This is not the newsletter I was expecting to write for you but holy shit balls my Patreon has recently experienced massive growth. I want to share this win with you and celebrate but of course also turn it into a teachable moment because you know I love nerding out about Patreon strategy.

Okay so, what happened?

I made in a YouTube video about how I organise and plan my work life using the “12 Week Year” method and in that video mentioned that I was going to be reducing my video uploads and general workload whilst in IVF treatment. I explained that I was a bit worried about it hitting my income with Google Adsense likely being lower and cheekily plugged my Patreon. I also said that I would be sharing some of the IVF process in the safe space behind the paywall that is my Patreon. I knew what I was doing - take transparency about health/capacity/working less/money worries and pair that with a paywalled offering that is incredibly personal and parasocial and of course people would sign up. I didn’t quite realise how many though. In 2 weeks, my number of paid members on Patreon has almost doubled and my income has more than doubled. Holy fucking shit.

What can we learn?

1. Honesty is the best policy - as much as possible or that you are willing, be really transparent about why you are asking people to sign up for your Patreon.
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2. Do not underestimate the power of the parasocial relationship - but also don’t exploit it (by either exploiting yourself and mining your personal traumas for content or exploiting others who want that access to you)
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3. More Patrons and more income does not mean you owe them more - I had to check myself when I saw the numbers growing. My initial response was “oh my goodness I better use this money in a productive way - make more! produce more! give more!” No no no, the people signing up are doing so because they want to support me whilst I’m having to make LESS. It may feel uncomfortable at first but I literally have to sit back, relax, put my health first and just let people give me money.
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4. Expect the churn - whilst I am basking in the glory of the most amount of Patrons I’ve ever had in my entire career, I know that not everyone will stick around. Every big spike of growth is followed by a period of churn.
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5. Do not count your eggs before they hatch - because of the churn I am not expecting that my next monthly payment from Patreon is going to be the new norm. Because of this (and also because of the IVF treatment) I am not allowing myself to make any big financial decisions until I get a sense of what my “new normal” Patreon income will be. It may take a few months for a plateau to settle and I just need to be patient.

Hope this insight helps when thinking about your own Patreon or any other membership.

On the off chance that there’s anyone reading this who is also a patron of mine, new or old, thank you so much. It genuinely means so much to me that I have this support and financial safety net whilst I’m not able to work as much and through the physical and emotional uncertainty of IVF treatment. Thank you 💛

Til next time,

Hannah

P.S. I offer a 1:1 Patreon Strategy course and am currently working on developing it into a group program. If you are interested you can book in a free 30 minute discovery call here.

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