Posted on March 6, 2024
Create a Limited Time Tier on Ream here: https://storytellersruletheworld.com/limited-time-tiers/
Read the blog post with advice on Limited Time Tiers here: https://storytellersruletheworld.com/transforming-your-subscription-with-limited-time-tiers/
#72 Transcript:
Okay. I have a very important message. I’m driving the car and I have a limited time to share this. We have the launch of something new and exciting. Limited time tiers on Reem. See what I did? All is well. Take a deep breath. I am driving a car. I technically do have a limited time to deliver this message to you. And technically the tiers will be available for a limited time, but all is well. In fact, this is a great opportunity for you to expand the ability for you to increase your subscription income on Reem. Now, what is a limited time tier? I’m going to explain to you first what it actually is. Two, how you can create one. And three, how I’d market it in different ways you could consider using it. This feature is free for all Ream authors to use, and it’s going to be live when you’re listening to this. If you’re listening to this, it’s live. Now, what is limited time tier? In short, it’s a reader subscribing to your tier for a set period of time, maybe three months or six months, then they’re auto downgraded to another tier after that length of time. And you might be asking, why would I ever want to do this? Aren’t subscriptions supposed to be forever? A reader subscribes to something, and unless they cancel, they could just stick in that tier forever. And the answer is, yeah, that’s one way that subscriptions are. I like to think of sales a little bit more along the continuum. You have one time a la carte sales. These are transactional. Readers could keep repurchasing, but they’re one time sales. You could have the forever sale, or a subscription. But, there’s something in between there. There’s a fun little gray area. And that gray area is limited time tiers. Now, what could you use these for? Why would you ever want to have a limited time tier? There could be things like book boxes, signed books, merchandise, or special editions. Now why would you want to have a limited time tier for this? Maybe you want to do a tier for book boxes, but you’re not sure you’re going to keep it up forever. In fact, you might only want to do it once a year. So instead of having your readers pay over the course of 12 months, you might want to do a three month payment plan. Readers can upgrade from the 5 tier to a 25 tier. They can even join your subscription. Tier is over. After three months go by, then they’ll be downgraded to the $5 tier or the previous tier that they were at. Pretty simple, right? You could also use this for limited time serials or limited time bonus content or other stories that you wanna offer. You could offer this as a promotion just to experiment with subscriptions. If you’re not ready to get a subscription started, but just want to do it for a limited length of time. Maybe you’ll have a higher tier you wanna do, but you’re not quite sure about it. These are all things you can do, low pressure ways to get started. Hello readers. We’re gonna be doing. this maybe only for three months right and then at least you know that they’ll be downgraded at the end of it and then if you want to continue it and have them upgrade you can always create that new tier again and life will be good. The real best way I imagine this being used are for merchandise and for book boxes and Also as a tie in to Kickstarter campaigns. Let’s say you have a Kickstarter campaign and it ends. You might have readers on your Kickstarter who have promotion codes on Ream. And you, they might have three months free on your Ream because they supported you at a specific tier on Kickstarter and they’re getting access to a signed book and maybe three months free on Ream. How do you get Kickstarter and Ream working together? And the answer is, maybe you ran a Kickstarter campaign, and a lot of your readers got in, but some of them might not have been able to afford that higher priced tier all up front. Others might prefer being broken out into a payment plan. That’s where Ream can come in. You can have these Kickstarter tiers and benefits broken up into tiers on your subscription. That simple! So then instead of having 150 payment up front for a special edition of a book, and everything else in that tier, there might be spread out over three months at 50. For six months at 25 and then you’ll ship it once the payment plan is done. This allows you to grow your revenue because it enables you to reach more readers. Readers who beforehand may have paid you all up front for one time now can pay you in installments. This also works because some readers who are on your ream and are subscribing to you are already used to your subscription. They might not want to leave that platform. They might not be able to pay elsewhere. And this is where you can even do a tier that’s available for one month that allows them to temporarily upgrade, get access to a book. And then immediately be downgraded so that they’re not paying for a book box that they won’t be getting every month. I think this is a really big deal. I think this is potentially game changing. But we actually don’t know. The truth is no platform has really ever made this happen. And the truth is that this is actually just a public beta. Meaning that if you want to get in on this, you can experiment with us and launch Unlimited Time Tier anytime in the month of March. These campaigns can last all the way through the end of April. So you don’t need to rush out and create it tomorrow. All is good. But if you want to participate in this public beta and help us, Learn how we can make this feature better. Go to the link in the description, you’ll find the ability to be able to create these limited time tiers. And it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun. We already did an alpha test with an author who was making a couple hundred dollars a month on Ream and through one limited time tier was able to get up to a thousand dollars in revenue, just in that limited time tier over the course of two months, it was pretty spectacular. And they ended up doing two versions of the tier. One version of the tier was at 75 a month, and it was just for one month. So they immediately were downgraded and that was to get access. And the other tier was for 37. 50 a month, which they had access for two months to that tier to finish the payment plan. And more of the readers went for the 37. 50 tier and finished out the payment plan. Then went for the one time tier price, which just shows that there’s an opportunity to really increase our revenue from book boxes, signed books and other similar higher price tiers through the power of payment plans. And that’s what a limited time tier essentially enables you to do. How we’re doing it is having you only have this tier available for a set period of time. It could either be 3 days, 28 days. In the future, we’re going to allow authors to have it available for a longer period of time if this experiment works. Because if this experiment works, we’re going to take it out of beta, we’re going to build this feature into the Ream dashboard. But for now, the Ream team is actually doing work on the backend to make every limited time tier possible. Now you don’t need to worry, this work happens on the backend without you even lifting a finger. You just have to fill out the It just takes two minutes. Why we’re doing it this way is so that we can roll it out faster, so that we can test it with you all. First drafts are better than no drafts. And see if it works. And if it works, we will improve it, we’ll make changes, and we’ll make it way faster and way better. I’m excited for this. I’m excited to see what you guys come up with. In terms of my three pro tips, the three ways I’d think about it, is first, should you do a limited time tier? Second, what should I make my limited time tier of? What should it actually be? And then third, how do I market it? So that’s what we’re going to cover in the rest of this podcast. The final, let’s say seven or eight minutes. So first, should you do one? I’ll honestly, I’m excited. I get people excited. But if you are excited just because it’s a cool new thing, shiny new thing to hop on, but aren’t really sure if you want to do it, it doesn’t hurt to create it. All is well for us. You’re welcome to create it and see. But I don’t want you to feel a bunch of pressure and to pivot up your strategy if You don’t really have something that you’re passionate about. At the end of the day, if you’re going to do a limited time tier, you want to be offering your reader something for that limited time tier. Whether it’s a book box, signed book, something that’s special, maybe it’s access to your next print book, maybe it’s even something as simple as a digital special edition. Which a digital special edition would be a book that maybe incorporates some bonus chapters, that might incorporate some bonus art that’s only available for a limited time. So you can do all of these things. I support it. But, none of these things interest you, and you can’t come up with a good idea about how to use the limited time tier, but you just want to do it, then, it’s okay. Can wait. We’ll see, and we’ll release data on how these authors do in the public beta, the ones who do choose to take it on. Now, if you’re listening to this and going, oh, this sounds fun, I do want to do a book box, but there’s no way that I wanted to do a book box every month. Thank you for the limited time tiers, because it now allows me to start it easier. Maybe you want to do merch, maybe you want to do swag, and all of this. That makes it easier for your readers. Then you’re in luck because limited time tiers are probably good for you. Now, in terms of number two, what should you think when setting it up? The first part is the length of payment plan you want to do. Are we talking one month, three months, six months, twelve months? It’s ultimately up to you. I think three months is a very good sweet spot. Six months is decent as well. We allow authors to do twelve months. I caution against it. I think twelve months, especially if you’re trying to get cash flow for a profit. is a long time, and one of the biggest benefits of these payment plans is that you can release a payment plan and start getting paid for your book box before you release it. So as you’re ordering the materials, as you’re ordering the books, in month one you have some of that money come in to make up for those expenses. And by month two, hopefully you’re already profiting, month three you’re already profiting, so that you can just not have to go out of pocket for any of this. Your readers are able to fund that up front because they’re able to subscribe, you’re not delivering the benefits until month three. So you have plenty of time to be able to order these things after you’ve already had some cash in the door. But if you do it over the course of 12 months It might delay that and it might not feel as exciting for your readers because 12 months isn’t that limited of a time Six months and three months feel much more appropriate to me And are the length of time that I think is much better one month is also super interesting I think if you just want to do a one month thing readers upgrade you get all the cash up front You invest in sending that to them and then downgrade that’s great And you might be wondering if you’re doing a visual good How do you actually get a reader’s address? On Ream, when you create the tier, you can actually check a box that says includes physical goods. And that’s it. And you also can make another tier that you already have that’s currently live a limited time tier as well. So if you already created a tier that maybe doesn’t have any members and you’re like, I think I want to make this a limited time tier, I want to auto downgrade these members after a period of time, then easy. You can do that. You can do that just by filling out this form. That simple. In terms of price point, we’re going to have a little calculator, but I want to explain to you the. methodology behind the calculator and what I would recommend doing. So in terms of this calculator, we’re going to ask you what your cost of goods is. If it’s a physical good, how much is it costing you to print per each buck box? How much are the materials in it? And then how much is the shipping? We’re going to ask you that. And you might only have an estimate right now. That’s okay. You can put in what you think your budget is. Then we’re going to add a margin on and that margin that we add, which will be the total price that someone pays for your subscription. Usually it’s going to be 3. 5. That might sound like a lot, but we have to account for your time. We also have to account for the fact that payment plans add increased risk. If someone doesn’t finish the payment plan, there might be time spent back and forth emailing them. Ream handles almost all this for you, which is a beautiful thing if you’re using Ream. It’s really the only place you can do something like this on. But, there is that added risk of a payment plan, so I would do 3. 5x. That’s what our calculator will be. And, that also gives you hefty room for profit. Because you should be making money. You’re doing this to create an amazing experience for your readers and to be able to have the income and profits that you can invest into creating even more amazing experiences for your readers and writing even more and better stories for your readers. And that’s going to be really hard to do if you’re just breaking even which is why we want to give authors a ton of buffer even if mistakes come up, we still want you to be able to, have some profit. Now of course, your pricing is up to you. We can’t choose your pricing. But this pricing calculator will help divide that so that you know this is the total price I want my readers paying for this event, for this book. And then divided over this number of months, this is how much I should charge for that tier. Because that tier will be billed monthly. Those are the main things to decide. The last thing to decide is the actual campaign window of the tier. How long is this tier going to be available for? It’s going to be available for 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 28 days. In the future, we might have evergreen limited time tiers. We might do it. But since this is a public beta and this is a test that isn’t going to go on forever, we’re going to eventually roll it out into more of a permanent beta. and that more permanent beta that hopefully will become the final product at some point, or it might be something that we see works for some authors but might be a one time thing. This might be the only time we ever do. But if you have your campaign for let’s say 14 days, 28 days, I don’t think the length of time is what matters most, because it’s all going to be down to what is your marketing plan? And your marketing plan you’ll be able to back into then how long you want this campaign to last for, what the sign up window is. Now. Now, I typically recommend seven ish days being a good length. It gives people a good amount of time, makes the time limited. Twenty eight days is the longest we allow. But in that period of time, I recommend marketing it to your list, sharing it with your mailing list. I recommend sharing it with your reading followers, posting it there, posting it to your existing members that they can upgrade, posting it on social media. If other authors are also participating in limited time tiers during this time, you could do a limited time tier swap where you all promote your limited time tiers. And if you’re interested in how you could actually do that and find other authors who are doing a limited time tier swap, you can actually go to link description. We have a subscription swap tool that helps you find other Veeam authors who are doing subscription swaps. So that’s a really cool thing. And it will help you find people to be able to cross promote with. You should send multiple emails to your list. It’s a huge mistake to only send one email. For a limited time launch like this, you should be sending at least three emails. One the day before it comes out, one on the day it actually does come up. So why? One giving your readers a heads up, one actually saying it’s live, and then one, one basically 24 hours before it closes. But ideally you’re actually doing more like five. You’re doing one slightly before it comes out, one to two days before it comes out, one actually on the launch date, then you’re doing another email blast, maybe halfway through the campaign window, another one a couple days before it closes, then one on the day or right before it closes. Now this might sound like a lot. The biggest mistake I see authors make is only send out one email, and you will see. That you’ll have about 20 ish percent of your sales come in on the first day on your launch email. 10 percent will trickle in right before that cutoff date. Then another 10 ish percent will come in on that middle launch bump email. Then you’re going to have about 10 percent come in between that middle launch bump email and the last two emails you send out. And then those last two emails you send out will be about when half your sales come in. Literally half your sales will come in on those last two emails. So it’s important that you hit them because if you don’t send out those last two emails as it closes, you’re going to Literally lose out on half your sales ’cause your readers are gonna forget that the campaign’s closing. So you need to create that pressure and have these multiple emails going out during this campaign. And then your readers will automatically be downgraded. They’ll be in that tier during that period of time. And that’s pretty much it. It’s really simple. And in terms of what you do when the campaign window ends. When you don’t want readers to sign up, after you send out that last email, after you get those people in, is you just archive the tier. Archiving the tier makes it so that readers in the tier still stay subscribed, they still get all their benefits, and if they’re not in the tier then they remain in their existing tier. So yeah, this is a lot. I know I dumped a lot on you guys. But this is how limited time tiers work on Ream. I hope you enjoy it. I hope this is useful for you. As always, be sure to review the podcast if you haven’t reviewed it yet. Reviews are super helpful. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Share this with an author friend if this was helpful. In fact, this could be a really great thing to share with author friends because, hey, it is time. Ream has a really cool launch and you can feel free to as well to use your Ream author. So that other authors, when they join using your partner link, if they decide to set up a limited time tier campaign, you can get a portion of the revenue that they make from the campaign, specifically the revenue we make from it. So your author friend gets to keep all their money and you get to make some of the money that we make. It’s a win, win. So that’ll all be linked down in the description. And yeah that’s it. That’s how to do a limited time tier. That’s our launch. If you’re not part of Ream, of course, you can create a free author. We just take 10 percent of the revenue you make in the platform. You keep all your readers emails. You control all your pricing. You control everything. On Reem, storytellers rule the world. It’s awesome. And then, if you want to check out more about subscriptions, check out the Subscriptions Brothers Facebook group. Check out our website. We have a free book there, all about how to make money with subscriptions, which can really help you when you’re trying to set up not only limited time tiers, but really get forever fans that can continue paying you month over month, and build. as an author. That’s what we’re all about. I hope y’all have an amazing rest of your day. I literally just got to my destination, so this limited time podcast for this limited time tier has come to a close. And as always, don’t forget, storytellers rule.