For any subscription business, one of the most important elements of your growth is the number of subscribers you have at any given time. To find any kind of success, you must figure out a way to get your business out there and constantly acquire subscribers.
Here are 5 user acquisition strategies you can start employing right now:
Tactic 1: Spend some time tightening up your design & pictures.
One of the reasons Apple products are well liked is because of their design. Steve Jobs once said, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
This couldn’t be more true for the subscription box business.
Show them amazing pictures of what they can expect to see in the boxes, make them remember “that picture” even if they leave without subscribing. It’s called branding! Keep in mind that more often than not, people will make assumptions about how trustworthy you are based on how put together your page is. Don’t give them reason to think “They didn’t even spend time putting the page together, will they spend time on my box? Will it come on time?”
Tactic 2: Host A Blogger Giveaway.
You may or may not have heard of this tactic before, but it certainly works if done right. We recently saw a company start their store on Cratejoy and blow past 500 subscribers in 48 hours after doing a giveaway on a relevant niche blog. Here’s how:
- Spend 2 hours this evening putting together a list of 20 well-read blogs in your space. For example, if your boxes are toys for kids, you could find a few popular mom/dad blogs.
- Write them a short, concise e-mail telling them what your business is respectfully ask if they’ll be willing to host a contest/giveaway of your box for their readers. Also offer the blogger a free 2 or 3 month subscription (remember, for most bloggers, this is their livelihood). Of the 20 you reach out to, you’ll typically get about 5 of them interested. Make sure you send them a clear, well-written pitch of your business and hi-res pictures to use. Remember this is the first interaction those readers have with your business, make it a good one.
Tactic 3: Partner with a social media influencer in your space.
This is another tried and trusted way to build a dedicated following on social media and most importantly score a number of subscribers. What you need to do:
- Like you did with bloggers, in number 2 above, put together a list of social media influencers in your space. I suggest Instagram and Facebook because those two are particularly great with picture content.
- Approach them (one at a time) with a partnership proposal. Something you can try is ask them to do a monthly unboxing of your product for 3 months and share pictures or short clips with their followers. You can also provide them a discount code to share with their followers, offering 50% off your first month box. Offer to split profits with them for anyone who subscribes using their unique discount code.
- Add more influencers to the mix as you grow and scale up.
Tactic 4: Be active in popular forums like Reddit.
This is a great place for subscriber acquisition because you can easily focus in on a niche audience. For those who don’t know, Reddit is an extremely popular forum broken into “subreddits” where people of similar interests discuss various topics. For example, there is the entrepreneurship subreddit, where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs discuss. This could be a great place to frequent, not only to learn about the subject matter but also to get the word out about your business. And the best part? There’s a sub-reddit for everything – moms, dads, teens, engineers, scientists, foodies etc.
Tactic 5: Nurture your site visitors into subscribers.
Regardless of what business you are in or what you are selling, you will never convert all the visitors to your website into buyers. However, the fact that they came to your page does mean there may have been an interest in your subscription, and you should make the most of that. Make sure you’re capturing all the visitors through a pop-up. This last step is simple, and Cratejoy already provides an integration with AppSumo’s List Builder to make this happen.
First, take 5 minutes to set up AppSumo on your site. Next, turn on List Builder in your AppSumo app and design your popup or “Opt-in”. Once it’s turned on, you’ll immediately begin collecting email addresses from interested visitors. Sending this list some emails showing pictures/videos of what’s in your box that month, testimonials/reviews from current subscribers, and even offering discounts, will certainly earn you a few new subscribers.
