Patreon Strategy for Your Ouid Brand
Social media can be a drag when you’re constantly dealing with Facebook algorithms and Instagram bots. Our experts suggest shifting to platforms with subscription-based models that offer privacy and convenient ways to engage with your content.
Patreon is an American membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers.
We put together a Patreon Content Strategy Guide with a focus on subscription-based models for agricultural-specific technology brands in the cannabis industry. When you apply this to your brand, make sure to include your target audience, your value-add and the types of content you plan to produce and distribute.
Strategy
Audience: Robotics/Tech and Cannabis
Value to audience: Robotics expertise, cannabis growing expertise, exposure to cool & emergent tech
Content: Look behind the scenes, how to grow/build it, how stuff works, feature emerging tech, talk with experts, component reviews, etc.
Audience: POC/Sustainable Farming Community and Cannabis
Value to audience: Connect with the farming community, learn about emergent farming methods and technology, grow economic justice, fight climate change
Content: Meet the farmer, innovations in agri-tech, accessible farming, urban farming & farmers, spotlight on community gardening, how to build an indoor farm or grow
Content suggestions
Behind the scenes footage
Bonus episodes / footage
Content voting / requests
Blooper reels
Live Q&As
One-on-one video meetings or tutorials
Merch discounts / early access to merch
Signed swag or merch
Private Discord / Slack / Telegram groups
Cross-promotion
Link on Trella.io
Youtube
Email campaign
Podcast
Reddit (for example: r/trees, r/Cannabis_Culture or r/CannabisGrowers)
Paid versus Free Subscriptions
Why offer Free Patreon subscriptions?
Free subs are accessible for everyone. Accounts that choose this option can treat Patreon like another social media platform.
Why offer Paid Patreon subscriptions?
You put work into creating Patreon content. You deserve to earn some income to support this work.
Paid subscriptions offer your community a way to support you for $1-$100/month. Funds collected from subscriptions can be used to support:
non-profit projects or groups that align with your company values
your marketing initiatives
side projects
Conclusion
You don’t have to choose! You can do both. We suggest that a brand offers one free subscription and two paid subs.
Free sub = limited access, e.g. the same videos you post on Youtube and Tiktok
Paid sub = exclusive access, e.g. access to bonus footage, live Ask Me Anything events
Suggested incentives for paid subscribers:
Support a cause
Exclusive content
Exclusive merch
Exclusive discounts
Exclusive access to industry expertise
Access to a troll-free community
Low cost options (i.e. $1/month)
Challenges of Patreon
Put energy & resources into maintaining the Patreon
Create consistent, compelling content
Maintain a regular posting schedule
Patreon hosted projects have low SEO (platform problem)
Cross promotion is necessary to drive traffic (due to low SEO)
Cannabis content makers have a low Patron count compared to other categories
Successful Patreon accounts
A selection of accounts with the highest Patron count per category
Agriculture
Rancho Relaxo (1,928)
Shepard (1,055)
Robotics
James Bruton (608)
Tempest MAx (600)
Nilheim Mechatronics (172)
Video content
Ted Ed (1,216 Patrons)
Beleaf in Fatherhood (766 Patrons)
Cannabis
Autoflower Podcast (93)
Mr. Grow It (88)
Got Questions? Drop a comment below and we’ll be sure to respond.
