We are considering creating a membership site to help us keep up with operating costs for the band (websites, equipment, social media ads, materials for music production, recording studio maintenance fees, etc).
The plan is to offer a bunch of exclusive content available only to members. This would be IN ADDITION to the FREE website we are building.
We are looking at a "pay what you want" tier system. It would be a monthly recurring charge.
What does that mean exactly?
It means a multiple "tier" approach: Four levels of membership, each with its own amount of exclusive content
For instance.... for TIER ONE, you would be invited to pay what you want up to $5.00 a month for a certain list of recurring content. That means you could choose to pay a dollar a month... or three dollars a month... or whatever... Anything you want up to five bucks a month would score you access to exclusive Elm Treason content. Hypothetically, that could include stuff like: four exclusive long form articles a month, two video guitar lessons/demonstrations from Bobby, two video podcasts from Andy, inclusion in all future liner notes on all future Elm Treason releases, stuff like that. Again, none of this has been decided yet. We're just throwing out some hypothetical examples for illustrative purposes.
Thus, in a TIER TWO example, you would be invited to pay what you want between $5.01 and $7.50 for a larger list of recurring content. It would include everything included in TIER ONE plus something extra ... maybe a monthly "from the vault" Elm Treason recording...or a "behind the scenes video" of some kind).
This pattern would continue through four total tiers.
Again, nothing definite has been established regarding content.
The bottom line is... we need to establish a reliable income stream to be able to keep Elm Treason doing what we do at the same level of quality we expect of ourselves - and what you expect of us.
At the moment, we are primarily recording artists who actively interact with our friends and fans. Sadly, it just isn't possible for us to go out and play live gigs like we used to with the kind of frequency we need to stay afloat. To be able to keep producing quality music and cover all of our monthly operating costs - not to mention, be able to offer new products and create physical media (CDs, vinyl, etc) - we are looking for a way to keep this band rolling along.
We're not even looking to turn a profit. We just need to break even. This may be a good way to do it, especially if we provide quality content on a monthly basis.
Thus, if you would be so kind to answer these questions, we can see how realistic this idea is.
This survey is completely anonymous, so please be as honest as you can be.
Thank you so very much!
