It’s only been a day! Don’t give up. Sometimes it takes a while to get things rolling.
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I have a few patrons in a similar position. I planned to email them and ask if they’d like the offer and if so, to send me their address.
Got one new one! Things are looking up!
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That is great news!
The New Thing: Sending the first ever Public Invitation to Patron Support request to two of the email lists (one video and one static) which often have the request at the end of the email.
So far, one day after launch, there has been no change: no new patrons no increases (OR decreases!).
I have had interaction, likes and comments on Social media channels, and a couple of email responses. I have several things queued up for the coming days…but I wonder about the tension between using different graphics (to catch the eye differently) and the same graphics (for branding)?
What do you think?
Steve
Same, Same! That inner dialogue can be a killer!
Steve
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We just launched yesterday (Tuesday) and have been amazed at the response so far. I honestly wasn’t sure we’d see much change but we have a lot of people who had been considering signing up finally take the plunge. We also offered rewards to existing patrons who upgraded their pledge for the $7 or $15 level and we’ve had lots of those, too.
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QUESTION: Is anyone else having lower-tier patrons hinting or outright asking about getting the Special Offer even though they’re not members at the reward tier? I’ve had it happen a few times and I’m not quite sure how to handle it.
I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as to say “Sorry, you’re not at $5 so buzz off” …I mean, someone who has contributed $3/post for 13 months has given me $70 and I see why they feel like that’s worth a pin. And honestly it’s worth a pin for me to keep them happy.
So the first person who asked just wrote and said he used to be at $5 but had to go down to $3 but wondered if he might be eligible for a pin anyhow. I said sure.
Then this afternoon I got two Twitter DMs from a patron, a few hours apart (I saw them at the same time). They read…
“Ohhh pins but I think I’m only at $3 level” - 5 pm
“hmm” - 7 pm
I haven’t responded, not sure what to say.
What would you do?
That’s a tough question @rebecca, and I don’t know that there’s really a right answer. If I were in that boat I think I’d go with one of two approaches:
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Give a pin to every patron who takes the effort to ask for a pin. (I’m not sure that the twitter DMs above count as asking really–what is the “hmm” supposed to mean? Complete sentences people! (a personal pet peeve of mine) I think I’d reply to that by inviting them to bump up to $5 for this month and then back to $3 after they claim the special offer).
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Make an exception for patrons who used to be at the $5 level but for no one else.
I always try to be uniform in applying rewards/gifts because although the chances of people finding out that person A got one thing and B another is slim, it would stink if it happened.
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Hey Steve,
I just noticed that your banner says it expires in 2016. Just wanted to point it out in case you hadn’t already caught the typo!
Nice banner, though!
Thanks! Somebody else caught that and I was able to fix and update it on my site.
I love this community of support and people who have each other’s back!
Steve
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UPDATE: 3 emails, and 1 Patron increased a pledge way beyond my special threshold and 1 NEW patron! Even better, these pledges pushed us past a MILESTONE GOAL!! WhoohoO!
Steve
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Great to hear about everyone’s updates!
I also had a low moment yesterday. The first day I had three new patrons, and yesterday I hardly had any engagement at all. Today I changed up a couple things that I wanted to share, just in case anyone else has a hard day too…
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Putting myself out there in this way is vulnerable. Doing a special offer is great marketing, and what I’m doing is choosing to believe that lots more people believe in me and my gifts to the world before there is “evidence” of that being true. So it serves me to have compassion for myself through the process as I go where I am going with the pace I am.
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Yesterday I was getting wrapped up in the outcome and the numbers that I want for this special offer. I can definitely have a goal, and I also made a new rule with myself that my campaign can be measured as successful as I choose easy and FUN. Genuine enthusiasm in my posts and genuine gratitude for every dollar will make this a successful campaign.
Thanks for letting me share my insights! Lots of support to you, creators!
Emily
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We are really behind. Haven’t launched the promo yet but have most everything in place to go. We are moving our existing chat room (hosted on Gitter) over to Discord, so a lot of my prep time has been taken up with finding out how to even use Discord, setting up a server and Patreon integrations. We’ve decided for our promo we will let lower tiers into a Patreon-only room (where we have set the level to $20 normally, we’ve lowered it to $5 for the promo). We’re hoping that’ll help us actually populate the room too, which is a bonus for us!
Today we will launch the promo which would mean running it behind everyone else, I assume we would still be able to run it for the two weeks?
When the promo is finished, we will treat everyone in our Patreon-only room to our first live stream which will be a Q&A style. Still ironing out how it will work, but we have some time for that 
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looks like things are going great!!
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i used this special offer as an excuse to revamp my offerings at a few levels, and i’m seeing moderate success! I’ve had 3 people sign up for my special offer, and I added a higher level pledge tier with some more physical goods and I’ve had 2 people increase their pledges (one was from 2 to 10 per episode, and the other was from 5$ to $10 per episode). And that’s just from promoting on my Patreon page and on social media. My latest episode of my podcast went out to the main feed this morning, so I’m hoping there will be another influx of folks from that. But even if not, its been pretty cool thus far
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You are so right about the consistent approach… I ended up telling that guy I’d send him one. He sent me another DM on Twitter alerting me to an issue with my Lens posts. I thanked him for the heads up, explained my predicament with the special offer pricing (had to make it $5 to cover costs but of course I want everyone to have one) and asked what he thought I should do. It was a little passive aggressive, but it was 5 am and I was at the airport and feeling a little punchy.
He wrote back “I’m not sure…but I know I want one.” So I asked his address and told him I’d send one and that I appreciate his support. So I guess the across-the-board policy is that I’m sending one to everyone who supports me at $5 or anyone at a lower tier who harangues me for one by September 30th? 
I don’t know. Money is weird.
How’s your campaign going?
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I’m curious about this as well. @laurab, is there a tool within the app to collect addresses from people who didn’t provide them in the initial sign up?
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I made my special offer available to all current patrons too. It was a calculated move that will see me outlay a lot more cash. The way I presented it is that anyone who’s been a patron at any level up until now will get one, and anyone who signs up at two dollars or higher in the future will get one. My thinking is this…
I don’t want to punish folks for joining my patreon early on. Like “if you would’ve waited to give me money, you would’ve gotten cooler stuff!” That doesn’t seem right. So I picked a reward I could give everyone. I’m doing a poster that’s pretty cheap to print and ship. The way I presented it is that anyone who’s been a patron at any level up until now will get one, and anyone who signs up at two dollars or higher in the future will get one. So its a lot of work upfront, but I’ve already gotten feedback from some long time patrons about how special it makes them feel to just be randomly given this thing with no warning to say thank you. So I made sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I’ll have like 115 or so posters to pack and ship. But I think the goodwill it earns among my existing patrons and the buy in from my new patrons is worth it.
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I’m up about $25 dollar per episode since launch. An extra hundred dollars a month. That’s freaking huge. I’m thinking about making this a once or twice a year thing
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I like the point about not punishing early supporters. The reward I picked (enamel pin) will cost about $6-7 per patron to fulfill, including shipping, and I don’t think I could easily swing that for all patrons (my monthly Patreon check would probably cover it but at this point I rely on that to cover some bills…)
…Maybe I could set a milestone goal like “once I get to 400 patrons, ALL patrons get a pin?” I don’t know, just brainstorming here. Something to think about. I definitely like your approach, it’s very loving and inclusive.
What I like about my approach is that I’ve had about a dozen patrons jump from the $1 tier to the $5 tier.
What I don’t like about my approach is that it feels miserly, and like I’m discounting the support of people who contribute $1 or $3 per month.
Food for thought…
Thanks for sharing 
xo
Becca
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