Gift subscriptions create a great opportunity for you to grow your membership and your recurring revenue. During the month of December, most subscription boxes will generate more gift subscription purchases than in the next 11 months combined. It’s critical that you seize this revenue opportunity to meet and exceed your recurring revenue targets for 2018.
In recent interviews for my podcast, Membership and Subscription Growth, I spoke with the CEOs from PopSugar Must Have, PupJoy, KitNipBox, and Stridebox about their gift subscription onboarding methods. They each shared their most successful practices.
Options for the Gift Givers Offer the Best Value for the Gift Recipient
It starts with curating a box that the giver will see as the best match for the recipient. Quality and value are important. Lisa Sugar, founder and CEO of PopSugar Must Have, shares that they “have various key seasons and offerings in different quarters. Because so many of our subscribers are women, they love that we’ve curated a box for men and that’s what they give their significant others, dads or brothers during the holidays. It’s been really great for us to extend in slightly different categories or more luxury, specifically in November and December, to make sure everybody’s covered for all their gifting needs.”
Make the Gifting Experience Simple
Dustin McAdams, founder and CEO of PupJoy, shares that he learned from experience that it’s important to keep the subscription process easy for gift recipients. He says, “folks that are giving gifts typically don’t need the type of customization or specificity like somebody who may be ordering an annual service for their dog.” The easier it is for them to participate in your product or service, the more positive their experience is.
Immediately Begin to Nurture a Relationship
These gift recipients have been identified, by someone that knows them, as a perfect person for your subscription box. This means that your chance of wowing them with your products is greater than with the general consumer. Tap into this interest and strike up a relationship around your product.
A process that Dustin finds successful for PupJoy is to insert high gloss cards in each box that share some of the product information and state where more information can be found. They include their contact information with email addresses, and even phone numbers. “That’s one way to open up the dialogue and then with all gift recipients.” In addition, Dustin shares that they “have automated drip nurturing email campaigns that go out. We don’t try to hit them with a whole lot of information all at once. It’s more incrementally keeping PupJoy on their radar.”
According to Deena Bronz, co-founder and CEO of KitNipBox, “the number one way to convert them is to really wow them with the box and with the product inside.” She goes on to add “in addition to that, there are a number of things to be done – from putting inserts in the box with calls to action to convert and become a full-time subscriber, to email marketing, to getting them engaged on social media and becoming part of that community. We have an email sequence and we want to make sure that they’re always up to date on exactly when they’re getting their box, and what’s going on. So, it’s really a multi-channel approach to building a relationship with that gift recipient, just like we would build a relationship with a regular subscriber.”
Engaging with your new subscribers on social media is a great way to nurture this relationship. KitNipBox has developed a strong social media community that adds an advantage. “We engage them on social media. For example, on every product insert that goes in the box, we also have our social media icons. We encourage them to post pictures and videos and we also make ourselves available,” says Deena.
Communicate as their Gift Subscription Expiration Nears
To secure your relationship with the gift recipient before they’re gone, make sure to communicate in the final hour. To continue the conversation with gift recipients, James Erickson, founder and CEO of Stridebox, sends postcards. Sometimes the only information they have on a gift recipient is their name and address. This doesn’t slow Stridebox down. They send a series of three postcards when the gift subscriptions are about to expire. James shares, “the first one says, ‘Oh no, you’re not going to get your Stridebox next month.’ It explains to them that so and so bought them a three-month gift subscription that will expire with their next box, and if they want to continue, here’s where they can sign up. The next one says, ‘This could be where it all ends.’ Then, it kind of explains it again. The third one gives them, finally, a discount code to go sign up for their first month.”
Take full advantage of this gift giving season for your subscription program. Make sure you make the giving process easy, onboard new members and execute a marketing campaign to convert gift recipients into paid subscribers. Consider giving subscription boxes yourself so you can see how other subscription boxes maximize this opportunity to discover strategies you can use within your own business.
