It’s official, the countdown to Prelaunch 2.0 is on!
To get everyone excited before applications open on May 15th, we wanted to share the success stories of our first batch of prelaunch partners (and don’t worry – if you missed the initial Prelaunch announcement or Requirements & Expectations blog, check those out here and here).
To recap, in Fall of 2016, Cratejoy partnered with 4 up-and-coming subscription box owners to help prelaunch their product on Marketplace. Three of the four successfully launched and we’ve tracked their journey and results to bring you a blog series that showcases the power of Cratejoy’s Prelaunch Program.
First up to bat: Jessica of All Girl Shave Club.
Why We Chose Jessica: Passion, Product, and Community
“We’re the ultimate shave club for women. We provide high-quality, premium razors, coupled with unique, natural, specialty shaving and body products”
If you watch Jessica’s marketplace video (and her application video), two things are clear – she’s passionate about her product and is fueling that passion into a community-based business.
Sure, there were other razor subscriptions on the market, but Jessica’s mission was to offer quality and luxury, a need-based razor model mixed with the extra jazz of treat-yo-self body products.
This combination of enthusiasm and product research made All Girl Shave Club an undeniable standout during the Prelaunch application project. (It didn’t hurt that she tested the razor on everyone under the sun.)
Prelaunch by the Numbers
| Prelaunch Metrics | AGSC Results |
|---|---|
| Number of Email Signups | 276 Sign Ups |
| Conversion Rate from email list | 20% Conversion Rate |
| Number of Days to reach 100 subscribers | ~30 Days |
| Subscriber Growth from 1st month | 6X Subscriber Growth |
| Current Marketplace Ranking (Based on Sub Count) | 90 |
| Listing Page Views (All time – from Nov ’16) | 12k Page Views |
Notes on the metrics
Conversion rate: A successful prelaunch can hope to see a 10-20% conversion rate from email lead to subscriber. All Girl Shave Club reached the higher end of that range, due to highly qualified leads in the subscription commerce space.
Days to reach 100 subscribers: The average seller takes 150 days (5 months) to cross the 100-subscriber mark. All Girl Shave Club blasted through that milestone in a little over 3 weeks and continues to grow month over month.
Growth: Compared to Month 1 numbers, Jessica’s subscriber count has grown 6 times since the end of January. Growth is not only a result of finding new subscribers, but keeping your old ones. Increasing retention and reducing churn are critical to scaling a subscription business.
Marketing for All Girl Shave Club
As you might’ve guessed, those results didn’t materialize out of thin air. The mission of the Prelaunch program is to help sellers generate warm leads, which comes down to good ol’ fashioned marketing.
During the pilot program, we focused primarily on email, social media, and content creation to build buzz and gather emails for our partners. Check out some of All Girl Shave Club’s features below:
Custom Product Photography
All prelaunch partners are guaranteed in-house product photography from Cratejoy’s marketing team. This content is used across email, social, and listing pages to help Prelaunch sellers define their visual branding during the early stages of the business.
Dedicated “Sneak Peek” Email
Along with product photography, we included All Girl Shave Club and the other Prelaunch partners in an exclusive “Coming Soon” email to Cratejoy’s personal email list.
Our audience is comprised of subscription box enthusiasts – warm leads that are already interested in the kinds of products our sellers have to offer.
Email was by far the biggest generator of email signups for our sellers and an awesome way to introduce our partners to Cratejoy customers.
Review on Cratejoy’s Blog, Box Insider
If you search “subscription box reviews” on Google, you’ll get a whopping 15.4 million results. With Box Insider reviews, Cratejoy tries to introduce enthusiastic consumers to new products, and that goal was no different with our Prelaunch partners.
For All Girl Shave Club, we wrote an authentic and informative review to help attract the savvy subscriber who wants to know exactly what they’re getting into before committing to an ecommerce relationship.
So what did Jessica think of the Prelaunch Pilot?
I checked in with Jessica to get some feedback about the program and what she thought was valuable about launching her business with Cratejoy. Here’s what she had to say:
Do you think the Prelaunch Program helped accelerate your success?
Cratejoy helped accelerate my success by sharing my prelaunch with their audience, which was a far greater reach than I had just starting out.
Their audience was already familiar with subscription boxes and how they work – so I feel they were the best kind of leads. When launch day came, those leads converted really well.
Why do you think the Prelaunch Program is valuable to new subscription box sellers?
Even the best business-minded sellers will have questions and will need to get their subscription in front of the right people. The prelaunch program provides a solution to both of those needs.
I would say it’s even more important for new sellers who don’t have any prior experience in business as they really help you to set goals, stay on track with your timeline, and provide the assistance that’s needed to help launch a successful box. They are the experts, it’s a golden opportunity to learn from them to build a solid foundation!
Anything else you’d like to add?
I remember the day that I got the email from Amir saying I was “in” – I jumped around my living room like I won the lottery!
And in a sense I did, because launching my business has been the most exciting, fulfilling and rewarding experience of my professional life. We had a successful launch and have grown quickly ever since. I attribute that in part to having a strong prelaunch, and of course, being part of the prelaunch program definitely helped in getting there.
