Recent Site Changes Clarified and Re-explained

Pulled Out All The Stops

When we posted our announcement about the Patron feature (here), we sure got a lot of feedback. We learned a lot from a lot of people we hadn't actually spoken to before directly and it's led to some great changes to the site with the potential for more.

We also realized that there were some areas of the Patron feature, and other newer site enhancements, where we didn't explain things properly. So, we thought we'd try and clear things up.


The Patron Feature:

The patron feature was designed in order to provide a destination for entrepreneurial Hauptwerk users to send supporters, from their own, fan-base (outside Hauptwerk), for them to be able to contribute to them financially. 

Not everyone has their own website. Those that do have their own website aren't always equipped to also handle ecommerce transactions on their websites.

What does this do for you? We already provide a place to host and stream your performances. So we added the ability to present your vision in print and in video. We also added the ability to incentivize potential supporters in your own, personal way and promote this from your own webpage or via email. And, finally, we offered a way to capture and process those donations for you.

What does this do for us? We benefit in 2 ways. We take 20% to cover processing and site maintenance from the proceeds and it's a way we can draw more people to know about Contrebombarde and Hauptwerk. This only benefits us if we successfully help you to build your brand.

So, here are some tools to help you to promote your page.

If you haven't already signed up to gather pledges, then click on the "Gather Pledges" button in "My Account" and register for Patron. 

Once you've registered to gather pledges, log in to your Contrebombarde.com Account and go to  My
Account > Manage Pledges > Embed Links. 

Once you get there, you'll see 3 types of tools: Buttons,
Widgets and Email.

Buttons are bits of code you can cut and paste into any
website that you may have. They place a clickable button on your page with a
link directly to your Patron page.

Widgets are cool. If you cut and paste these into your page,
it will bring up a little window in your page with some of your latest uploads.
Visitors to your site can click on the music and listen to it directly in your
site or page. It also invites people to become a patron of yours right in the
widget.

Email links: There are two types on email links you can send
out. One has some script (if you know how to insert it into your email) that
puts a button in your email

The other gives you just a web address that you can cut and
paste into any regular email you like. Here's what mine looks like.

https://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/user/96/pledges 

Yours will direct people to your page. So don't copy my
code. Get yours from the "Embed Links" page at contrebombarde.com. It will customize the code to go directly to you.

What We Learned

Not all users are comfortable accepting donations for themselves. Some feared how it might change the site. Some preferred to donate any proceeds to Contrebombarde itself. 

We really tried to keep the Patron system discrete. You might be hearing about it for the first time right now. I think we've managed to keep it discrete. The idea was never to go about soliciting other users particularly.

It hasn't changed the culture of the site because we were primarily focused on bringing people in from the outside to experience what you can do and what they can do using Hauptwerk.

Since we are at the point where we need funds to support the site (last year we put around $40,000 into the site... Granted that's CAD but it's still a chunk). We took user-suggestions and placed a general "Donate" button on the site as well as provided the option to donate any pledges received to the upkeep of Contrebombarde.com

We heartily thank those of you who have already donated. Every bit helps.

Conclusion

We certainly look forward to finding new ways to help users and to grow the site. This is a fantastic community and a vibrant example of what can be done to keep the love of pipe organs alive. 

Thanks for getting this far in our re-explanation.

Happy Hauptwerking.

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