Box subscription services are booming.
Businesses like Stitch Fix, Blue Apron, Birch Box, and ThredUp offer customers quality products delivered right to a client’s door, giving them a selection of products tailored to their needs and wants.
Even larger corporations, like JC Penney and Gap, have developed their own box subscription services. JC Penney is partnering with Bombfell.com to send subscription boxes for big and tall men. And babyGap is set to launch its own brand of box subscription.
Traffic to the top 270 sites for box subscription sites have leveled out…but this platform still has incredible profit potential.
So, what’s the #1 secret to successfully market your box subscription service?
It’s not beautiful graphics or stylized emails…it’s direct response marketing.
Direct response marketing is the most powerful way to reach your best prospects, gain new customers, and increase profitably.
I’ve helped hundreds of clients supercharge their marketing, expand their customer base, and boost their recurring profits. From this experience, we have tested over 10,000 variables to see what works best.
 
Based on these results, here are 12 keys to help you supercharge your direct response marketing for your box subscription service.
 
1. Use powerful direct response copy.
With any direct response marketing campaign, effective copy is key to the success of your email, Facebook ads, direct mail, banner ads, video, magalog, or catalog and other marketing tools. Highlight the unique benefits of your service, be clear and specific, and write long copy if necessary.
 
2. Use a multichannel, integrated campaign to supercharge response.
A multichannel, integrated campaign increases response because a prospect will see your offer again and again. They might see an ad on social media first, then notice a banner ad, get an email, receive a direct mail piece, then finally click through to go to your landing page to make a purchase. An integrated approach means that prospective customers have multiple opportunities to say “yes” to your offer.
It’s a comprehensive campaign all to one tightly defined prospect universe.
 
3. Drive customers to a landing page.
Create a separate landing page for your offers. When prospective customers click on banner ads, emails, paid search ads, and Facebook ads they should be taken to a page with clear call-to-action to respond to your offer.
 
4. Postal and email list targeting.
To be successful, only use the very best postal and email lists. This requires knowledge of what works and what does not, and it takes a mixture of transactional data modeling, and the best direct response names. Without the right names, it doesn’t matter how good creative execution is. Call my list management company Infomat at (310) 212-5944 or email [email protected] for help on targeting the most responsive market.
 
5. Retargeting boosts sales.
Retargeting helps remind customers to complete sales by targeting customers that have left your landing page or shopping cart without finishing a purchase. When you retarget these prospects with banner ads, they’ll remember to return to your page to finish a transaction.
 
6. Custom lists help dramatically increase results.
Custom lists make it possible to market and advertise to your existing customers and prospects with Facebook, Bing, Google, pre-rolls , and more, targeting a finite universe for great results.
 
7. Look-a-like audiences expand your prospects.
Look-a-like audiences imitate your best prospects. They can be built through Facebook, direct mail transactional data, traffic on Google search, AdRoll, Bing, and other platforms, so you can reach more prospects with email marketing, banner ads, and more.
 
8. Pre-roll ads are powerful response boosters.
Pre-roll ads are video commercials that run before YouTube videos, for example. Pre-roll ads can be used in retargeting campaigns to reach your best prospects with your offer.
 
9. Value-added marketing creates a powerful incentive for prospective customers.
Offer prospective customers a free, added piece of relevant information or something useful to build rapport with customers and change the tone of your marketing. When you offer something of value for free, you tell a prospect that you’re not just there to take, but to give.
For example, for a direct mail campaign for the Wine of the Month Club, we enclosed a free checklist, advertised on the outer envelope. [shown below]

 
10. Don’t forget your shopping cart.
Many customers do not finish the purchasing process because they abandon their shopping carts. In fact, you could lose up to 80% of your orders because of a poorly optimized shopping cart. Here are 3 keys to a successful shopping cart:

  • There should be no more than two steps during the checkout process.
  • Your shopping cart should include copy and graphic reinforcement.
  • There should be no navigation distractions in your shopping cart.

 
11. Offer coupons, discounts, and special promos.
Try a special promo, discount code, or coupon as an added incentive to sign up for your subscription service. For example, offer prospects the first month of subscription at a reduced rate. Advertise this offer across all your channels, including direct mail, your landing page, banner ads, and social media. For Wine of the Month Club, we offered customers two bottles of wine and four glass goblets for less than ten dollars.
 
12. Optimize for mobile.
The majority of your prospects may be going to your landing page, looking at your Facebook ads and banner ads, receiving your emails, and watching pre-roll videos on their mobile phones. Make sure to optimize all of your digital marketing efforts for a mobile device.
 
 
I’d be glad to talk to you more about these powerful marketing strategies, and talk about what we can do to create marketing materials and strategies to help you profitably grow. Give me a call today at (310) 212-5727, or email Caleb at [email protected].
And, for postal or email list targeting, call InfoMat at (310) 212-5944 or email [email protected].
 
Here are the rest of this issue’s articles: