It’s been a month since Cratejoy announced our 4 Prelaunch Program partners. If you haven’t seen them yet, take a peek at our Coming Soon section in the Cratejoy Marketplace to see the prelaunching listings.
First off, we want to shout out to each of our pilot partners. Each of our partners has done an incredible job over the last 30 days to finalize their ideas, come up with their pricing & product offering, and get prepared for a full-scale launch. Well done!
But let’s talk results.
Officially, prelaunch pages have been up for one week (going live on 10/25). In that time, we’ve accomplished the following:
- Driven 3541 unique pageviews
- Generated 972 presubscribers
- Averaged 23.6% conversion across listing pages
Generally, successful prelaunch pages see around 15-18% conversion rates (i.e. those hosted through services like Launchrock, Kickoff Labs, or Unbounce, to name a few). We’re seeing much higher than those rates, and that means qualified, interested & excited presubscribers for our pilot partners.
We’ve also done some learning.
Working hand in hand with our pilot partners, we’ve gained valuable insight into the seller journey toward launching your first subscription box.
Here are 4 big lessons we’ve seen emerge:
1. You Don’t Need Your Box and Products Secured to Run a Prelaunch
First things first: a prelaunch is a test to validate your idea. If you can generate a healthy email list of people interested in your product before it’s available to the public, you probably have a good idea on your hands.
That does not mean you need to go out and source all your products on Day 1.
Rather, simply defining the type of items, clearly explaining them, and showing some examples can go a long way to communicate your value to potential presubscribers.
It’s definitely helpful to have a set of items pre-chosen, though. Putting together a mock box to help you visualize your brand and the type of products & brands you might feature will help formalize the idea in your head and help you make better decisions during your prelaunch.
2. Prelaunch Provides A Lot of Learning
Pricing, shipping, box sizes, how to approach vendors, timing shipments… it’s a lot to deal with. We’ve seen our prelaunch pilot members learn a ton about this over these last few weeks.
And that stands out to us.
Rather than diving into a launch, by prelaunching, you’re able to build your chops as a subscription box founder. You get a better sense about the implications of each of your decisions, and that means better choices throughout the life of your business.
3. Start Building Vendor Relationships as Soon as Possible
Depending on your niche, you may be faced with rigid margins or long lead time (the time it takes to get a product manufactured and shipped to you).
Because of that, we’ve noticed that the sooner you reach out to vendors, the better. This is not a last-minute task.
The benefit is actually wide-reaching:
- Get a sense of your true COGS with our subscription box calculator
- Develop a CRM of potential future leads (and know what they want when you work together)
- Practice your pitch and become better understanding and how to communicate your value
If you’re doing a prelaunch, don’t wait until your customer list is full to start talking to vendors. Make a few calls and emails each day. At the end of the process, you’ll be equipped with a long list of leads & you’ll be a much better salesperson!
4. Appreciate Each Phase of Your Business Journey (And Give Yourself Footing)
There’s a lot to do when launching a business, and by doing a prelaunch, you gain an appreciation of those steps.
You also take a critical step in generating interest, excitement, and anticipation around your business. This footing a prelaunch provides helps ensure future success when it comes to launching. And that traction you see during can prelaunch can inspire passion when you’re learning and executing on the rest of the steps to build your business.
In general, the feeling you get from a successful prelaunch goes beyond the value it provides to the business alone. It builds your a sense of professionalism, ownership, and excitement, and that’s something you can’t source anywhere online!
Keep up with our Prelaunch
It’s been amazing to see the work – and the results – of our pilot partners. And we can see they’re amazed as well. If you’d like to keep up with our prelaunch, be sure to follow along on this blog and join our Subscription School Facebook group.
