Through Openstage’s Subscriber-Only Zone, you can not only super-serve your most die-hard fans with exclusive content, you can monetise that opportunity.
Whether you want to go with a monthly subscription model, or offer pay-per-view content and ticketed live streams - we have you covered.
In this article, we’ll outline how you can set up a paid or free fan club for your community.
Set up your Stripe Wallet
Before a subscription tier is created, we recommend that you set up your Stripe Wallet.
To do so, head to:
Settings > Artist settings > Select the Payments & Billing tab
From here, click the button to connect Stripe for fan subscriptions.
Note: If you're using a subscriber-tier without a cost, we recommend that you set up your Stripe wallet.
This ensures your Stripe Wallet is set up for any paid tiers you may want to add in future, any pay-per-view content, or fan donations.
Switch on subscriptions
To allow fans to subscribe to any tiers you create, you must allow subscribers via your Fanpage.
To do this, head to:
Engage > Fanpage
On the Subscriptions tab, check the 'Allow New Subscribers' tickbox.
Create Subscription Tiers
To create your subscription tier(s), head to:
Engage > Subscriber content
From here, subscription tiers can be added using the widget on the lower half of the page.
You can create as many subscription tiers as you like.
Edit Subscription Tier
Subscription tiers on Openstage have a variety of options for payments and notifications.
These options are displayed when you create a new subscription tier, or if you choose to edit an existing tier.
Tier name and tag
Each tier has a name and description - these are visible to fans when selecting a subscription tier on your Fanpage.
The name you choose for your tier will automatically generate a tag for that tier. This tag is used to segment fans in the audience builder.
Note: Your tier tags cannot be edited independently of the tier name.
Payment structure
Subscription tiers also provide control over their payment structure, with options for:
Free tiers
One-off payments/pay-per-view
Monthly/annual subscriptions
Notifications
Each tier has an option for allowing notifications in different channels across all content in the selected tier.
Once a piece of content has been published, a broadcast will automatically be created for each channel that has been selected.
Available channels are:
Email
SMS
Webapp
Webapp sends a push notification to fans that have saved the subscriber zone to their phone home screen.
🙌 Top Tip: Leave your subscription tiers in draft until you're ready to publish to fans.
Subscription tiers relating to a new release or campaign can be created in draft and launched alongside the rest of your assets.
Create Subscriber Content
To create subscriber content, start by heading to:
Engage > Subscriber content
Select 'New Content' near the top of the page.
You'll be prompted to select the type of content you'd like to create from a list of:
Image - Share photos
Video - Share a video
Audio - Share audio
Text - Blog post
Poll - Ask your fans for answers
Stream - Host a live stream for subscribers
Download - Share a downloadable file
Edit Content
Once the content type has been selected, the content editor will open. This editor provides different settings for the type of content you've selected, but always includes:
Background image (except Image content type)
More on editing content
More on editing content
Subscriber tiers
Here you can select the subscriber tier(s) this content is available to.
You can only select from tiers that have already been created.
⚠️ Please Note: Content without a tier won't be displayed to fans.
Title
Add a title for your post.
Background image
Add a background image to your post.
Note: A background image cannot be added to the Image content type.
Collection
Create or select a collection for your content.
Once a collection has been created and content added to it, the new collection appears as a filter in the subscriber-only zone with a 'folder' as the symbol.
💪 Top Tip: Add content to collections to group themes.
Adding content to relevant collections allows fans to see all content with a given theme in one place.
As an example, collections could be used to group:
Song demos or early listens for a particular release
Behind the scenes photos for a specific tour
Video messages directly from the band
Content
This is a text field for adding a description to your content.
Previewing Content
To preview your draft content as it will appear to fans, sign-in to the subscriber-only zone using your Manager login - draft posts will appear with a yellow Draft symbol next to them.
These posts cannot be seen by fans until you publish them.
Options
The Options segment allows you to toggle select parameters for your content post:
Pin to top - Allows you to pin this post to the top of published subscriber content
Hide comments - Allows you to hide the comments section for the post
Notify fans - Allows you to turn off the generation of a notification broadcast for this post
Publishing your content
Once you're happy with the content you've created, it's time to think about publishing to your fans!
Subscriber content can be published in one of two ways:
Publish immediately
Schedule for later
Publish immediately
Selecting the Live tab in the Status section of the content editor will reveal a green 'Publish' button.
Clicking this 'Publish' button will immediately share this content to the subscriber-only zone on the Fanpage.
Schedule for later
Selecting the Scheduled tab in the Status section of the content editor will reveal a field for selecting your release date/time.
Once you've selected your release date/time, hit 'Schedule post' to finish! The post will then be published at your chosen date/time.
You can change the release date/time for a scheduled post provided the initial release date/time hasn't already passed.
Archiving content
Subscriber content cannot be un-published, but can be archived.
To archive a post, simply click through to edit the content, select the Archived tab and select 'Archive.'
Once a post has been archived, it cannot be published again.