Stagepass was built for the purpose of helping creative people become financially stable so that they can pursue their creative passions full-time. Many of our visitors and users are monetizing through other channels at the moment, and some of those include sites like Patreon and Behance, but also include ad sponsorships or YouTube monetization. The thought of adding another source of monetization may seem a little excessive to some, but if you think about what Stagepass offers audiences, it allows creatives to do more than just add another revenue stream — it allows creatives to connect more deeply with their audience and learn more about what they like, on top of adding to the bottom line.
Audiences have been underserved in as it relates to emotional connection and two-way communication with their favorite creatives. Providing unique experiences that allow the most committed fans to bond and get to know their favorite creatives outside of their preferred media fills that void. By appealing to that desire, Stagepass offers a complimentary method of monetization and audience engagement. So, while Stagepass may seem like just another channel to worry about for monetization, it actually provides value in multiple ways to creatives and their audiences. Additionally, Stagepass is different from other monetization channels because of its unlimited upside. Because Stagepass experiences are auctioned, the upper limits have no bounds, which provide much more upside than the linear growth models of membership sites like Patreon and sponsorship ad revenues. Let’s move on to how we define experiences.
What are Stagepass Experiences
Experiences on Stagepass are different from anything else — they’re not memberships and they’re not courses — they are unique and individual. They can be anything, and they’re only limited by the creativity of the host. We will get into what types of things might be experiences in a second, but it is important to recognize that Stagepass provides something new and exciting for audiences out there. When most people think about experiences, they think of something that is once-in-a-lifetime and unrepeatable — that’s what you will be providing to your audiences, by giving them these opportunities. Think about the first time that you had the opportunity to meet, see, or be around someone that you deeply admired and looked up to because of their profession — remember how exhilarating and unforgettable that felt — that’s what you’re giving your audience; a feeling of awe and excitement because they get to share this experience with you.
Why Me?
You might be reading this and thinking, “but I’m just like everyone else, why would they want an experience with me?”, and that is perfectly understandable. Most creatives are humble and down to earth, so they don’t realize the value that they have created for people that appreciate their work. Since starting the journey of pursuing your craft, you have been focused and committed to producing the highest quality work, learning more about how to do a better job, and trying to balance life in the process. To an audience member consuming your content as it’s released, they derive tremendous value in the form of entertainment from watching your story arc, education from learning as you’ve learned with your successes and failures, and in emotional connection because they can relate to you based on the facts that you’ve shared along your journey.
So while you have been the same old you, to your audience, you have continuously produced quality content that helped them in more ways than one. So we have distilled the two primary reasons why people don’t believe they’re worth experiences down into two reasons:
- Imposter syndrome: You don’t believe that you’re the person you’ve become due to the content that you have created, even though your knowledge and circumstances have changed.
- Perception gap: You aren’t aware of the value that your content provides to your audience because you are constantly learning, and cannot see the difference between where you came from and where you are now. This causes you to discount the continuous value that you provide to your audience.
The reality is that media today is incredibly intimate. Most digital channels have become more isolated from other mediums, and there are few influences for most audiences outside of the channels that they consume. This means that your content is one of only a few sources that audiences watch or listen, which makes their connection with creatives very powerful. Additionally, most consumption these days is done as an individual either on a mobile device or through earbuds, with no one else watching or listening. Audiences have deep connections with their creatives, often time having more in common with their favorite podcast hosts or YouTubers than with anyone in real life. The combination of value that creatives add and intimate connection makes audiences want to spend more time with you, which is why Stagepass makes it possible.
How to Start
If you have decided that Stagepass is right for you, the next step is to create an account and be approved as a creative. Those steps are both very easy and we should have you approved within hours, once you submit your link for verification. The most challenging part, ironically enough, is coming up with experiences that your audience may enjoy.
First, let’s start by saying that experiences can be in any form: in-person, online, or over the phone. They can be as simple as a text chat for 30 minutes, or as involved and visceral as a shared trip to an exotic location for surfboarding lessons. The key for you, now, is to determine what experience sounds most appealing to you and your audience. We have a few places where you can start:
- Look back on your audience comments to determine which aspects of your content sound most appealing to them. Is it how you produce certain things? The locations that you travel to? The processes that you use? Evaluate the feedback that you’ve already received and try experiences that match those.
- Do a poll on Twitter or somewhere similar to see what types of things your audience would enjoy experiencing with you.
- Think about the theme of the content you produce and why your audience prefers your content over anyone else — is it because they want to learn something specific, hear from guests that you have, or get your opinion? Try and create experiences around that theme so that you can serve your audience in multiple ways.
- Lastly, if you’re not sure where to start, test multiple experience cards on Stagepass and see which of the ones you post gets the best feedback. You don’t have to create a live auction for your experiences until you feel comfortable with the feedback that you’ve received.
Example Experiences
Now that you’ve thought about different ideas that you could use for experiences, we’ll provide a few examples:
- Production editing session — let your audience sit with you either virtually or in-person to show them how you edit your shows, and what you do to think about your audience while you’re editing
- Guest speaker — provide a role for the auction winner to be a part of your show in some capacity to get them involved in the show
- Guest appearance — do a guest appearance on the auction winner’s YouTube or podcast so that they can pick your brain with their audience
- Chat over coffee — in-person conversation over coffee where they can get to know you better and ask everything that they’ve been wanting to ask for the last couple years of listening to your content
- Sporting activity — participate in an activity with your auction winner. Go on a hike, play racquetball, surf, or do any number of things with that person so that they can feel more connected with you
These are just a few examples, but we encourage recommendations in the comments. Let’s talk now about how you can auction your experience. To begin, you will need to login and go to dashboard -> create experiences. You will see the image below.
Once you have gotten here, you will want to create an experience title that will separate your experience from everyone else. You will also be able to link this to your social media accounts, so that experience title will appear when you link it to places like Twitter and Facebook. In your experience summary, at a minimum, you want to include: an experience summary, about you, what the experience includes, and what they should know outside of what has been included. These can include what costs are not covered, if coffee or food are included, etc. Once you have added the details, tag what categories the experience will fall under, and publish! That’s it. Your experience will appear on the home page and you will see a card that looks like the one below.
In order to get the “Bid Now!” button, you will need to create an associated auction. In order to do that, you will want to go to the dashboard -> manage auctions -> add auction. In the auction, you can enter a description of your experience, and specify when you want the auction to start, the price that you want it to begin at, a reserve price that it must reach for the auction to be won, and additional pictures and videos. If you have not already linked your bank account to Stripe, you will want to do that in the “settings” tab in “manage auctions” page. Once you have, you will be able to post your auction. When you do post our auction, it is important to include the url link to your experience so that your auction link will be added to the experience card. If you do not, our system will not recognize the link and you will not have the “Bid Now!” button on your experience card. Once you’ve done all of that, your auction will be live and you can start advertising to your audience.
When the auction ends and a winner is determined, the payment will be processed through Stripe and the contact information of the winner will be sent to your account. You can message that individual within the Stagepass platform to give them additional details about how to contact you, and when or how to meet. We have resources that we recommend you use to help protect your privacy, like Google Voice or Zoom, that you should include in the details that you send over.
Pricing
When deciding what price to start an experience auction at, we recommend thinking about a few different factors.
- Difficulty of production: How challenging will the experience be for you? Will you have to go to extreme lengths in order to put the experience on, or will it be as easy as hoping on a Skype call? Use this to gauge how much extra time the experience will take you, and factor that into your starting price.
- Uniqueness: How much more novel is your experience over another? Is your experience just like every other one listed? Or is it the first time that anyone’s ever tried an experience like yours? Is it something that only you can provide?
- Demand over a period of time: Is your audience constantly reaching out to request events? How much money could you make from those offers? If your presence requested elsewhere, make sure to factor those inputs into what your starting price will be.
Ultimately, the price has to be worth it for both parties, so it is important that you experiment and see what works best. When it’s all said and done, the market demand will always help to identify the best prices.
Summary
Once you get the hang of Stagepass, you can auction experiences at an interval that gives you regular income that is reliable and substantial enough to pursue your creativity full-time. If you feel comfortable having multiple winners, you can create multiple auctions to the same experience and each auction be for a “ticket” or “seat” for that particular experience. With these strategies, you have the potential to increase your income exponentially. The best thing about Stagepass is that you’re not required to create additional content for the winners, they just want to experience life with you.
If you’re ready to begin auctioning experiences, we’re here and happy to help however we can. Our goal is to help you get to a point where you can pursue your craft full-time.
Sign up today at https://www.yourstagepass.com or follow us @yourstagepass
