Hello, and welcome to today's episode before we dive in, I just want to set the context to what I'm gonna share with you today. Today is a conversation I had about Patreon. So Patreon is something that is basically it's all in this episode, you'll hear it. But I just wanted to let you know, there's a lot of ways to monetize a podcast, or any type of content for that matter. And Patreon is one of those that a lot of people are interested in, but maybe don't know a lot about. Maybe you've always wondered if it's a good idea for you. Why would anyone do it? What's the purpose? How do you get people to join? How do you get people to stay? I answer all of that. In today's episode, I hope you enjoy. Let's dive in. This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network and net worth. Hear from exciting guests, and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and Welcome to Digital Podcaster.
Brian Drake:I want to pivot here real quick and talk about a post you did recently on Patreon. And I think it was like a list of 15 things that people can make money doing. Yeah. So first off, and maybe I'm just somebody that's not technological whatsoever, or doesn't know software. I don't know what Patreon is. Yeah. Can we start with that? Yeah,
Dylan Schmidt:great question. So Patreon is simply a gateway, an easy way for people to add like a paywall to bonus content. Not like only fans, but maybe kind of like only fans. Except not like the nice analogy, okay, different use cases. So Patreon, how it works is like basically, you got a Patreon account, let's say. And then typically, they'll usually have 123 tiers. So say you had, say I had a Patreon. And I had one tier, my first tier that cost three bucks a month. And for three bucks a month, someone's supporting my podcast for the second tier 10 bucks a month. And they get a bonus episode twice a month. And I shout them out at the episode at the end of the episode, like once. And then the third year is like 20 bucks a month. And they get a shout out in the episode, a bonus episode, and monthly podcasting prompts that help them make awesome content. And so people can join at different tiers. And it's just a way for like fans to support things that they like. But they do it when they get something in return, of course, because no one just like try and be like, Hey, let me just pay your bills. So you just give them something like light. And that's what that list was like 15 things. But to me, it's got to be something that's like scalable and doesn't require you it's not one on one. And that's and that's essentially what Patreon is. And you know, you don't it does. It's not only to podcasters there's like other. There's people that just have Instagram accounts, and then they'll create a Patreon. But it's a cool way. It's like a low cost. There's no tech involved. And what incentivizes someone to do that, in the first place is like the perks, but just like selling anything, if someone just like, hey, come join my patreon. People are like, Oh, I see you just asking for money. But if you were like, Hey, come get these exclusive things that is like helping you with thinking think, then they go in there, oh, it's a Patreon. And then they go, okay, so I don't suggest leading anyone that does Patreon, I'm not suggest leading with the fact that you're doing Patreon, it's like, just lead with the thing that you're giving people for because no one's just like, oh, I want to join Patreon. Now they want like the extra cool thing that you give them, whether that's bonus episodes, office hours, all that stuff.
Brian Drake:So just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, Patreon builds like a wall in front of your audience or just has a wall in front of you and your content. And what you can do is you can offer different monthly subscriptions to give people access to the other side of that wall. But then what you had said is you don't necessarily want to just tell people like, Hey, pay me$10 a month and then get access to my exclusive content. It's like, Hey, I offer a PDF that I drop every week that's going to help you have better relationships with people that are part of your community. Yeah, and I update a PDF every week. And so that's part of my exclusive content. If you're interested, go here. And then that's when they find out that it's through Patreon. And that's when they start. They start to get access to that.
Dylan Schmidt:Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, so you have your free content like you're normally doing. But like here's a cool idea, especially for podcasters. Let's say on my podcast, I'm talking about how to I hope this doesn't get too confusing. How to successfully have a Patreon how to successfully do Patreon. Okay, so I make a podcast episode about how to successfully do Patreon. And that's free, but I go hey, if you want a workbook companion with this that will help you get clear on what to give your Patreon subscribers For the next 12 months, visit this link to get that workbook. And that's where if I had a Patreon, and that was something I was offering through my Patreon, say, everyone who is on the $10 a month tier, get access to the workbook companion to the podcast. So people can just listen to the podcast for free, cool. But the people that are getting like the $10 month, you're also get a bonus companion piece to the episode, like a workbook, checklists, resource guide. Some other thing, a workshop, like something that's an in addition to the free thing is usually what works best. So that in that case, it would be the Patreon workbook for someone so because naturally, people have questions when they're listening to the episode, like, cool, okay, what can I offer? And I'm like, what if I could just walk you through the steps? And you would have what you would offer for the next 12 months? You'd be like, what would that take forever? What if it only took 30 minutes? And what if it only costs? $10? Yeah, like, Okay, let's do that. So that's okay, you could do it. Yeah.
Brian Drake:So when it comes to your Podcasting Academy? Could you have put it on the other side of a Patreon rather than having your own website?
Dylan Schmidt:Yes, totally. Yeah, I could totally 100% do that. But it would have been more tech involved. So like, right now I'm using Kajabi to host Podcasting Academy. And to me, that's easier, I can process the payment. Because essentially, what Patreon is, like creating a membership style offering for your community, where, yeah, people are always going to not everyone's going to the goal isn't to have like, everyone buy everything all the time, like, people are at different stages, people that can't afford it, like now's not the right time, okay? It's all good. You still want to offer that value and not make it just monetize, you can only talk to me if you're paying me like that's not the goal, you know, or not my goal, at least. So yeah, make that like valuable content that helps everyone and then naturally like it, of course, cost money to do more stuff. But I use Kajabi. Because it's easy, it's clean. I have a lot of materials inside Podcasting Academy. And, to my knowledge, there's a bunch of other things out there, like Kajabi is a more pricey one. I'm experienced with Kajabi, before I made Podcasting Academy for clients and things like that. So that's my comfort level is high with it, but there's like teachable, there's way less, there's way cheaper options out there. But I'm like, not trying to find the cheapest option. I'm just trying to find like one that I know, looks great works great. I can rely on. It's got everything I need. I'm hosting my website on there, right now, I host like most of my stuff, so I'd get my money's worth. But it would have been harder because I got I don't know how many videos at this point, say 25 videos, and Podcasting Academy, probably more to do that all and like make that fit in Patreon to just be like, probably a pain in the butt. So I'm just like, let's just do Kajabi. But also I don't have tiered pricing. It's just like, straightforward. This is what you get in Podcasting Academy. So there's no Patreon typically is like tears like silver supporters, you know, get this gold supporters get this platinum subscribers get this are supporters,
Brian Drake:to Patreon, more of like a low cost, you're supporting the Creator. And then what you're offering them are just some almost like tidbits of value. It's not necessarily like this big massive product that's on the other side. But it's definitely something they'll find valuable that more or less like people probably willing to pay five or $10 for. Yeah, like or $20 for a month.
Dylan Schmidt:Yeah, people make this mistake all the time is I need to give so much value into all this stuff. Because you're trying to like this is there's no ceiling right to there is a ceiling but like it's a very far away ceiling of if you're putting something for sale online at scale, right? If I sell a PDF, and that PDF is super valuable, and anyone could buy it, and anyone could pay $10 for it, I noticed that a lot of people that are selling that PDF, for example, try to price it with all of the people buying it together. They're like if I had 10,000 People buy this $10 PDF, I'm just this how bad I am at math $100,000 If you're trying to add $100,000 worth of value in a $10 PDF, okay, but let's just focus on a $10 PDF that could be as simple as just prompts and ideas and solving a specific solution. It doesn't need to like be some grand thing, like actually just what's one simple thing you can do instead of overkill,
Brian Drake:but also comes down to how well that Creator knows their audience. Because if their Creator knows that their audience is going to find this PDF valuable. That's also going to tell their PDF, or they tell their audience like oh, this person cares about me. This creator cares about me, and they're providing a solution to something and I like their content and for $10 a month I'm gonna get access to this better the other thing.
Dylan Schmidt:Thank you for listening. If there are any parts that stood out to you, I would love if you could message me and let me know what part Those were it would mean the world to me if you would just take a moment and leave a rating and review of the podcast. It means a lot and it goes a long ways. I have an aggressive goal of hitting this certain number arbitrary number of writing interviews for Digital Podcaster. So if you could do that, I'd appreciate it. If you message me that you did it. I'll give you a nice gift. A surprise gift. All right. Hope you having a great day. I'll talk to you soon.