My original plan at the end of 2020 was to take two weeks off before resuming operations. But, after looking at my numbers and how they could be better — I decided to make some changes without raising rates.
Party Favorz has over 2,000 followers on Podbean but digging into the data — I could see that the overwhelming majority of folks were only downloading the free 6 month old episodes that were being offered but that wasn’t translating into subscribers.
I easily spend $250 – $300 a month just on the overall maintenance and music curation for this podcast. I also put in a good 50 – 60 hours a week putting everything together. I’m hardly getting rich doing this because it is a labor of love but it is REAL labor.
As such, I’ve removed the “Free Stuff” category and replaced it with a “Preview” category, which offers 20 minutes of all the latest episodes and a large variety of classic sets for anyone sitting on the fence on becoming a subscriber. It’s not fair to those that support my efforts with a monthly subscription while most do not. Many folks just sign up for a month to grab older sets and then drop out, which is fine. I full anticipated that.
The reason this took longer to pull together than anticipated is because there were some kinks either in my theme or limitations in WordPress that prevent the scrolling of the new category. To get around this — I’ve limited the previews to 12 max episodes per category but broke everything down by genre like the main site for users to be able to see what we have to offer.
I also re-designed the category templates and made some other tweaks in the background for better overall performance of the main site on mobile, tablet as well as PC and laptop.
I’ve also created our own Party Favorz app, which you get a notice for on mobile and tablet and works flawlessly. There’s no spyware and it’s easy to install and uninstall like you would any other app. You can also install the app on your desktop or laptop but you don’t get a notice for that. Google Chrome has a small + sign in the far right corner to install the app on those devices but it works the same. I haven’t tested this on Safari but it should be something similar.
I need to test it on my Samsung TV and/or Roku to see if it can be installed but I don’t see why not. I’ll do that a bit later and will have full instructions in the support section in the coming weeks and will let you know.
I do ask that because of all these changes to the site that everyone clear their browser on all their devices (i.e. mobile, tablet, desktop and laptop) depending on what’s your go to for accessing the main website. The reason is to prevent any error messages you may receive and to ensure all changes appear as they should on your device.
Also, I’ve added a new support tutorial for any issues involving a pop-up asking you to subscribe even though you already have subscription.
I plan on slow-rolling our startup for the new year with some new Diva Hall of Fame | Legacy entries plus the next round of “The Ultimate 90’s House Classics” before launching into all new music in Dance Club, Circuit & Anthems, Disco House and Peak Hour. I’m still going forward with Chill Out but don’t expect as many of those throughout the year. I do have plans to update the “Trance Classics” (which are long overdue for a refresh) and the “00’s House Classics” as well that cover the first 10 years of the millennium.
Additionally, I’ve got plans for BackSpin sets with a culmination of the years from 2000 and forward featuring the biggest Dance/Club tracks that would set the stage for high school reunions. Kind of digging into the early past. I’m still working that one out in my head.
I’m also open to suggestions for Legacy entries. I know we have one for Stock, Aiken and Waterman and I’m on the fence about that one but haven’t ruled it out. I’m also thinking about a Shep Pettibone tribute as well as New Order and Depeche Mode to round out our 80’s entries. The two or three I have coming up are surprise entries that frankly should have been honored ages ago but current remixes were lacking until recently.
I’ve got some picture hanging and other assorted duties around the house the rest of this week. We’ve lived here since 2017 and I still haven’t really made this our home even though it’s clearly going to be for some time to come. So, new material will start showing up starting next week…I PROMISE. Until then…ENJOY!
