👋 Request for creator feedback on an upcoming launch: Tiers with itemized benefits + Fulfillment Mgr!

[artbyemilyhare]

I at the moment use airtable.com where i uploaded my csv file and i add and remove patrons manually on there to keep track - I can use lots of tools on there to be able to tell me if i’ve sent something yet or not. It would be great to have something like that for organising patrons and rewards each month so I can check a box or something next to the patron when I’ve sent their reward that month. Now that I’m getting more patrons it is starting to be quite a task and currently takes me two days to fulfil the rewards (14 mini paintings and then packing them all up and so on). If I could change my tiers again I’d be making the current tier a lot more expensive, but at the moment it’s doable and I can maybe change it at a later date when my patreon page has more patrons - at the moment if I was to lose my 14 x $30 tier I would be very deeply out of pocket per month!

Also, just to say, please can you make it possible to search for creators easier via patreon… still no way of doing that and you still only seem to show the top earning patrons, it needs to be more varied IMO.

[joumana]

I will try it when I can, but just wanted to say: relying on the plugin for features like the one I suggested is not a good idea. Not everyone has or wants a wordpress site, and most patrons don’t want to be jumping from one place to the other. Our profile page on patreon.com itself should be completely centralized and autonomous by default, with only optional outsourcing to other sites. I happen to want to centralize things on my own website if I can, but that should not be Patreon’s calculation.

[Temrin]

What do you offer to patrons that requires tracking?

• Different custom content to various tiers
• Bundles of art at months end. (used to do different bundles for different tiers but have since made it just one for tiers above X amount because managing this was a pain.) I send these out via DM, through dropbox links to help cut down on people stealing my content. It works but DMing and keeping track of DM’s in the current system is just really sad.
• Name in credits of patreon work for people with certain tiers.

What is the process that you use to make sure your patrons get what you’ve offered?

• I used to use Patreon’s back-end patreon manager to check off people when they were done but there was always glitches and i cannot do it when i’m mobile so it became a need to be able to find an alternative i could control from anywhere, right when i needed to do it. So i turned to Trello.
  *I currently use Trello to track what i need to complete for the month, what polls i need to post, etc. I also give this to my patrons and non-patreon clients in general so they can see what I’m up to and what stage things are at. I like having it all out in the open as I have it because its useful for myself and my clients to have all of my work lists in one place. It’s also accessible wherever i have my phone so i dont have to try to remember to update something when i’m on my desktop later.
• I also have some formatting, important links and credit lists in documents in a dropbox that i can access from anywhere for posting items that require posting patron names/thank yous, as per some tier rewards. It would be great to have a place to put all this stuff on patreon, or have a prompt for patrons to put in these items when their payment goes through, but only if mobile patreon actually gets close to mimicking the desktop version someday. Otherwise I’ll have the same issues as above and not being able to access it right when i need it.

How well (or alternatively, poorly) does this process work for you?

• It’s all over the place, but since i manage a small pool of patrons currently it’s not so bad. When i managed two different projects it was a royal pain in the butt to manage and not get two projects confused, especially when there were some of the same people on both. This is also where Trello comes in handy as i can separate all of my projects into their own cards and with visuals it’s much easier to keep track of. (and give myself due dates that will alert my phone if needed!)

How do you think about pricing your tiers in order to make the process worth it to you?

• This is always in flux. It’s a mix between making sure you are covering costs to produce something but also making it reasonable and attractive to your audience. Audiences always change and so does the economy.

If you could wave a magic wand and get any feature built for you to help make this easier to do, what would you wish for?

• Have people blocked from viewing patreon only content until they’ve actually paid would make my life so much easier and less time consuming. (I cannot use the pay up front feature because it can screw myself and my patrons over. So it’s not an option for me until it gets fixed.)
• A better note system and maybe some features for current patron messaging, like uploading files to them, that they can return to and access later on if they loose it or something.
• Ability to automatically notify a patron either in a blog post or in a back end system, to update them on the progress of their stuff. (And this should be something that the creator can determine. Like a checklist of sorts that we can create for each thing for a specific patron. As much as i like using Trello, a lot of my clients forget it’s there even when i link it all over. Having a notification IN patreon would be great. In some cases it might be a shipped product, where the checklist might be “order item, package, ship, confirm received” and in some cases it might be custom art so the list might look something like “Get description from client, sketch, get sketch approval, ink, get ink approval, complete, confirm received” or something. This way its in the site, the person could get an email notification WITH the image upload if applicable, and have options to notify the creator that it’s been read and approved right in the email. It could even show up in the header that tells them how much they are pledging. Like “Their tier reward name + cost of tier” “Reward Status” etc.
• Being able to organize and search within PM’s better. For instance, being able to split up notes that happen within a pay period/month, or to set a note up with a tag. Otherwise it gets incredibly difficult to even find anything in Patreon PMs. I now send all of my commission tiers ONE general note to get their information to try to keep it all in one thread because otherwise the PM system is pointless to use (but if i didn’t use it, I’d be getting descriptions through email, telegram, twitter, etc because it’s so hard to get people to conform to one thing.) Also having the Dates the notes were originally sent be a sorting option and not whatever the most recent reply was. This screws up trying to view something from a specific pay period (like commission descriptions)
• I also agree with Joumana on wanting to be able to easily deliver discount codes. I give these out via PM but a back end option to just, update a code and it shows up in that heading that shows the person how much they are pledging to the creator and also listed in the back end where it shows who you are supporting would be amazing. Also including discord server links and other such things as well so they don’t have to search all over for this stuff. Again, the PM system is a hassle and if i posted them in the blog, I’d have to deal with bots/skimmers reposing those codes to dumb sites that steal content. (and the chance that people will just downright miss it because of the point Joumana made about emails just sitting and being forgotten. I do this -all- the time.)

[neil]

What do you offer to patrons that requires tracking?

Ebooks, printed magazines, and names/amounts for tiered (on total) for a supporters list that ends up in a book.

What is the process that you use to make sure your patrons get what you’ve offered?

I download the Patron list at the start of the month and dump it in a spreadsheet, which is updated every few days through the month. I have software I host on my site that allows me to share the ebooks. I add access through a script that processes a CSV file. I do it this way to make sure people get only the rewards for the months that they have been supporting. Print editions are turned to a csv we use with stamps.com for postage. (We’re in a BETA for something different with the Print edition this month.)

How well (or alternatively, poorly) does this process work for you?

It’s tedious and not a great use of my time, but necessary to get things the way I want them.

How do you think about pricing your tiers in order to make the process worth it to you?

I try to factor my time into the equation, but some things, like the ebooks, have a fixed price that must be the same as it is via Amazon or B&N subscriptions.

If you could wave a magic wand and get any feature built for you to help make this easier to do, what would you wish for?

I would like there to be a way to share files to various reward tiers that is restricted to the month’s they’ve been a supporter for. (Sign up in April, you don’t get access to the March and earlier rewards, just April’s.) We use pay in advance, so once payment is processed, they should automatically get access to that month’s files when payment clears.

[tsepish]

What do you offer to patrons that requires tracking?

I primarily use Patreon to send out physical rewards each month, and I have 4 tiers with reward levels. 1 digital tier, and 3 tiers where I send out things like prints of my artwork and an enamel pin of the month club type deal.

What is the process that you use to make sure your patrons get what you’ve offered?

Currently, I import the .csv files at the end of the month into my stamps.com software and print out postage there. I mark each tier as complete except the group I want to print postage for, download the CSV for just that group, and print. I have to keep going back and forth marking each group complete/undoing until I have each group in a separate CSV file. (Each group has different postage costs, otherwise I’d just lump them all together.)

How well (or alternatively, poorly) does this process work for you?

It works fairly well, but it takes a bit more of my time than I’d like. Previously I would keep separate contact list in my shipping software and update it manually with each new patron that joined/left. Recently my page has grown and its become a bit harder to manage that way. I also realized that when patrons updated their addresses, I wasn’t able to see that easily without sorting through the list every month, so I had to change the way I did things.

How do you think about pricing your tiers in order to make the process worth it to you?

I generally factor in my base cost of items, patreon fees and shipping cost. I try to keep the tiers at an attractive price for my patrons while still earning a decent profit.

If you could wave a magic wand and get any feature built for you to help make this easier to do, what would you wish for?

• Auto create postage labels directly from Patreon without having to import csv files to another service.
• (echoing posts above) Create a “sticky” or pinned post per tier where I can link important things like discount codes or digital files.
• Would love a notification of a lifetime support amount being reached, as I love gifting patrons little extras when they meet a milestone.

[hackettkate]

What do you offer to patrons that requires tracking?

Literally every perk requires something. A monthly update, audition videos, access to my private twitter and instagram, group hangouts, mailing postcards, mailing photos, beta testing videos, individual hangouts, digital scrapbooks.

What is the process that you use to make sure your patrons get what you’ve offered?

99% of them don’t care, so I don’t run myself ragged, but every month I go through and do all the things. As people register, I deliver them the instant or one off things.

How well (or alternatively, poorly) does this process work for you?

The digital scrapbook tends to be a shitload of work that gets forgotten about. Everything else takes some time, but it gets done.

How do you think about pricing your tiers in order to make the process worth it to you?

The more work I have to do, the more I have to be making. I’m not sure I’ve found the golden ticket here, but if something is individual or special, it costs much more than just twitter access.

If you could wave a magic wand and get any feature built for you to help make this easier to do, what would you wish for?

I wish Patreon could compile everything FOR me, esp. for those scrapbooks.

[buster]

That totally makes sense. I didn’t want to suggest that this was something everyone should do, but if anyone wanted to do it, there should be clear steps on how to do it. It’s all about options and flexibility, since no two creator businesses are alike.

[buster]

Thank you so much Temrin for typing this out. There is so much great feedback in there. Would you be interested in trying out our new “fulfillment manager” feature that helps you track when new patrons pay for the first time? If for no other reason it might help you remember when to add someone to Trello and/or send them a message. I really like the Trello flow too, especially how you open that up to patrons so they have visibility into all of that. That’s great.

One other thought: have you considered linking directly from your Tier descriptions to a locked post that points to the Trello board? That way patrons would always know how to get back to Trello, and people who hadn’t yet become patrons would be able to see that there’s locked stuff that they would get access to once they signed up?

I also hear you on the last point about the work needed to manage discount codes. Generating those codes and putting them somewhere that patrons can easily find them again seems very important, and is something we’ll continue thinking about and trying to solve for.

[buster]

Thank you for your feedback, Neil! Did you write the software/scripts for the ebook stuff? I’d love to hear a bit more about exactly how it works and whether it’s something we could make more generic and offer to creators, or if it’s very custom to your specific workflow.

I would like there to be a way to share files to various reward tiers that is restricted to the month’s they’ve been a supporter for. (Sign up in April, you don’t get access to the March and earlier rewards, just April’s.) We use pay in advance, so once payment is processed, they should automatically get access to that month’s files when payment clears.

We definitely hear this a lot and think it’s something we should support. How flexible are you with how this is implemented? I could imagine using, say, the Wordpress plugin to implement this if you were okay with sending people to a companion site to retrieve their rewards. Ideally it will be solved in the product, but if you want to explore work-arounds now I’d be happy to work with you to give you some ideas and see if any are interesting to you.

[buster]

Thank you for this feedback, tsepish! That does seem like a lot of work. I’m curious to learn more about what kinds of groups you’re referring to… is that by tier or by some other factor (like location)?

Auto create postage labels directly from Patreon without having to import csv files to another service.

That’s an interesting idea. I’ll pass this on to the team that is thinking about this workflow to make sure they take it into account.

(echoing posts above) Create a “sticky” or pinned post per tier where I can link important things like discount codes or digital files.

Have you considered creating a new “locked post” for each tier and linking to it directly from your tier descriptions? The would make it easy for patrons to find, and also show prospective patrons that there’s some good locked stuff to receive as soon as they became patrons.

Would love a notification of a lifetime support amount being reached, as I love gifting patrons little extras when they meet a milestone.

I love this idea. You are aware of the fact that we include “Lifetime $” in the CSV that you download from the relationship manager, correct? But the added ability to get a notification when people passed a certain threshold is something we’re seriously considering to add to our “fulfillment manager” product once it is launched.

If you’d like to dive in any deeper on any of those thoughts, let me know! I’m very interested in finding ways to help you save some more time here.

[buster]

Thank you, Kate! Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Are you interested in testing out our early “fulfillment manager” feature to help track all of this? We’re looking for early testers willing to give feedback but I think you’re doing so much stuff here that it would end up saving you a lot of time.

I wish Patreon could compile everything FOR me, esp. for those scrapbooks.

This is what I’m most interested in learning more about. What would “compiling everything for you” be, in an ideal world?

[hackettkate]

Absolutely!

As far as compiling, I would love for Patreon to simply follow me around all day and know all of the things I do for “the biz” at all times forever.

…

Barring that…

Any kind of plugin or crawl for anything I post for Patrons above X level would be amazing. It’s probably super hard to do since we’re across 890823094834 platforms (I tried making Patreon my “center hub” last month, to mixed success).

[buster]

While I’d love to offer a personal shadow assistant for every creator, I’m afraid we’re not yet quite big enough to make that scale. I’ll follow up in a message to get you added to the alpha though, and might also be able to brainstorm some creative solutions that build off of what you’ve learned from your awesome experiments.

[hackettkate]

Great! Thanks!

(I’ll be RIGHT HERE when you’re ready to alpha test a personal Patreon shadow minion.)

[neil]

Did you write the software/scripts for the ebook stuff? I’d love to hear a bit more about exactly how it works and whether it’s something we could make more generic and offer to creators, or if it’s very custom to your specific workflow.

My approach with something like this is to find open source software (ProjectSend) and modify it to suit my needs. No sense in reinventing the wheel. At the moment, it is tailored to what I do, but I could see reworking it to be more generic and use the APIs for account management. (They weren’t available when I set this up.) Time has been the big issue.

How flexible are you with how this is implemented?

Considering I’m already sending people to a companion site, it’s not a big deal. However, if the plan is to eventually incorporate this within Patreon, then I might be reluctant to switch to the interim solution over what I have, simply because of the archives. I’d want some want to transfer (CSV import and bulk file upload would be fine) the years of files already in my system so the existing supporters continued to have a single point of access to their rewards.

[buster]

Makes sense! Bulk export/import doesn’t exist yet on our side, so that would make other solutions a bit trickier to implement. I’ll keep this in mind as we prioritize the next few months of work for us.

[Temrin]

Sure! That’d be helpful for Discord and because i want to start sending personalized “welcome to my patreon” emails but i keep forgetting lol.

The Trello is actually open to everyone to look at, not just patrons, since it houses all of my projects, not just patreon. It is for all clients and potential clients to see what my plate looks like. However, i think adding it to my posts more and on the tiers themselves would be helpful. (I have it in the about section but people seem to forget it’s there or that i have a Trello haha.)

I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with for future features

[Nikita]

Is this something that can be done through Squarespace by chance? I would love to give this a try, if so!

[buster]

Not yet, but it’s something we’re very interested in supporting in the future.

[bob_artist]

I hope I’m not too late to the party, but here’s my info-

-What do you offer that requires tracking?
I send personalized letters from one of my webcomic characters every month to everyone in my $5 and higher tiers. US patrons who pledged before a past cutoff date get their letters by snail mail, and international and/or new patrons get it by email. $10+ patrons also get a quarterly original sketch along with their letter.

-What is the process that you use to make sure your patrons get what you’ve offered?
I work off the patron manager .csv, reformat it to fit my needs, import it as Photoshop variables, and double check my snail mail patrons’ addresses against my mail merge envelope file in Word. I use a gmail mail merge add-on to send the email letters. After the letters are mailed/emailed, I post a notification to my Patreon feed and ask people to notify me if they haven’t received their letters after a certain time. If a letter is returned to me in the mail, I contact the patron. Otherwise, I don’t really know what letters arrive safely.

-How well (or alternatively, poorly) does this process work for you?
It’s manageable thanks to my two mail merge apps and the Photoshop variables/scripts that automate the personalization, but other areas could be streamlined. The biggest time-suck is sorting and correcting the raw .csv before importing it into my other programs. I wish there was a way for me to permanently mark which patrons get emails and which get snail mail, but I have to sort this manually every month. Also, some patrons haven’t included their full legal name in their pledge info (without it, especially the last name, the post office won’t forward their mail if they move), but they’ve told me through PMs, so I have to manually add their last names to the CSV every month. Also, some want to be called by a different name than their legal name on their personalized letter (one name on the envelope, another on the letter), so I have to change these manually every month too. If there was a way for me to save this info so it’s downloaded in the CSV, or even override their info, it’d solve all my problems.

-How do you think about pricing your tiers in order to make the process worth it to you?
I just considered the cost of supplies and time, and the perceived value of the reward, and the percent of profit I wanted. I created these rewards early on, never believing my Patreon would be as successful as it turned out to be. (oops.) So as time went by, I had to research better ways to automate and streamline my process, and it’s been fine overall. Some generous patrons have independently decided to add $0.50 or a dollar to their pledge to cover shipping, but this isn’t the norm, and I’ve never suggested this to any of them.

-If you could wave a magic wand and get any feature built for you to help make this easier to do, what would you wish for?
As mentioned above, being able to add, change, or override patrons’ details in a way that you only have to do it once and it’s automatically downloaded with each month’s CSV.

I’d also like a way to divide up my $5+ patrons between email and snail mail delivery, and not have to manually sort them every month. This could be just an extra customized field in the CSV, or it could be a new system where you could have “sub-tiers” within a tier so a patron can choose between multiple equal-value rewards.