So it's been a bit since the Creator Network launched. I am curious if anyone has any wins to celebrate or feedback on their own experiences.
Here is what I can say at this point:
- Brilliant idea. Needs more creators though, so discovery can be useful and more creators findable.
- Tip #1: Don't fret about the categories. Use the search field in discovery as it does a decent job scanning across all creator profile metadata to bubble up people.
- Tip #2: Don't recommend featured people unless you truly believe your audience will benefit from them. It's not what YOU like but what your audience might like.
- I am seeing about a 17% conversion rate for the creators I am recommending. I still have a small list that is growing, but it's still a whole bunch of new subscribers that my fellow creators are gaining with very little additional work.
- I only have a 9% conversion rate coming in from creators recommending me. However, the reality is I haven't seen anyone recommend me yet that has a similar audience as I want to attract.
As I think about the capabilities of the Creator Network, I do see some gaps that I hope ConvertKit will eventually fill:
- We need a clean way to track which subscribers came from a recommendation from the Creator Network. I think a tag would be a perfect solution for that, so we can track exactly who is coming from where.
- We need reporting based on this. Not helpful just yet as the beta just launched, but it would be useful to know how many subscribers actually stick around. What good is getting new subscribers who end up unsubscribing or going cold immediately? Waste of a seat count.
- We need a way to remove ourselves from a creator's profile if we don't want to participate with them. This might be controversial, and I get that. But there are some ConvertKit customers I honestly don't want to be recommended by. I'm a hacker being recommended by a yoga instructor and some stay-at-home moms. The audience alignment makes no sense. Makes it hard to trust any subscribers coming from them. I have had a few decent subscribers come in from other creators who are in industries closer aligned, so it's not all bad. But I can see this wasting seat counts pretty fast if we don't have a way to stop it.
The last point is interesting. I can't speak for other creators, but I try to cull my list pretty aggressively. The "biggest" subscriber count is a poor vanity metric if you ask me. I'd rather have fewer subscribers but who engage more. So where subscribers come from in the Creator Network matter.
So how about you? What are YOU seeing?
How can I set it up so that when someone subscribes through the creator network, they automatically go through my welcome sequence?
I think this thread deserves a bit of a follow-up.
I have started to see some subscriptions come from the Creator Network now. There is about a 33% conversion rate for the recommendations to my newsletter. The creator seems to have an overlapping audience a bit, so that helps.
For my free recommendations, I am averaging about a 19% conversion rate for other creators' newsletters.
However, the paid SparkLoop integration is yielding some better results.
Combining the two allows me to feature some creators in the network who can't afford to pay for subscribers yet, and still yield a bit of income from the paid referrals.
More importantly, with the SparkLoop integration, I found newsletters that overlap far more with my audience, which means I am giving them better recommendations... and getting paid to boot! Nothing significant... but enough to see this model can work.
TL;DR... look into the paid SparkLoop integration for recommendations. If you don't see newsletters in the Creators Network that align with your audience, you may very well find them in SparkLoop.
Support the smaller creators just starting out if they align well... it's just good for your karma. But your audience comes first... find the recommendations that will give them the most satisfaction.
YMMV of course. Good luck!
I am only just getting started on this network, so I appreciate your tips, Dana. I tend to agree with your philosophy about culling your list aggressively. Quality subscribers beat a high total number any day.
My recommendations seem to be pretty popular with my audience to the tune of 41% conversion rate on my recommendations. On the receiving end, I haven't gotten a single subscriber from the Creator Network.
I'm willing to give it more time. Hopefully more creators in the Network will start to recommend me, especially if I'm funneling them new subscribers. But so far, the Network hasn't produced any results for me.
Give it time. I'm in the same boat. But other creators seem to be having some success. Once you find some creators that align with a similar audience, hopefully it will kick things into gear.
Hey... this isn't "Fight Club". You CAN talk about Creator Network.
How is it going for everyone? What are people seeing?