The 3 Pillars of a Successful Subscription Business, top tips from our latest Virtual Summit (episode 213)
Welcome to the week that our much anticipated Subscription eCommerce Virtual Summit goes live! It’s just Chloe today, giving you a peek into all the amazing content in store and sharing her favorite Top Tips from the Summit.
If you want to have premium access to the information from the Summit on call at all times plus other amazing bonuses, you’ll want to purchase our all access pass—the price of which will increase over the week… Listeners of this podcast are also getting a special opportunity…but you have to listen to receive the magic link.
Subscription boxes are becoming increasingly popular with consumers—which means more businesses are jumping on subscription opportunities fast. The Subscription eCommerce Virtual Summit has captured top shelf experts to help you unpack, analyze and take action on all the major elements of subscription success. Broken down into three subscription success pillars, our experts take summit attendees through step by step on how to make their subscription business a success.
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The Three Successful Subscription Pillars
- Choose the Right Subscription Model
- New Customer Recruitment
- Customer Retention
Pillar One | Choose the Right Subscription Model
Choosing the right subscription model is absolutely essential to get right early on. Because subscriptions are all about building relationships with the customer, if you don’t have the right product, with the right branding, targeting the right customers, the business simply won’t work. In this section of the summit, we run through the details of the wide variety of different subscription models.
Our Experts
Edward Upton, Little Data
Edward talks in depth about understanding where marketing money should be spent. He focuses on the importance of understanding customer lifetime value. In subscriptions, you are working harder to recruit your customers and spending more money doing it so it’s important to understand that lifetime value of those customers. Once you have that lifetime value and can accurately reflect it back to your acquisition channels, you can put acquisition on the fast track.
Jon Butt, Blue Coffee
Jon Butt from Blue Coffee has been on the eCommerce Master Plan Podcast more than once—first to talk about his business Fire Protection Online and later to share the story of the launch of Blue Coffee. Jon talks about why it’s important to take subscription businesses seriously and why keeping customers happy is crucially important. Packed with great tips, this conversation is not to be missed.
Connor Gillivan, Freeup
Connor Gillivan from Freeup shares insider tips on how to maximize productivity by outsourcing. Connor takes summit attendees through the process of delegating and hiring, which are quite often the most daunting part of outsourcing.
Rob Barr, Free Charge
Rob talks to attendees about the benefits of focusing on replenishment subscriptions. 32% of subscription businesses are currently offering a replenishment rather than discovery box service. Just like in any business, the replenishment subset of the subscription business has its own set of unique challenges. If you already have an eCommerce business and want to tap into some of that recurring revenue, consider an access subscription (similar to Amazon Prime). Enabling your customers to access to extras for a monthly fee can provide a good stream of steady income.
Chloe will also be doing a session outlining the key decisions you need to make to set yourself up for subscription success. Whether you are looking to expand your existing subscription business, thinking about adding subscriptions to your existing eCommerce business or are looking to get into the game for the first time, Chloe addresses the key points you need to be thinking about.
Pillar Two | Customer Recruitment
As a subscription model business owner, you have to be great at new customer recruitment. Getting someone to sign up for a subscription month after month is not as easy as selling a product once. If you want to play the subscription game, you have to master the art of new customer recruitment.
Our Experts
Dave Rotheroe, Viral by Design
Dave Rotheroe might be a name you’ve heard. Not only does he own Viral by Design, but he’s also started two successful subscription businesses—Cheese Posties and Lick My Dip, which he’s talked about on the eCommerce Master Plan Podcast. Dave’s successful agency is based on the process of viral marketing—which is all about working out what topics your customers are into and combining those with viral psychological triggers. Using that information, Dave teaches business owners how to create content that spreads like wildfire as their marketing goes viral. Dave shares top tips, facebook ad advice and more.
Jack Paxton, Vyper
One of the co-founders of Vyper, Jack Paxton focuses on Facebook Ad’s and shares how to build a successful funnel and create scalable success.
Rytis Lauris, Omnisend
Omnisend founder, Rytis Lauris talks about all the different channels you can use to talk to your customers. Combining email, push, ads, SMS and more makes for a farm more powerful strategy. Rytis details how the sum of multiple channels is greater than their individual parts. Just to pique your interest, here are some stats Rytis unpacks for Summit attendees:
- Customer attention rates are 90% higher for those who connect via multiple channels.
- If you send three automated messages, you will get 100% more sales than if you just sent the first one.
Rytis also does a deep dive into SMS, his favorite, underrated marketing channel.
Mike Harvey, Sudsy Club
Another retailer guest, Mike Harvey of Sudsy Club shares his start up story. As we were recording, Mike was just two weeks out of the posting of their first box. It’s fascinating to hear from someone who is so new into the subscription journey. Mike shares what he wishes he had done differently, the things that worked and those that didn’t. A great tip that Mike shares is how his company splits up their marketing efforts: for the first half of the Sudsy Club box cycle, Mike and his team focus on connecting with their customers. For the second part of the cycle, Mike switches gears and starts talking about the next box and generating hype around that.
Pillar Three | Customer Retention
Customer Retention is the most underestimated element in building a subscription business. Even more than regular eCommerce, subscription business owners have to work extra hard at retaining their customers. Not only are subscription customers harder to get, the profit model relies on keeping the customers you do have.
Our Experts
Fiona Stevens, LoyaltyLion
Head of Marketing at LoyaltyLion, Fiona Stevens gives us her best tips on building loyalty programs and genuine customer loyalty. This amazing masterclass helps you fully understand how loyalty programs can help your business. There is a lot to learn about this topic and it’s not all what you might think. Loyalty isn’t just about straight forward points. It can also be about giving access to things that other people don’t get. A loyalty program can even be a segway to building a subscription business itself.
Rebecca Martin, Pink Parcel
Rebecca helped launch and grow Pink Parcel to become the UK’s number one period subscription box. Rebecca goes deep into content and brand, and breaks down the partnership side of the subscription business. Rebecca makes it simple to understand how you can make it work for partners and deliver your box and story at the right time in the right way to the right customer.
Kristen DeCosta, Churn Buster
While Fiona and Rebecca help articulate more soft marketing ideas, Kristen brings the hard hitting techniques to the table. For the average subscription business, 5-20% of payments fail each month. With a thorough dunning campaign, as much as 70% of those transactions can actually be recovered. If you aren’t currently doing anything in the world of dunning, there is huge potential to recapture those customers. Kristen and Chloe break down what that sort of campaign actually looks like and Kiresten shares her templates.
Stefan Pretty, Subbly
Stefan, from subscription box software platform Subbly talks about churn reduction. Stefan shares how people can keep up their retention and maximize their monthly revenue stream.
Whether you already have a subscription business, want to add something different to your existing eCommerce shop or are ready to start something entirely new, the Subscription eCommerce Virtual Summit has everything you need to make and execute a successful subscription business.