Y'all Come for the X, But What's the Y to Make You Stay?
Or in short, how do I *ahem* "maintain user retention". I was going to use that as the title as it's right phrase to use, but it sounds way too corporatese right? Feel like I gotta blink twice to reassure y'all that Paul Marketing isn't standing behind me with a gun making me say this.
But I digress, the issue I want to discuss about is that some folks don't stick around. I mean I can assume a number of things if they delete their subscription, but what I don't have the answer for when people do subscribe...and then just don't pay up.
As it's clearly stated in the preamble that you don't lose or gain anything by being my patron. So people not being overly concerned over maintaining their sub makes sense. Then again, I assume that y'all are subbing because you want to support me which is great! But, it's not the only way either as there are plenty of ways of showing support. (e.g: Leaving a comment, giving the post a like, etc.) These are all viable options so like y'know, if you can't financially support me you don't have to! Which is why I'm wondering why people do so only to back out.
Thankfully things are not so dire that I'm relying on Patreon to provide my daily bread, so why am I making such a stink over it? Well, it's because I use how much I'm earning as bit of a gauge to determine whether or not I'm doing a good job. Y'know like "Hey, I earned X more this month! Guess folks really approve of what I'm doing so I'm a keep doing it." or "Huh I guess I people aren't satisfied with my output as I'm earning less than before. Hm, I should adjust course."
I use it to keep track of my progress and as a way of setting goals. So you can imagine my confusion when over the month I've been getting a whole lot of patrons, but then the next month rolls around and all of a sudden they just go "poof!". This honestly wouldn't be much of an issue if I knew why, but because I don't, it is one.
It makes me question the progress I make and leaves me wondering what I've done wrong. I would attempt to fix whatever the issue, but I don't have the foggiest clue as to what it is. This leaves me with a lot of doubts over my work and I don't like that.
The best I could come up with is providing some kind of incentive that would make people want to stick around. Like a lot of creators do they run polls exclusively for their patrons where they get to decide who gets made that month. Which I think works, but then it runs into the issue of trying to balance out what I want versus what y'all want. Paywalls n' time gates, now that stuff would certainly work to keep folks around but iunno bout y'all, but that's most certainly something that I don't want.
What I do want is pretty simple I think. Like there's these exit surveys you can do to explain why you're deleting your sub and I would really appreciate it if y'all filled 'em out. Or if you want to sub, but you're not sure if you can pay for it, then don't. It's totally a-okay not to if you can't for some reason.
In short, all I'm asking for is consistent feedback really. I hope laying it all out like this will be enough to fix the issue as I want to keep things lax n' loose. But enough about what I want, what do you want?
Comments (6)
late as heck but i came for the personality and stayed for the cards haha, i found you on the booru just now and was greatly amused by the comments you leave on your cards, so i came on over and hopped aboard even though i rarely play kk 😆
Ayy glad you made it. I see, huh. I always get blindsided whenever someone mentions the comments I make about the cards, even more so when they say they actually read 'em too! Hell, I was even thinking about phasing them out entirely but hey if you found them amusing, guess they're sticking around after all. Welcome aboard, hope you enjoy your stay!
I go weeks without making time to check mail and notifications in general, these days. Including real mail.
Oh hey long time no see! Aye that's fair. It's nice seeing you again.
I'm a newer patron, but my guess would be that for patrons who move away it could be for a lack of interest in the work you're doing (Not necessarily a metric of the quality of your work.) or even moving away from koikatsu entirely. (But hey that's just infinite conjecture like you said.) I know one of the reasons I subscribed was in part to show appreciation for the work you have already done. When people leave I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, I understand why you'd feel patron wages earned may reflect your performance but that seems kinds skewy. People coming and going is the nature of patreon as I see it. Taking an anecdote from my life, there was once this great cosplayer I supported on patreon. I did sub for several months, but it was initially just curiosity that led me to sub, and though I wished them well and though they were absolutely gorgeous I just didn't have that much interest in cosplay so eventually I left. As I understand you enjoy the freedom to create what you want which is great. There are several lesser known characters here which while not overwhelming popular in today's culture there's definitely people who appreciate them whether they sub or not. I don't think you need to pander to create what others want if it's not work you would be interested in or it creates unneeded stress. That said you could take suggestions or do polls for which projects you want to work on next. I know it's difficult to get community interaction and likely pretty demoralizing when you put things out but don't get that feedback. This is something I'm pretty guilty of myself. *Sigh* Another patreon I'm subscribed to, they often make blog posts about their life which while I don't always read I do feel appreciation for having that insight into their life and personal thoughts. I don't often comment outside of concern however, partly because I just can't come up with any genuine to say. There's typically the same 2-5 people who always comment on about every post though, I respect that but damn I just can't do it. This being on a creator with sub 500 patrons FYI. This is a long and roundabout way for me to say I think you're doing fine and to hopefully provide a bit of ease for some of your concerns. (Probably not but this post already went on long enough (. . ||) Also I didn't know it was possible to avoid paying your fee while still maintaining your subscription so I admit that's pretty mystifying.
Ah I see. So it's just the nature of the beast more than anything else then eh? Man, even nearly a year doing this thing I still don't know much about it. Hm, well alright then, guess I'll keep trucking on then. Thank you for your advice. Yeah I think if your payment method doesn't go through Patreon will keep pinging it until it does. I think you can keep your sub, but you end up incurring a debt that the moment you get the money to pay for it, out it goes.