Free Vocal challenges?

When I first stumbled across the Vocal platform I was so excited! I had finally found a way that I could make some extra money and expand my writing skills. I had read a review about the site and was really excited to join and start writing away. To my surprise when I looked more into it I discovered that it could be difficult to earn any sort of money if you are not a Vocal+ member. I get some of the differences, but some of them made me feel discouraged in my journey here. I thought to myself, "What if there was a way to meet in the middle to offer free members some more added incentives?" And what better way to bring my ideas to Vocal's attention than to write my own story about it? While I know that it may be a stretch I figured it wouldn't hurt to possibly get some things improved for free members of the community.

When I found the Vocal website my inner dreams from childhood of being an author came to light, but only for a brief moment. The article I read that brought me to the platform mentioned the challenges, but of course did not mention that you needed to buy a membership to be able to participate! I began to be a little jealous you could say when all the new challenges were coming out but weren't available to me. I do understand that many of the challenges have very high prizes, therefore, you should have to pay extra for those chances. However, I feel like we could meet in the middle on this!

My first suggestion would be to make the challenges available to all members, but with different winning categories! The paid Vocal+ members would still have their same big money prizes for winning and the free members would have low prizes ranging from five dollars to fifty dollars. While I doubt that this would happen, I feel that it would increase the number of people who want to use the platform and even increase sales for Vocal+ memberships. I know if I were to win one or more free challenges I would begin to build confidence that I could become a Vocal+ member and win big prizes!

My second suggestion was more plausible for the creators of Vocal because it does nothing but benefit them! What if we had a quarterly challenge for free members only where they could win credit towards a certain amount of Vocal+ membership? I would imagine that 1st place gets 6 months, 2nd place gets 3 month, and a select amount of runner ups get a month free. This would allow free community members to get a taste of what it's like to be a Vocal+ member at no extra cost to them initially! I bet that once they see the added benefits and are loving the perks of membership they will continue to purchase the membership on their own once their free time is up!

My third and final suggestion was that there could be an entirely different set of challenges particularly for free members that are not rewarded, but can get you featured on the main page if you win. This would be absolutely no cost to the Vocal creators. I would personally love to get the chance to participate in challenges for any incentive that can help me advance my journey with making money from my writing! This would be a good way for free members to grow their audience, and if they get a good amount of reads they may want to jump up to a paid membership to increase their earnings. It's a win-win here Vocal!

While there are many other aspects of free vs. + membership that differentiate, I understand why they are in place! Of course it makes sense that they would get higher earning rates and access to quick edit and these high paying challenges! I do not aim to take any of that away from the Vocal+ members at all! I just simply want to make the platform more fun for everyone and increase free members chances of making the earnings they desire.

For me personally I would have definitely already gotten myself a membership had it not been for my lack of finances! I wish that I could afford it, and maybe I'm just having wishful thoughts because I want to participate and get added incentives as well! But can you blame me? Leave some love and comments down below about what you think of these ideas! Maybe Vocal will notice this and throw in a little free challenge here or there for all of us freebies out here!