HowTo: Show your donation options

We’ve been keeping an eye on why some people get more donations than others. Content matter a great deal, but it’s not the only tipping point. How you present your donation options matters to fans and followers also matters a great deal.

Some people seem to think that in order to get a donation, it’s enough to just register your thing on Flattr. You may find this hard to believe but some people don’t even put a Flattr-button on their page! No wonder there’s disapointment when no tips are trickling in.

To minimize this disapointment and maximize revenue I’ve put together this easy “How To” guide, for tips on how you should set up Flattr up on your page’s for the best effect. Of course this guide can be used for any other donation services as well.

First:
Think about it as a real tip jar. There’s a reason to why street musicians have their tip jars in front of them: People won’t give you money if they don’t know they can, and you make it easy for them.
The chance that someone will put money into your tip jar if it’s hidden under your jacket 5 meters from where you are standing in the street playing a song, is ridiculously small!

Now that you’ve decided that you want your fans and followers to be able to support you via Flattr, and you’ve decided to add a button (howto), there’s three things you’ll need think about for full effect:

— Make sure that your audience can easily find how to support you. You can do this by having a page dedicated to donation information, or have a shiny box on one of your side bars. Visibility is the key here!

— Tell your audience about this amazing new service and what the main difference between Flattr or any of the more traditional services to donate is. Supporting one more person or project is only 1 click away.

— Be transparent: Let your audience know how you use the money they support you with. Did you manage to buy a new brush to paint with? Could you take a trip to a conference? Did you manage to build up your own studio or maybe something completely different? Tell us!

Got any more awesome tips? Tell us below here.

This post is part of our How To series here on Flattr.
Picture via Pete Birkinshaw (CC-by)