Subscription Box Answers

Do this to keep the sales flowing during the summer months...

• Liam Brennan

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The summer months can traditionally be slower for some e-commerce and subscription box companies. It all depends on your niche, but this can be perfectly normal. 

The important thing is to understand the different seasons in your business and prepare for them. During the busy months, you should not be afraid to put your foot down and get as many new subscribers as possible (and sell as many products as possible). 

In the slower season, you should also have a plan to keep revenue and new subscribers flowing.

In this episode of Subscription Box Answers, I explain exactly what you should do to keep the sales coming in during the summer months. 

If you have a question you want answered on the show, head over to www.SubscriptionBoxResources.com and join the free Facebook group to post your question there.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Subscription Box Answers with your host, liam Brennan. You're no rubbish, no crap. Straight to the point podcast with real, actionable tips, real strategies and insights from the industry which will help you start and grow your own successful subscription box business. You ask the questions, you ask the questions, you ask the questions. Liam gives the answers. It's as simple as that.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to a brand new episode of Subscription Box Answers. I hope you're having a great day. On today's episode we are discussing the summer months and I'm going to share some advice about some things you can do to keep up momentum throughout the summer. Now, in some Subscription Box companies and e-com companies and retailers, the summer months can be relatively slow. But honestly, it all depends on your niche, because on the other side of things, I know for a fact the summer months can actually be some of the best months, depending on your niche, and you can end up getting a lot of people signed up for a relatively cheap price. But but yeah, it all depends on your niche. For some niches it's tougher to get as much traction, and that's perfectly normal because in every business there will always be slower periods and busier periods, and it's important that in the busier seasons you take advantage of that and you put the foot down and you make as much money and get as many people signed up as possible. And in the slower seasons you also recognize that and you have some strategies you can do to keep up momentum. Now, if you are in a subscription box business where the summer months are typically slower, this episode will really help you. But listen, if you're in a subscription box where it's crazy busy through the summer, you can use some of this information as well to help you push on further. Now you may be thinking to yourself why is it slower in the summer months for my business? And that's perfectly normal, and the reason behind that is if you're finding it slower, it's probably because the customers you are going after just aren't in the buying mood. It's summer and they're not on social media as much, so you can't target them with your ads. They are away from their computer because they're out taking advantage of the sun with friends and family. They could be on vacation, on holidays, whatever. Now, thankfully, in my own subscription box business, buster Box were obviously in the toy and treat niche, and things don't slow down that much in the summer because people are still pretty eager to buy toys and treats for their dogs throughout those months. But I do have some information I'm going to share which should hopefully help you, so let's jump into it.

Speaker 2:

We're going to talk about the customer acquisition side of things first. Now, something you really need to bear in mind is right throughout the summer, it's usually pretty common for your CPM prices to drop. If you don't know what CPM is prices are, let me explain. Your CPM prices are how much you're paying to reach a thousand people through a advertising platform like Facebook or TikTok or whatever. And it usually becomes cheaper in the summer because not as many people are advertising and it's kind of the calm before the storm, before things really kick off in Q4, where CPM prices are typically more expensive because there's more demand. Then More companies are advertising, it's done on an auction basis and it pushes up the CPM price for everybody, so there are some opportunities in the summer.

Speaker 2:

Now what we have found which really helps our customer acquisition in the summer is having relevant teams and relevant offers which resonate with this time of year. Now we have found that the offer is usually a bigger lever you can pull to help you with your customer acquisition, and I'll touch on that in a minute. But the teams can also certainly help and I'll give you some examples. So over the years, throughout June and July, we've had plenty of pool party teams, hawaiian teams, beach teams, summer teams, whatever, and that has definitely helped us with our customer acquisition and I would highly recommend looking into doing something like that in your own subscription box business. If you're not doing it already Now, I personally believe in the vast majority of cases, your offer is actually going to have a bigger impact when it comes to your customer acquisition. And I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2:

So over the last few years, throughout June, july and August, and when the weather is particularly sunny, we have switched our offers to things like cooling mats for dogs and splash pads for dogs. Now, both of these offers have been pretty much a cheat code for us in our business. Over the last few years, we have got so many people signed up because of these offers. And you have to think about it, right, if you are scrolling on your facebook news feed or your instagram feed or whatever, and you come across a buster box ad and the ad is obviously a happy dog, some toys and treats and a free splash pad. And you're sitting at home and you're absolutely sweating and you see this ad yeah, you're likely to sign up, you'll get the toys and treats, you'll get the splash pad. And you'll sitting at home and you're absolutely sweating and you see this ad yeah, you're likely to sign up, you'll get the toys and treats, You'll get the splash pad. And you'll be thinking in your head. This is fantastic. I'll set this up in the back garden, it will cool the dog down and it'll be a great family day. So you take out the credit card and you sign up, and that's why this works so well for us. The offer is relevant to the time of year and that's why our customer acquisition cost is low and we're making the most of the cheap CPMs around this time of year.

Speaker 2:

Now you should be looking to do the exact same in your subscription box business. You need to think. It obviously doesn't need to be a splash pad, but what summer offer would resonate really, really well with your target audience and what would make them pull out their credit card and want to sign up to your box on the spot after coming across one of your ads on Facebook, instagram or TikTok or whatever? Now I would highly advise thinking outside the box when it comes to this. Get creative. All you have to remember is whatever offer you pick out needs to tie back to your box in some way, so you are attracting the right quality customers and people who are actually going to enjoy being subscribed to your subscription for a long time. But get creative and think outside the box and try to figure out what can you come up with that will resonate with your target customers throughout the summer and will make them take action and actually sign up, because even though things can be slower in the summer, on the flip side, like I said, cpm prices are cheaper and there are still people buying. So if you hit them with the right offer and give them a reason to sign up, they will.

Speaker 2:

Right now let's talk about the other side of things and we'll move away slightly from subscriptions. Let's talk about selling other products throughout the summer to make money. I'll tell you what we're doing in BusterBox. We're actually in the process of putting this together now. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you will know I've touched on mystery boxes a good few times, particularly with the reply yes process. That works really, really well for selling mystery boxes, clearing out stock and making money. Now the thing about the reply yes process is it only really works if you have the customer's credit card details on your system already. So it's absolutely fantastic for selling add-ons and other subscriptions to customers and cancelled customers it's the best way of doing it in my opinion. And cancelled customers it's the best way of doing it in my opinion.

Speaker 2:

But if you have been running your business for a while, it's likely you have a big email list, like for us in BusterBox, I think. We have over 200,000 people on our email list now and we're collecting new leads all the time through our sign-up flow and through our squeeze pages. Now, not all of those people are going to buy a subscription from us. A lot of them will, but not everybody. But we're still collecting leads all the time.

Speaker 2:

Now, what we're in the process of doing and we've done similar things like this in the past we're actually doing a simple launch to sell as many mystery boxes as possible to our entire list. Now this will help us achieve a few different things Number one, clear out some overstock. Number two, make money throughout the summer. And number three, it's something different to spur our email list into action and get people buying from us who may not be interested in buying a subscription straight away. And our hopes are some of those people will buy a mystery box, they'll love what they get and then they'll end up signing up to a subscription in the future.

Speaker 2:

So we're not going to overcomplicate things here. We're going to keep things very straightforward. I've already created a simple waitlist page, and the waitlist page contains some elements to drive up urgency and scarcity. It states there's only a thousand mystery boxes available and will only be running the sale for 48 hours. So if you want to grab one of these mystery boxes, you need to be quick and you need to be ready to buy as soon as the sale opens. I already have the emails prepared, but how it'll work is a simple launch strategy. We'll hit the list. We'll invite as many people as possible to join the waitlist page. Then we'll warm them up over the next week with a series of emails showing them some sneak peeks of the type of products they can expect to receive in the mystery boxes, some testimonials from happy dog owners and loads of other things to build up anticipation and demand so they're ready to buy as soon as we open the sale.

Speaker 2:

Now there are plenty of other ways you can drive revenue in your business over the summer, but this is what we're going to be doing in BusterBox over the next few weeks. Now I hope this podcast has helped you. You've got some fresh ideas around your customer acquisition and another way of driving more revenue into your business and clearing out stock at the same time. Can I ask you a big favor If you enjoyed this episode, would you mind giving me a review on apple or spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts? It just really helps me get this show out to more people. Now we'll be back next week at the exact same time and, as always, if you have a question you want answered on the show, head over to subscriptionboxresourcescom, join the free Facebook group and post your question there. Chat to you next week and have a great day. Bye-bye.