Reduce Stress & Increase Creativity with Kim Sutton appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Certified Pricing Professional Janene Liston discusses the challenges of pricing products and services, emphasizing the fear of rejection and lack of pricing knowledge. She explores strategic pricing, reverse auction techniques, and value communication in sponsorship, highlighting the importance of accurate pricing for crowdfunding campaigns.

Why do people back crowdfunding campaigns and creators on sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Patreon? What makes them want to support creators they don’t know personally? Two words: social triggers. What is a social trigger? In marketing psychology, a social trigger influences a person’s behavior by indirectly creating a need. For example, if you are compelled to run to the store before their sale ends, you have been influenced by the social trigger of urgency. In this article, we’ll explore ways to use the social triggers of Urgency, Scarcity, and Popularity to influence people to support your crowdfunding campaign or your Patreon page. Social Trigger Trifecta: Black Friday When urgency, scarcity, and popularity work together, we get the Black Friday phenomenon. People stay up all night to be first in line. They elbow each other to grab a limited product, and the frenzied crowd rushing from the same item tells us the product is popular! Everyone wants one, or so it seems. We may not like the fact that we are so easily influenced on a subconscious level, but we can’t change it. Humans respond to social triggers. The only people who don’t are hyper-rational sociopaths, and they are not in the majority. Marketers must learn to dance with people the way they are, not how we wish they were.  To motivate people to back your campaign, you must understand what causes people to act and how you can use social triggers to propel them. Urgency Why is urgency important?  Creating a sense of urgency in your campaign is more important than ever. The modern education system trains us to wait until the last minute to act. For example, most people cram for a test the night before rather than the week before.  We are chronic procrastinators, and we don’t act without a deadline. That’s why Kickstarter and Indiegogo have built urgency into their platforms via the countdown clock. The countdown is a powerful motivator. Every second that ticks away brings users one moment closer to losing their opportunity to get rewards.  As a creator, you can make a big deal about the deadline. Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing approach is better in this regard. On Kickstarter, if your campaign is not completely funded by the deadline, not one backer is charged, and you will not receive a dime. It creates a greater sense of urgency for you and your potential backers.  For most people, there has to be “blood in the water.” Consumers must buy on Black Friday, or they’ll miss the sale.  Urgency doesn’t have to mean a lower price. Apple uses urgency even though they don’t discount their products. Users who want to be the first to own the latest iPhone rush to be first in line on the day it releases.  Strategies for Creating Urgency Reverse Coupon The reverse coupon offers a limited-time, low price that will increase at a certain point in the future. When I launched my course, The Five-Year Plan to Becoming a Bestselling Author, we priced it too low. We occasionally raise the price to remedy the problem, but we make a lot of noise about it before we do. We warn our subscribers, patrons, and listeners that the price will increase on a certain date. The only way to get it for a lower price is to buy it before the increase. The threat of missing out on the lower price provides urgency and causes people to purchase. Limited-Time Bonuses When Michael Hyatt launched his book Platform, he offered a bundle of related resources to everyone who bought the book within the first few weeks. His readers wanted to buy right away so they could get the extras he was offering. After the bonus buying window closed, readers could still purchase the book, but the bonuses were no longer available.  Limited Quantities People go crazy when they know only a certain number of products are available. Creators tend to want to offer unlimited quantities, so this method of creating urgency can be difficult, but it’s possible.  Free for a Limited Time You can offer your product or service for free for a limited time. Services like Kindle Unlimited allow authors to offer their ebooks for $0.00 for up to five days per year. The free offer increases your book’s visibility and drives other paying customers to your book even after the free promotion has ended. On Patreon, creating urgency is difficult because there is no ticking countdown clock. However, it can still be done. You can offer a limited reward that patrons can receive by a certain deadline you create. For example, you could say, “Patrons who join this month will have their names mentioned in my next video.” Authors might consider saying, “Anyone who becomes a patron by a certain date will have their names listed in the acknowledgments of my book.” Musicians might offer the same perk on an album. Our patrons get a discount whenever we offer a course at Novel Marketing. If you become a patron before you buy the course, you’ll get the discount. Ye Ol’ Invisible Sniper Trick Many of these techniques employ what I call Ye Ol’ Invisible Sniper Trick. The Invisible Sniper Trick came from old spy movies where the hero in control tells the criminal, “There’s a sniper behind that window with his gun trained on you. If you don’t comply, he’ll shoot.” The criminal can’t see the sniper, but the threat is enough to make the criminal comply. For creators, the tactic is a bit less threatening but still effective. The creator asks their patrons, backers, or subscribers to present their receipts as proof of purchase in order to redeem the bonuses. When Michael Hyatt launched his book Platform, he asked readers to email him their receipts within the first two weeks, and he would automatically email the bonuses in return. Neither Michael nor his team checked the emails for receipts, but the fact that they could have kept people honest.  Scarcity Scarcity creates value, and value is determined by supply and demand. To create scarcity, you must control the supply. Scarcity is a challenge with in digital products because they are ubiquitous. YouTube videos may have millions of views, and free ebooks may have millions of downloads. It’s hard to manufacture scarcity, but with a little creativity, it can be done. Limited Quantities Author Brandon Sanderson creates a set number of his special collector’s edition leatherbound hardbacks, and he prices them high. His fans have paid hundreds of dollars for a single book because they know that if they don’t get one now, they never will. His superfans are willing to pay a high price because the copies are scarce. If you sell merch, you can apply the same principle to your online store. You can print 1,000 shirts and let your followers know that when they’re gone, they’re gone. Limited quantities only work well with physical products since there is no good way to limit digital products.  Offer Signed Copies Authors can create scarcity by offering signed copies. Your ebook may be ubiquitous, but your signed print copies can be scarce. By creating scarcity and ubiquity for the same book, you can take advantage of both social triggers at once. You can only sign so many books, so signed copies demand a premium.  First 100 People  Offer a variety of bonuses, extras, or bundles to the first 100 people to email you their receipts or the first 100 people who become patrons. This strategy uses scarcity in that the spots are limited to 100. Since it’s a race to get the bonuses before other people beat you to them, urgency is also at work.  Limited Number of Tickets Consider limiting the number of tickets to your live launch party. Musicians who give live performances typically prefer to keep their tickets scarce, and scarcity is one reason ticket scalping is such a big business. Even if scalpers buy up tickets to resell, the musician still benefits because scalpers help their shows sell out.  Limit the Number of Backers for a Reward Level When you limit your reward levels to a certain number of backers, the rewards of that level seem scarce. After the limited reward level is sold out, some aspect of it is no longer available. At Novel Marketing, our highest patronage level is limited. Each of those patrons is featured on our show on a rotating basis. We limit the level so that we’re not reading patron book blurbs for 20 minutes of each episode. Limited Early Bird Levels A limited early-bird level on Kickstarter and Indiegogo is both scarce and urgent. It’s a powerful technique because it combines two social triggers. However, early-bird levels can be a drag on your campaign later on. As people compare current prices to the early-bird price, the current price will feel expensive and may prevent people from supporting your campaign.  Early-bird pricing can make sense if you’re uncertain your campaign will fund 100%. You can use an early-bird pricing level to quickly get your campaign 60% funded since most campaigns that reach 60% funding go on to be fully funded.  On the other hand, if you already have a large audience and your campaign is likely to sell out quickly, offering an early-bird level can backfire. Backers get annoyed when the early-bird level sells out in 30 minutes.  Limited Edition Book Cover James L. Rubart offered a limited-edition book cover for his book. The book wasn’t scarce, but the collector’s edition cover was.  Push for a Goal Some authors create scarcity and urgency by offering a collective challenge, such as, “If everyone buys my book during the first week, we can hit the bestseller list!” YouTubers might challenge their viewers to view the newest video within the first hour after it goes live so they can hit a trending list. Live Webinars with No Replay Whenever I present to live audiences, I’m often asked for a copy of my slides or a recording of my presentation. I like to save certain information for my live presentations, so I don’t often offer recordings of my live presentations. However, have offered free live webinars with an option to purchase the replay. I think there’s something special about attending an event live.  Amazon Selling Out If Amazon sells out of your book, it certainly creates a sense of scarcity for book buyers. However, it’s not a great strategy. When people are ready to buy, they don’t want to wait. If they have to wait for Amazon to restock, they are far less likely to return to your Amazon page days later to try again. Selling out on Amazon is fun, but it’s a major inconvenience for your readers. Popularity People like to do what they see other people doing. They want social proof that they are making the best and most popular choice.  Consider your own behavior. At an amusement park, do you want to ride the roller coaster with no line or the one packed with people? Do you want to vote for a third-party candidate who aligns with your values or the candidate with the best chance of winning? If one restaurant is packed and the one next door is like a ghost town, where are you more likely to eat? Some people are more influenced by popularity than others, but everyone takes popularity into consideration when making decisions. Popularity on Display Crowdfunding Sites Patreon, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo have popularity built into their platforms. Each one publicly displays the number of backers you have. While you can hide how much money you’re making on Patreon, you can’t hide how many backers you have. That’s by design. The more patrons you have, the more credibility you have, and credibility leads to more backers. To parody an oft-quoted saying by Jesus, “To him who has patrons, more patrons will be given. But to him who has no patrons, even the patrons he thinks he has…are really just his mom.” Videos and Podcasts YouTube displays each video’s popularity by showing how many times a video has been viewed. People prefer to watch videos with lots of views. Interestingly, podcast download counts are hidden. Only I know how popular the Novel Marketing podcast is. Podcast stats are not public nor transparent as they are on other platforms. Books Social proof is demonstrated in the author world when you see a “New York Times Bestselling Author” sticker on a book cover. People are more likely to buy a book with a bestseller sticker because the book is popular, and the sticker is social proof. When I’m shopping for a book on Amazon, I care far more about the number of reviews it has than the number of stars it has. I’d rather buy a product with 100 four-star reviews than 11 five-star reviews. I want to know the product is popular with more than five people. But you don’t need to be a New York Times bestselling author to leverage the social trigger of popularity. Here are some other ideas. Show off any category or genre bestseller statuses you’ve earned. Feature endorsements from popular, famous, or credible people. Mention other books you’ve sold. Show social proof on social media. Mention the number of books in print. Mention the number of languages/countries where the book has been sold. Talk about awards your books have won. Final Thoughts Back when people went crazy for Black Friday, the discounts were large and limited, creating a sense of urgency, scarcity, and a sense of popularity since everyone was doing it. Those were the days of people fighting and franticly scrambling to get into stores.  Now that Black Friday has moved online, it’s not as scarce and urgent as it used to be. Amazon offers lightning deals for a couple of hours with only 500 units available, which is clever. Their big data tells them exactly how many units to offer so that the products sell out, but not so quickly that customers get angry. Amazon also goes out of its way to talk about how popular Black Friday is. The media often says, “This is the biggest Black Friday ever!” It’s a bit of a cheat. If inflation continues at 2% each year, every Black Friday will be the “biggest Black Friday ever” because the media never adjusts for inflation. Still, the urgency, scarcity, and perceived popularity propagated by Amazon pull people away from brick-and-mortar stores. Moreover, retail stores offer less impressive deals than they used to. The TV advertised on Black Friday isn’t actually on sale. It’s a different and cheaper model with a lower list price. This practice undermines scarcity, urgency, and popularity, and the social triggers fall like dominos, one into the other. As a result, Black Friday isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be. Now that you know more about the psychology of marketing, you can dance with how people are and not how you want them to be. That is the path to success. Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.   The post 022 Crowdfunding Psychology appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Creating a solid sales page is the key to success. In this episode, you will discover the necessary secrets for: storytelling and the value of vulnerability and for crafting a sales page that sells. Introduction This is the meat and potatoes of your Kickstarter campaign. If you do your promotion right, people will spend hundreds of hours looking at this page. A good page not only convinces them to back the project, but also to invite their friends to back the project. Storytelling and the Value of Vulnerability You’re not crowdfunding a product, but a story. Frame the value of your potential product by telling a compelling story about WHY you are creating what you are creating and WHY it will make the world better. Make you laugh Educate you Entertain you… whatever. Be willing to be honest and vulnerable. You want your audience to RELATE to you. It’s ultimately NOT your story; it’s their story. Bring them into the story. Crafting a Crowdfunding Sales Page that $ells This is the heart of your campaign. The quality of your kickstarter page will be an amplifier on all your other  efforts. Elements of a sales page: Project Image The first thing people will see on Pinterest, Facebook & Google Plus Consider paying for a logo/cover before starting your Kickstarter campaign. 99 Designs or Fiverr is cash is tight. This will pay for itself. Project Title This is the only thing people will see in a Tweet. Think about SEO Provide a Clear Benefit Category Only get to pick one so pick a child category.  This should be pretty straight forward. If you are an author pick either fiction or nonfiction on Kickstarter Pick Writing on IndieGoGo Short Blurb This is the larger font text right under the video shown within Kickstarter. 135 Characters on Kickstarter 160 Characters on Indiegogo Funding Duration The benefit of short campaigns: Intensity, Faster money Less of the sagging middle. The benefit of long campaigns: More time to raise money. Time to make adjustments and make up for mistakes. Project Location Kickstarter will show people projects near them. If you don’t live in a big city select the nearest big city. Give the answer you would if you are in a conference in another state and someone asks where you are from. Page Copy Headings Headings Headings Zoomable Tell your story in images. You can change (improve) this as you go. FAQ Testimonials from others (Video). Your credibility. (Mary showed her books.) Other places on the web where you’ve discussed your topic. (Trust symbols) A gracious, thankful tone. Risks and Challenges: Spend some time thinking about this. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Common Risks & Challenges: Launching on time Going over budget Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 021 The Anatomy of a Successful Crowdfunding Page (Deep Dive) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Today we are going to talk about email. But first, I would like to say we are not going to have an episode next week. I will be at the New Media Summit all week and won’t have a chance to record an episode. Why Email is So Important for Creators Platform Independent, if YouTube or Facebook keeps you from contacting your subscribers you need a way to tell them you’ve moved to a new platform. While your fans may not see every Facebook post or YouTube notification they will get every email if you follow the advice I will give you in this episode. Email is often the primary driver of new Patrons and Backers. For my Kickstarter campaigns, it is not uncommon for 60-80% of the backers to come from email Before we talk about email, let’s talk about how to have an excellent email newsletter, but first let’s talk a bit about respect. Respect: Spam is in the eye of the beholder. Creepy / Charming (thin line in between) Permission Tip 1 Give People A Good Reason to Subscribe The initial incentive you give someone to subscriber to your email list is called a “lead magnet.” If you are a band, give a free mp3 of one of your songs. If you are an artist, give a free wallpaper. If you are an author, give a free short story. If you are a guru, give a tip sheet or a resource guide. How to Create a Lead Magnet Tip 2 Create an Onboarding Campaign The emails that automatically drip out to your subscribers is sometimes called a drip campaign. These emails are great for introducing new subscribers to you and your work. It allows you to focus on true fans in your periodic emails.   We having an example of this for authors at the Novel Marketing podcast. Tip 3 Provide Consistent Value. Only send out emails that your fans want to read. New Book Announcements Concert in Your Area (MailChimp makes this easy) Fan Art for Your Book New Video on Youtube (if you don’t post often) Tip 4 Use MailChimp at First It’s Free Everyone uses it so tutorials are easy to find Integrates with everything Has decent onboarding features I am an affiliate and have used MailChimp for over five years. If you want to support this show, use my affiliate link. Once you have over 10,000 subscribers, there may be reasons to move to something more powerful like Drip or Convert Kit. Tip 5 Be Consistent Don’t Boost Your Frequency Without a Good Reason Don’t go dark for too long or you will hit spam traps. Tip 6 Experiment Split Test Your Subjects Emotional Headline Analyzer Tip 7 Measure Your Results Read your email campaign reports Poll Your Readers. Ask them what they want. www.SurveyMonkey.com. Tip 8 Keep it Short and Simple. Beautiful emails are more likely to go to gmails “Promotions” tab Beautiful emails get fewer clicks Beautiful emails sell fewer products. Beautiful emails are more work to make. Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 020 What Creators Need to Know About Email Marketing (Deep Dive) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Welcome to the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love. I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr., your fellow companion on the journey of making money doing the creative work you love, whether that’s video, audio, or the written word. In this episode, we’re going to talk about how to break past the Patreon plateau. If you feel like your Patreon has stalled, where new backers are being offset by canceled pledges, this episode is for you. Patreon CEO Jack Conte recently shared research during a Hang Time session, and I was there. Today, I’ll share some highlights from that research and offer some of my own insights along the way. What was the research about? Patreon analyzed campaign data to determine what successful creators did to break past plateaus. This wasn’t a manual study; it was computer-driven data analysis. While that has its pros and cons, the findings were valuable, and I’m excited to share them with you. What strategies helped creators grow their Patreon? 1. Revamp your tiers and benefits. The number one factor linked to increased patronage was updating reward tiers. Many creators are hesitant to make changes, fearing backlash, but I’ve never seen evidence that people get upset when you adjust tiers. In fact, feedback shows the opposite. People like it when you change things up based on their input. There’s a saying in business, “The system you have is perfectly designed to give you the results you’re getting.” If your reward tiers aren’t attracting new patrons, they’re doing exactly what they were built to do: not attract new patrons. Keep in mind, improving your tiers doesn’t always mean adding more content. Sometimes it means removing perks that no one values. For example, on the Novel Marketing Patreon page, we offered access to a free monthly resource. It’s great for email list building, but our patrons didn’t care about it. Track what resonates. Remove what doesn’t. Remember that some people back you just to support your work. Others are only there for the rewards. 2. Use more locked posts. The second tactic that moved the needle was increasing the number of locked posts. Locked posts are posts that are only visible to paying patrons. They are highly motivating, especially to non-patrons or lower-tier patrons who feel like they’re missing out. Since hearing this advice, I’ve increased the number of locked posts I publish, and guess what? My patronage has gone up. You can also add teaser text to locked posts. This is visible to everyone and helps create curiosity. So if only $2-and-up patrons can access the post, use the teaser to show what they’re missing. 3. Offer limited-time promotions. The third strategy, which I’ve seen work in my own experience, is offering a limited-time deal. People procrastinate, and urgency helps take action. But to be effective, the offer must be authentic and not gimmicky. One great example Jack shared was from his wife, a musician. When she launched a solo album, she offered to include the names of anyone who became a patron before the end of the month in the CD booklet. This wasn’t a gimmick because the CDs were going to press, and the deadline was real. This type of offer creates urgency and relevance. You can use the same concept by saying, “Be featured in my next album, video, or book if you become a patron by [date].” We tried this on the Novel Marketing Patreon by offering a $50 discount on our Book Launch Blueprint course to patrons. That discount was only available for a limited time, and it worked. Patronage spiked. Most people signed up to get the discount, and we’ll see how many stick around. Even if some drop off, others are likely to upgrade from the $2 to the $5 tier, which is our sweet spot. 4. Personalize your appreciation. But how do you keep patrons? Retention is a big part of breaking past a plateau. If you gain five patrons but lose four each month, your growth is slow. What helps reduce attrition? Personalized thank-you messages. Using a patron’s name in a thank-you message significantly improves retention. I learned this when I interviewed Tom from Graphtreon. I backed his Patreon before our interview, and he sent me a personal thank-you message. I assumed it was because we were about to chat, but he told me he does that for everyone. Now, I do the same. Every person who backs the Creative Funding Show on Patreon gets a personal message from me. These messages are powerful, inexpensive, and they make people feel seen and appreciated. That emotional connection increases loyalty. It also opens up conversations that help me make the show better for my core supporters. The bonus is that gratitude is good for your health. Google it. There’s plenty of science to back that up. Saying thank you makes the world a better place. 5. Copy successful creators. Jack’s final piece of advice was to look at what fast-growing creators are doing, and copy them. It’s simple, but effective. That’s exactly what we do on the Creative Funding Show. We bring on creators at all stages so you can learn from what they’re doing and apply it to your own journey. The best way to learn is by backing 10 creators at $1 each. For just $10 a month, you can get a masterclass in Patreon strategy that no course can match. Watch what they do, see what works, and adapt it to your own campaign. By implementing these five principles, you can begin to move past your own Patreon plateau, gaining new patrons and retaining the ones you already have. 6. Poll your fans to understand what they really want. The sixth suggestion from Jack Conte was simply to poll your fans. I can tell you from experience, this is incredibly powerful. Polling our audience transformed the Novel Marketing podcast. You can learn more about it in this Novel Marketing episode. We had been podcasting for years. The show was good but not great. We had better equipment, tightened up the format, and gained experience, but we weren’t seeing the kind of growth or engagement we wanted. When I ended my radio show to focus more on Novel Marketing, one of the first things we did was send out a listener survey. That feedback was a game-changer. We had assumed our audience was evenly split between those pursuing traditional publishing and those going indie. It turns out, that assumption was completely wrong. Almost none of our listeners were pursuing traditional publishing or wanted to hear about agents and publishers. But about one in five episodes was devoted to that topic. Once we realized most of our audience members were independent authors, we shifted our focus to speak directly to them. Traditional authors still listen, and they’re welcome, but we made indie authors our priority. That shift in focus caused engagement to skyrocket. It led to the energy and momentum that eventually launched our Patreon page. If you run an educational podcast or YouTube channel, don’t just ask your audience what they want. Ask them what annoys them. What are their pain points? In the Novel Marketing drip sequence, we have an email that invites readers to share their pet peeves. We want them to vent because, as Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” People may not always know what they want, but they do know what’s frustrating them. As creators, we can offer solutions to those frustrations. That’s where real value is found. 7. Hold a promotional push or pledge drive. The seventh idea isn’t something Jack Conte mentioned, but it’s vital. It wasn’t part of Patreon’s research due to the limitations of their data-gathering method, but it deserves to be included in any conversation about breaking through a plateau. If someone asked me how to grow their Patreon, I would tell them to run a pledge drive. A limited-time promotional push is incredibly effective, especially when combined with urgency, scarcity, and revamped rewards. And changing your tiers gives you a natural excuse to talk about your Patreon again. If you change your rewards, you need to let people know. It’s only fair. Don’t wait until someone finds out they didn’t get what they expected. Use your podcast, email list, or social media to communicate the changes. This also helps you launch a pledge drive naturally and organically. That’s exactly what Jack Conte’s wife did with her album campaign. She had daily tweets, images, and a clear message that said, “This is your last chance to get your name in the album.” It worked like a pledge drive. A focused, time-limited campaign is far more effective than a low-level push stretched across three months. In fact, it can be more effective to use a full year’s worth of promotional energy in just one month. Public radio does this. Many nonprofits do it because it works. Related Episodes How to Get Advanced Patreon Analytics with Graphtreon How to Create Urgency to Buy Your Book (Marketing Psychology) How to Use Scarcity & Ubiquity to Make Your Book Irresistible (Marketing Psychology)     We have a YouTube Channel! Thanks to repurpose.io (affiliate link) for helping make the videos.  If you want me to review your Patreon or Kickstarter live on the show, drop me a line. Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 019 How to Break Past the Patreon Patron Plateau appeared first on Creative Funding Show.