Growth for Filmmakers?

Find Creators Video & YouTube
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Hi folks,

I’ve been on Patreon for just over two years now, and still have yet to hit full sponsorship at my first tier.

I’m an actor and filmmaker out of Toronto, ON - a lot of the content I’m working on creating is larger-scale and takes months/years to create, so I’m not churning out a ton of content regularly. I do tend to post 4-5 times a month (at least) and have different tiers set up for different support levels. I’ve thought about trying to ‘do more’ lower-budget/fast turnaround stuff to put on Youtube, but I also don’t want to just be making random work for the sake of being busy.

My Patreon’s at https://www.patreon.com/EmilySchooley - I would love any feedback or suggestions for how I could make things better, and hopefully get more people interested in supporting my work.

Thanks in advance!

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Hi Emily - I’m on the Creator Success team at Patreon. It can be challenging to translate the extended video projects you work on into the right set of benefits to convert your fans into patrons. A few overall suggestions:

  • Focus on what unique content you can regularly share from behind the scenes of the projects you are working on. It could be a video diary from the set, insights into what goes into the production side of movie making, or snippets and commentary about parts of the script
  • Your $10 tier has a good foundation for that content & access you can provide to your supporters. Having two tiers below that, and four tiers above it can actually make it tougher for your fans to figure out the best tier to join. I’d recommend doing just a single cheaper tier that is mostly about general support for you as a creator, and then one or two higher price tiers where you create something customized for the patron
  • Finally, building your fan base and driving traffic to your page is key. Engaging with and growing your social presence is key as a starting point for Patreon. Usually only a few % points of your fan base are the super fans that will become your paying members. And remember that what you post on social only reaching a portion of your audience, so continue finding ways to consistently talk about Patreon, what your patrons mean to you, and what you’re offering them

Good luck!

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Thanks! Any tips on how to encourage Patrons to switch their support to, say, $3 when they’re at the $1 tier?

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Hi Emily,

It’s tricky offering both a $1 and $3 tier. We recognize that having a $1 tier is a priority for some creators and their communities for maximum accessibility. But we recommend starting your tiers at $3 or higher as the conversion rate from fans to patrons at $1/$2/$3 is pretty similar, and payment processing fees take a much bigger chunk out of $1 pledges.

If you are interested in learning more about retiring a tier, check out this help center article: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027992451-5-Simple-Steps-to-Delete-and-Reprice-Your-Tiers

If you want to keep both, the key will be having unique benefits that your fans value at the $3 level, and making sure to talk about them with your public community. e.g. telling people that you’re about to share something with just your patrons, or sharing a sample photo, or talking about some of the meaningful interactions you have with your patrons.