Originally shared in The Scoop, a weekly email on what's working in direct-to-fan. Subscribe to get stories like this in your inbox every Friday.
Johnnyswim recently launched the Swim Team, their official fan club, and hundreds of fans signed up within days paying up to $85/year. In part one we broke down the groundwork — years of showing up for fans that made the whole thing feel earned before anyone was ever asked to pay.
This time we're looking at the rollout itself. Because the groundwork only matters if you actually know how to launch the thing. Here's what they got right.
1. They hit every channel, more than once.
Most launches go like this: email goes out, IG story goes up, done.
Not Johnnyswim. Before the fan club even went live, they were building anticipation with teaser stories and polls asking fans to guess what was coming.
Then on launch day they showed up everywhere — email, text, socials — and kept showing up all week. It never felt like a marketing blast. It felt like a countdown that just kept going, which brings us to the next point.
2. They over-invested in the early experience.
This one is huge.
From day one they were in the fan club chat answering questions, reacting to fans, making it feel alive. It wasn't some "we'll post some content in here next week" energy, but actual presence.
That matters more than people realize. If someone pays $85 to join and it's dead in there, they're out. Johnnyswim made sure that wasn't the case by making the room feel alive from the jump. That's what gave them something worth showing off.
3. They exposed the experience publicly.
All of those moments happening inside the fan club started showing up on Instagram. Questions, conversations, reactions, shared so non-members could see what it actually felt like to be in the club.
Within two weeks they even started a "singles club" for members, quirky extensions of the community that gave the whole thing a life of its own.
The best kind of marketing loop: inside activity became outside visibility, which drove curiosity, which drove more members.
4. They layered in ongoing reasons to join.
On top of all that, they launched the club a few weeks before a tour announcement, so early members got presale access baked in. That alone gave people a reason to act now instead of sitting on it.
Then two weeks later they brought back Live from the Backyard, the acoustic series fans had been begging for since covid. The first stream was last week and it was everything you'd want it to be:
- Members voted on the setlist ahead of the show
- Chat was going crazy the entire time
- Fans were watching the replay late into the night
Most fan clubs go quiet after launch week. This one kept giving people new reasons to show up, which is really the whole point.
Zooming out, here's the whole picture.
The fan clubs that work aren't the ones with the best perks or the biggest launch day. They're the ones that keep showing up after.
Johnnyswim promoted it like a real campaign, made the room worth being in from day one, let the experience do the marketing, and kept giving fans new reasons to come back.
Hundreds of fans paying $85/year and signups still rolling in weeks later. That's what a rollout with a pulse looks like.
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