Welcome to the third and final installment of this blog series. Back in September, we embarked on a mission to help you get and keep more patrons — and we’ve been approaching it from many angles, testing ideas, and making changes large and small. We started this blog series to share the journey with you and keep you informed along the way.

Since then, we have made some great progress, which we’ll outline below, but this is still just the beginning. As we look ahead to next year, we’ll continue to build upon this foundation to make Patreon an ideal place for creators and their communities.

If you haven’t read the earlier posts in this series, get caught up with Part 1 and Part 2.

Creator page updates

In Part 2, we told you about the incredible results from our experiment with the creator page. We’re moving towards a world where we tailor certain pages exactly to the audience, which helps communicate more clearly and boost performance. This is reflected in the 9% increase in patron conversion from this page. That increase has held steady as we’ve rolled out the change more broadly across Patreon, which means more patrons! However, as we continue to improve the creator page, we’re not only focused on getting you new patrons, but also helping you keep them. In talking with creators, we have heard the stress that comes from losing patrons.

Recently, we tested the addition of a small box above the posts feed to give fans a window into the types of posts they’ll gain access to by becoming your patron. In the group that saw the box below, the number of patrons who cancelled their pledges in the first seven days went down by 5.8%.

Because of this result, we’ll be releasing this change to all creators and continue to monitor patron retention. This result echoes insights from our recent conversations with patrons, where we heard their desire for content that is relevant and consistently delivered. Being up front about what to expect from your membership allows patrons to feel confident before and satisfied after becoming a patron.

New Summary of locked posts on the creator page.

Day in the life of your newest patrons

As we discussed in November’s Hang Time, new patrons often struggle to find their benefits after pledging, sometimes causing them to cancel in the first day or week of membership. We want to make it simple for your new patrons to find the benefits of their membership. We are excited to share a vision for the future of this experience.

Some pieces of this vision are already in place: for instance, creators can pin a post to the top of the posts feed. Also, patrons now have access to a new tab on their creator page called My Membership, which we intend to be the new home for all things benefits, including private RSS links, Discord Communities, and more.

Below, you can get a peek into what your patrons can access on this tab. Soon creators will be able to create welcome notes tailored exactly to a patron’s tier of membership.

Check out the new My Membership tab, which allows patrons to easily see what benefits they’ll receive by becoming your patron.

Because we want to ensure that these changes will help creators retain more patrons, other pieces of the vision are currently in testing phase. For instance, some patrons will see a welcome message pop up immediately after they pledge that clearly lays out the benefits of membership as well as a welcome note. We’ll also be testing out a new space for pinned and popular posts at the top of the posts page to give more visibility to the content that will captivate your new patrons.

We didn’t forget about your current patrons

We know that it’s critical for retention to make the first moments of your membership magical for your patrons. But we aren’t stopping there. We’ve heard feedback from creators that their patrons sometimes have difficulty finding posts, which in turn makes it hard to keep them as patrons.

Improvements coming within the next couple of months to post organization will help your patrons get to your content seamlessly. Post Title Search will allow your patrons to find that “Thank U, Next” cover you posted last year without scrolling through all of your posts. Feature Tags will be displayed more prominently above the posts feed, so that patrons can see all the hard work you’ve put into organizing by your distinct series or genres.

To Be Continued…

Now take a breath. Looking forward to 2020? We are too.

Next year, we’ll continue listening to your feedback and testing ways to help you get and keep more patrons, so we can build the best platform for creators.

Here’s a couple things at the top of our list: we’re working on giving you a simple way to deliver and track benefits like discount codes. We also want to give you tailored insights to help you make informed and effective decisions about your membership. Lastly, we’ll be exploring annual memberships and gifting.

In the mean time, we’ll continue to build upon the work we’ve put into the creator page and new patron experience, giving you more flexibility to create magic for your fans and patrons — new and old alike.