In today's episode of Subscription Box Answers, I am going to give you a game plan to follow to reach 1,000 subscribers.
I believe that getting to 1,000 subscribers as soon as possible should be a priority for the majority of subscription box owners. Typically, reaching 1,000 subscribers is the tipping point where everything starts to improve significantly.
When you reach this level, your business becomes more sustainable. It's at this juncture that you can often consider leaving your day job, drawing a salary from your business, and beginning to hire additional help.
These businesses require the same level of work whether you have 100 subscribers or 1,000 subscribers, but the difference is that at 1,000, you begin to see a lot of benefits. So my advice is to do everything in your power to reach this level as quickly as you can.
You can join the waitlist for Subscription Box Experts at www.SubscriptionBoxExperts.com
In today's episode of Subscription Box Answers, I am going to give you a game plan to follow to reach 1,000 subscribers.
I believe that getting to 1,000 subscribers as soon as possible should be a priority for the majority of subscription box owners. Typically, reaching 1,000 subscribers is the tipping point where everything starts to improve significantly.
When you reach this level, your business becomes more sustainable. It's at this juncture that you can often consider leaving your day job, drawing a salary from your business, and beginning to hire additional help.
These businesses require the same level of work whether you have 100 subscribers or 1,000 subscribers, but the difference is that at 1,000, you begin to see a lot of benefits. So my advice is to do everything in your power to reach this level as quickly as you can.
You can join the waitlist for Subscription Box Experts at www.SubscriptionBoxExperts.com
Welcome to Subscription Box Answers with your host, liam Brennan. You're no rubbish, no crap. Straight to the point podcast with real, actionable tips, real strategies and insights from the industry which will help you start and grow your own successful subscription box business. You ask the question, you ask the questions, liam gives the answers. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to a brand new episode of Subscription Box Answers. I hope you're having a great day. On today's episode, I'm going to cut right to the chase. I want to help you reach a thousand active subscribers as quickly as possible. I'm going to help you do that in this episode. I'm actually going to give you a game plan so you can hit a thousand active subscribers. Before we jump into that, I just want to remind you that the Subscription Box Experts Academy is open on March 12th. If you want my help scaling up your business and having the best 2024 possible, I highly recommend joining it. You'll get all the support and knowledge you need to build a highly successful subscription box business. If you're interested, head over to SubscriptionBoxExpertscom and join the waitlist. We'll be opening on March 12th. Back to the podcast.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest milestones in your subscription box journey is reaching a thousand active subscribers. Now, obviously, there are milestones before that, and there's definitely milestones past that, but there is something very special about hitting a thousand active subscribers. The reason why I think it's so special is because at that point, things really start to change in your business. Everything gets much better. Trust me, only when you reach this level you can hire some help and you can also start paying yourself a healthy salary, and that's really, really important. When you set up one of these businesses at the start, you will be putting a lot of time and effort into the company and you won't get much back at the very start. It's simply the truth, and that's the same for any business. When you're getting up and running and you're building a company from the ground up, they're going to be sacrifice, and those that actually achieve success realize that you have to go through the sacrifice to actually build something which can change your life. Those who fail usually do not have the patience to keep working and keep chipping away and they want instant gratification. And in this game, instant gratification does not exist. But when you get to a thousand subscribers, things tend to get a lot better and it all becomes worthwhile. Because this is the point for a lot of subscription boxongers where dreams rigged start becoming reality. It's usually the level where many people quit their jobs and they go full time on their business. Now sometimes you can leave before a thousand subscribers. There's plenty of things that you need to take into consideration, such as your margin, how much money you have saved, how much money you need to earn to leave all that stuff. But a thousand subscribers is usually the tipping point for a lot of people and things are very exciting around this time in your business and everything starts to feel much more real. You're generating a good amount of monthly recurring revenue, you've plenty of customers, you've more than enough cash to pay yourself, you can start taking about hiring people. It's just becoming a lot more real and usually at this point you'll have to decide if you're going to use a fulfillment centre or rent a warehouse space, work from home or rent an office. Now I remember it well and it really is a fantastic time period in your subscription box journey.
Speaker 2:I'm a massive believer in doing what is necessary and pushing yourself to reach a thousand subscribers as soon as you can. I just do not see the point in hanging around on a lower amount of subscribers. It just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I've said this before the same amount of work is required at 50 subscribers compared to a thousand subscribers. But the big difference is when you have a thousand subscribers you can actually pay yourself and you can actually hire help and you can actually get freedom from your company. So it just doesn't make any sense to me why you would hang around on a lower amount of subscribers. Now I know sometimes marketing knowledge can hold people back, but if you actually have the knowledge to push on, just go for it. Go for it and reach that point as quickly as possible. That's my advice.
Speaker 2:I remember when we started Busterbox it felt like a thousand subscribers was so far away and we'd never reach it. I think we were hovering around a few hundred subscribers for months at one stage. It took a lot of trial and error, but once we started getting movement, we kept the foot down until we hit the goal. Now I know it may seem difficult at times, but for the majority of people listening to this podcast, this is the level you need to hit to make everything worthwhile. Like I said, I've come to realise it doesn't matter if these businesses have 200 or 10,000 people signed up. It's still the same work. The only difference is, once you get a thousand people signed up, you can afford to hire help, you get rewarded for your work and the whole process is much more enjoyable. Trust me, there are problems when you surpass a thousand subscribers, but they are much better problems to have compared to the problems you face when you're struggling to grow.
Speaker 2:The main reason I decided to record this podcast is I want to help as many people as possible to get to a thousand subscribers ASAP. Trust me, you will thank me when you do. The business model works about a million times better, so bear with me as I explain the entire strategy, because I want to help you get there as quickly as possible. Now, this is an overview of the entire strategy and obviously it can change a bit depending on your niche, but this podcast will give you a very good idea of the exact steps you need to follow to reach this goal. Now the first thing you need to know is the entire game is predicated on math and reverse engineering the size and frequency of things you need to do to reach the goal. The same logic doesn't just apply to reaching a thousand subscribers either. This is what we did to reach 10,000 active subscribers in Busterbox, and it's the exact same logic we will follow to reach 100,000 subscribers. Trust me, once you accept this, the entire process of growing your business will become a lot easier and it will just be a case of repeating what actually works.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest mistakes people make is they have no process whatsoever. They don't have a clue what actually moves the needle, and their entire marketing strategy is based on hope. Unfortunately, using hope as a marketing strategy will not get you any grout in your business and will leave you really frustrated. So let's jump straight into it Now. First, here are a few critical things you need to reach the goal Right. Number one you need a product people want and a market big enough which spends enough to sustain your business. This is basically product market fit, and I could record the whole podcast about this because it's critical. You can have every other piece in place, but if you don't have product market fit, it will be basically impossible to have any real success. Number two a website that actually converts. I've touched on this many times. I've recorded many podcasts, I've written many articles about it, but if your website does not have a conversion rate of at least 2%, it will be too expensive and difficult to have any real success. If you have the ability to make a website that converts at 2%, that is great. Go ahead and do it. If you don't, I recommend hiring out the work you need help with. That could be copyrighting, image design, web development, whatever. This is critical because it will be nearly impossible to get anywhere unless this is done correctly and you have a website that converts at 2% minimum.
Speaker 2:Number three a marketing budget. You need to be realistic when it comes to growing your business. You will need some sort of advertising budget for the majority of marketing activities. This doesn't need to be a massive amount, but you do need something. You will need to run ads, give out free boxes, blah, blah, blah. All those things cost money. Obviously, there are stories about people growing organically and if you can pull that off, great. But for the vast majority you need to spend money. Otherwise it takes too long or you may not get anywhere at all. Sorry, but it's simply the truth. When we started Busterbox, we barely had any money to spend on marketing, but we worked full time jobs and every month we put some of our wages into marketing the business and growing it. Then, after a few months, we no longer needed to do this as the revenue from the business covered it. Then, as we got bigger, we spent more and more of the revenue on marketing, so we could keep growing. I suggest you take a similar approach to your business.
Speaker 2:Number 4, determination. This is absolutely critical because there will 100% be setbacks, but you have to have the ability to get up and keep going. If you can stay the course and stay persistent, you will crack this business model and you will surpass a thousand active subscribers. Okay, now let's take a look at the actions you need to take to hit this goal. Now, there are a couple of different ways you can do this. Depending on where you are in your business, you may be able to skip step one completely, but on writing this from the perspective of somebody who has only started their business, or somebody who has been running for a while and is struggling to get people signed up, number 1, identify 10 to 50 influencers in your niche.
Speaker 2:Now, I'm definitely not the biggest fan of influencer marketing. I do know it can work and it definitely has its place, but it can be challenging to scale, and I prefer to have more control, like you do with paid traffic. When you're starting out, though, influencer marketing can be a great way to gather content, make some sales and reach your ideal customer. When you may not have the market and skills to do it any other way, you should find influencers that share the exact audience you want to reach. If possible, micro influencers can be a great place to start, because a lot of the time they don't charge and they're just happy to post your box. You should send out as many boxes as possible to the right people, as you want to get as much traffic and as much data as possible.
Speaker 2:Number 2, make sure your Facebook tracking is correctly set up. You must do this before you start sending traffic to your website, otherwise the entire exercise can turn out to be a waste of time. Once you have the tracking set up, you will be able to turn the traffic, leads and sales you gather from the influencer marketing into custom and lookalike audiences you can use to market your box to. Number 3, make sure you have an email collection point built into the sign up flow. You want to ensure you are making the most of your traffic and collecting as many leads as possible from the influencer marketing process explained in step one. The more leads you collect, the more opportunities you have to sell to these people and the cheaper your customer acquisition cost will be over time. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to Busterboxcom and check our sign up flow. You will notice we have an email collection point built in before the customer can pick their plan. This is put there tactically to collect as many leads as possible. It's really powerful.
Speaker 2:Number four start collecting data. The traffic the influencers push to your website will start turning into data you can use for lookalike audiences on Facebook. Unless you do a massive push, it's unlikely you'll be able to make purchase lookalikes, but you will be able to generate lookalikes from site visitors and from leads collected as well. The more data you collect, the more accurate your lookalike audiences will be. Now, obviously, purchase lookalikes are the best, but the other ones are a great place to get started. You'll need a decent amount of traffic for this to work, so ensure you are sending enough boxes and targeting the right influencers. You can send you traffic Now. The iOS changes obviously had a big impact on lookalike audiences, but guess what? They're back working great. We used them all the time in Busterbox and they work exceptionally well and they're still a great way to target potential customers.
Speaker 2:Number five start running ads. Now you're going to get plenty of pictures and videos from the influencers that you can use as creative for your ads. You can also start advertising to the lookalike audiences that you've generated from the traffic slash sales you got from the influencer campaign. The main aim of the game here is to find an offer that converts for you at a 2% minimum, with an acceptable CPA. As you start getting sales and more data, you can make better lookalikes and test other audiences. Now I've written so many different articles about how to grow your subscription box views in Facebook ads. Also, the Subscription Box Experts Academy is out in just over a week, and if you want a step-by-step process which will actually show you every single thing you need to know about launching and running successful ads on Facebook that actually work and actually produce customers at a acceptable CPA, I highly recommend joining it, because you're going to get everything there and all the support you need to acquire as many customers as you need to acquire in your business. So head over to SubscriptionBoxExpertscom and join the waitlist.
Speaker 2:Number six send consistent emails. A boy product of running ads to generate straight sales should also be that you're now collecting fresh leads daily through your sign-up flow on your website. You should have a five-day abandoned card sequence set up, because not everybody will purchase from you straight away, so this is a great way to catch those customers and reduce your CPA, and also send regular emails to your list and three times a week is an excellent place to start. You don't want to spam people, so your emails need to be engaging and positioned in a way that people want to read them. Number seven incentivize culture proof. You want to gather as much culture proof as you possibly can from all the customers that sign up. You should run a competition to get reviews and as many box opening pictures and videos as possible. You can then put them on your website, increasing your conversion rate further. The fact your customers are posting these online will also generate more traffic for your website and get you more sales. They can also be used as creative for ads, so it's really important to get as many pictures and videos as possible. It really makes a difference.
Speaker 2:Number eight check sustainability. After running your ads and sending out boxes for a month, you want to ensure your business is sustainable. You will not be able to get to a thousand active subscribers and get the benefit of that recurring revenue if your churn is through the roof. You want to be aiming for at least 10% churn, obviously. If that is a bit higher, that is fine, as you can work to bring it down. If it's really high, though, well then I would lower the ad spend and fix the churn first. Otherwise you're trying to build a subscription box on a foundation that isn't solid Solid. Trust me, it will never work.
Speaker 2:Number nine measure your CPA to figure out the time frame and cost to hit a thousand subscribers. You now want to measure your average CPA to figure out how long and what cost it will be to hit a thousand subscribers. The easiest way to measure your CPA is to devoid your total marketing cost by how many subscribers you signed up. Example you spent a thousand dollars on marketing and you got a hundred people signed up. That means your CPA is ten dollars. You can now use this information to figure out what it will take to get to a thousand subscribers. A simple calculation is a thousand subscribers multiplied by ten dollars equals ten grand. So it will cost you ten thousand dollars to hit a thousand subs. Now that isn't factoring in churn or how long it will take to hit the goal. It will be vastly different depending on how much you plan to spend on marketing each month. You should make a spreadsheet and calculate it all out. Put in your average churn and marketing spend and see how many months it will take to hit the goal. The more you spend, the quicker you will reach the goal.
Speaker 2:Some people don't want to go that fast, though, and they want to build gradually and use the company's growing revenue instead of spending all of their own money. There are pros and cons for both approaches, and neither are right or wrong. Personally, I would prefer to hit the goal as quickly as possible and would be happy to invest some of my own money towards marketing once I knew I was building a sustainable business, and at a thousand subscribers, it would be a massive success. Number 10. Reach the goal, get a thousand active subscribers. You then simply stick to the plan you made on the spreadsheet and ensure you're hitting your CPA and churn goals every single month, and you will reach a thousand subscribers in the timeframe you set.
Speaker 2:It's really that simple. Obviously, there are many different ways of growing and there are many different ways of being right, but this approach that I just laid out is a basic overview of a plan that will actually work if you execute it correctly. Trust me, if you have a solid business and go the metrics, get into a thousand active subscribers has the potential to completely change your life, and I urge you to put a plan in place and push as hard as you can to reach that goal. Now, I hope you found this podcast helpful and I hope you hit the goal as quickly as possible. We will be back next week at the exact same time and, as always, if you have a question, make sure you head over to SubscriptionBoxResourcescom and join the Facebook group and post it there.
Speaker 2:And one more shout out to SubscriptionBoxExperts. It's opening in just over a week. If you want to join, make sure you join the waitlist now at SubscriptionBoxExpertscom. I'll only be allowing 50 people to join, so if you're serious, make sure you're on the waitlist so you don't miss out. Hope you've a great day and chat here next week. Bye, bye.