As the curator of the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), I’m constantly keeping an eye out for bite-size information that will help you develop and scale better subscription products. Here’s my “Five on Friday” compilation for November 20th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.
1. Why Free Shipping Day Matters to Box Subscription Businesses
Free Shipping Day is Wednesday, December 18th this year. Why should we care? Earlier this month I listed several of the big shopping days leading up to Christmas, but there isn’t much time left to prep for Cyber Monday, much less Black Friday. But free shipping is a good incentive to last-minute customers, and subscription boxes are a perfect gift to buy and ship. According to FreeShippingDay.com, Free Shipping Day the third-busiest day for online shopping in the U.S. You can register your products to appear on their centralized site, too.
2. How To Create Prospect Engagement with Auto-Response
In a recent Copyblogger post, Beth Hayden offered some creative ideas on how to continue engaging with prospects and subscribers leveraging auto-response. These are easier to create than you think; all they require is a little planning. Here’s the How-To Hayden offered:
- Outline your “conversation.” What tips or resources are you going to include? What are you trying to accomplish? Who are you trying to reach? Tip: Don’t try to reach all audiences with one set of auto-responses, but choose a specific market segment and be specific.
- Decide how far apart each email will be sent. Tip: Don’t send more than one per day.
- Dedicate time to writing the whole series.
- Queue them up with your email service provider.
- Test the series to make sure everything works. Tip: Three to five emails in a series is a good start.
- Review periodically to ensure that messages are still accurate and meaningful.
3. Giving Thanks to Your Subscribers
Today is the optimal time to send a heartfelt “thank you” to your subscribers. No offer, no pitch – just appreciation for their continued support and relationship with your business. Most ecard sites like American Greetings, Paperless Post and Hallmark allow you to upload a logo and customize the text of most cards, and have wide selections so you can choose – or create – on that reflects your particular brand in a matter of minutes. Don’t expect these to be free, however – even emailing a card with a logo to a few subscribers will cost you something. American Greetings has an annual subscription for only $19.99/year – a decent value. Hallmark is free, but you may end up on a lot of mailing lists.
4. Asking for Referrals: a Good Tactic for Subscription Businesses
Bobbie Foedisch, a networking guru, posted a comment we should all remember about networking:
“The best way to get referrals is to give them, but the second-best way is to ask for them.”
As a subscription enterprise, you likely interact, interview and affiliate with others in your area of focus every day. Have you created a specific “ask” and requested introductions from those you currently have relationships with? If you’re 1) specific, 2) clear in what you want and 3) willing to give referrals to others, this is an activity that could open real doors in terms of market expansion.
5. In Spite of Folklore, “Buzz” Doesn’t Just Happen
A recent CMO.com post, “Ten Proven Ways to Stand Out in a Content Snacking Era.” included a few new ways to grow your audiences. One I hadn’t seen before, at least specifically, was:
“Animated GIFs are everywhere in conversations on the social web. If you are one of the 800m on Facebook Messenger, you’ve probably noticed that they added an item which proposes animated GIFs relevant to what you’ve written. No brand has taken advantage of this yet ”
Another I think it’s important to remember is,
“If you still believe in the magical “buzz,” somebody should tell you that it’s mostly about luck If you want your content to be seen, buy media, especially on Facebook, where your organic reach is almost zero but where there are no adblockers (on the mobile app).”
Have a very Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and thank you for your continued support of Subscription Insider and “Five on Friday!”
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Diane
Diane Pierson has deep experience in product management and marketing, having delivered results to companies including Dun & Bradstreet, LexisNexis, American Lawyer Media and Copyright Clearance Center. She has built products & services that have delivered over $100 million in revenue and knows what works, and what doesn’t, when executing product plans and strategies. She is also a contributor to Subscription Insider. (Read Diane’s full Bio)
