Subscription Box Marketing

Subscription box subscriptions deliver your product or service direct to your B2C customer. When customers signs up, they periodically receive a delivery of your goods and or services that are based on a theme, resolve a specific problem and so on. They provide great potential for data-mining / customer relationship management, continual revenue streams, customer loyalty, avoiding new customer acquisition costs and personalization / product de-commoditization.  There are 3 types of subscription box.

Retail subscription boxes. Your customer pre-selects catalog items which you deliver at their preferred intervals. NB. This type of subscription offers the opportunity to easily exceed expectations if you can ocasionally include something completely unexpected. You can combine your primary data (ie details given to you from customers like age, psychographics and so on) with your secondary transactional data (like transaction history regarding order values, returns and other good and bad behaviors). Analyzing these data will help you to finetune your target market profiling.

Mixed subscription boxes. Your customer pre-selects a few pre-selected items that will be included along with other surprise extras. This provides you with considerable flexibility with creativity. However, this requires response to data analysis. Example: Outside of the pre-selected items, a cosmetics company may include makeup application brushes, mirrors, makeup tutorial videos (as an add-on service) and so on.

Mystery aka Black subscription boxes. Your customers have not pre-selected any items. Rather they receive an assortment of products related to a theme.

Referral Programs for Customer Acquisition

Referral marketing is a 'word of mouth' marketing method for recruiting new customers through referrals by existing loyal customers (who became brand promoters). Although this often happens spontaneously through word of mouth, marketers usually create formal referral programs in a highly systematic way that is measurable and can therefore be adjusted accordingly. Programs reward current customers in some what when those loyal customers recommend new customers who meet certain qualification criteria. If done well, referral marketing is particularly powerful, especially when done online within the context of social media.

Referral marketing is considered one of, if not the best method of customer acquisition and 'growth hacking'. If done well, it creates a chain-reaction of quality interactions between people who like, trust and listen to each other. It works because it offers a win-win situation for all concerned. Brands that run referral programs typically experience between 10 to 30% increase in customer acquisition.

Uses & Benefits of Referral Marketing

• Referral marketing is a high level of targeted marketing that you are unlikely to achieve on your own. After all, your evangelists have more intimate knowledge of their friends and family and can likely target them much better than you can.  
• The use of influencers is a form of referral program. It allows you to give your product or service extensive targeted marketing. These influencers may include YouTubers and other similar sources.
• Your target market already trusts the influencer more than you. A Nielson survey on trust and advertising suggests that referral marketing scored the highest across every single consumer demographic (and even B2B customers). Also, the digital natives show very little trust in conventional advertising. 
• When marketers combine the approval of one's social circle with a reward, they maximize the potential power of referral programs.
• B2B referrals have a 70% higher conversion rate and 69% faster close time on sales (Nielson survey).
• Referral marketing can easily make your brand become viral within short periods of time, especially when using social media.

Rewards

Rewards vary from rewards points in a loyalty / rewards program to a free portion of the inventory (products or service), early access (a scarce resource), exclusively available products, discounts, cash, branded swag, content and so on. However, the arguably most exciting rewards are those that involve 2-way incentives, ie that reward both the advocate and recipient / referred individual. 

Referral Program Case Studies

Case Study: Drop Box has one of the most famous referral marketing programs (as well as one of the best examples of 'growth hacking'). The company offers online storage. Their referral program was based on the 2-way incentive / 'give-&-get' design. Specifically, they offered the advocate (ie the pre-existing referring customer) and the referred both a reward of 500 MB of free storage. The company saw massive increases in signups, that multiplied many times over every several months. They suggested the referral proposal immediately, ie during the customer onboarding process. One very commendable aspect of this case is the expansion of an expandable user-type product that is already the key product. This resulted in very happy customers. Examples of other expandable products may include extra services, extra access to a facility. 

Case Study: Robinhood offers a free mobile app for stock trading. Their referral program is a good case example of growth hacking from the pre-launch stages as they amassed an impressive 1 million plus subscribers within 1 year during the pre-launch period of the beta version of a new software product. Today, they continue adding roughly 140,000 new users every month. ... Their Referral Priority Program (ie ranking) used the power of scarcity and exclusivity marketing and gamification. Many people were eager to try the product. However, Robinhood limited the number of applicants who would be able to access the early version. This is how it worked. You join Robinhood’s waiting list and start off at the end of the line. However, if you invite a friend to also join the waiting list behind you, you automatically get moved up in line a few spots. In short, you move further up in line the more people you referred to join the waiting list. This program continued even after launch. This referral program used the powerful psychological motivation to advance. Apart from the use of one's references, there was no cost for winning something of perceived value; a better position. Some have likened this to pulling the lever of a slot machine. After the launch, the program continued but, since the product had been launched, the reward was stocks. Happy users who won stocks became evangelists. Specifically, even though the gifted stocks were not the most valuable or prestigious, they happily went onto other platforms to discuss the benefits of earning stocks and, in turn, motivated other pre-existing users to continue referring and to remain firmly loyal within the relationship end of the sales funnel.This approach has a high success rate, especially for pre-launch campaigns.

Case Study:  AirBNB's 2-way incentive design offers another case of growth hacking from the use of referral marketing. Within a few years, they grew from under 50,000 to over 80 million guests. Using a referral program was arguably necessary for their long term success because it would have been an otherwise arguably hard sell concept of allowing traveling strangers to stay in one's private residence or staying in a stranger's home. Consequently, references helped tremendously with the abovementioned element of trust that referral programs provide. The way in which it worked was that, both the advocate and guest got a $25 credit for successfully completing an upcoming trip. Furthermore, if the recipient / referral person listed their property, you could earn $75.  

Case study: FreeAgent offers accounting software for a price that is charged at intervals. The design of their referral program has a special in-built anti-attrition / anti-churn feature that goes above and beyond many other brands. Specifically, it encourages advocates to not only find referrals but to more carefully recruit and select referrals most likely to remain subscribed to the brand. It accomplished this by providing 10% free use of the software for as long as both the advocate and referrer remained as as active users. In fact, the program even allows advocates to stack rewards, ie to add up all the 10% discounts to have free use of the product after 10 successful referrals. Furthermore, in addition to enjoying free use of the product, advocates can even earn money; a 20% share of  new referral subscriptions. This approach is a good fit when products and services are used and paid for on an ongoing / continuous basis.

Case Study: A personal care brand offered levels or tiers of rewards. For 5 successful rewards, a company gave away a free jar of their product. For 10, they gave something a little more expensive, for 25, they gave a premium product. For 50, they gave free personal care equipment for 1 year.

DOs & DON'Ts

• Ensure that all stakeholders perceive value, ie the advocate, referee and the marketer's brand. Consider the case of DropBox that gave people precisely what they wanted, space, ie not 10% something else or points leading up eventually to what they wanted but immediate access to the actual product. Outside of this, they then offered real-time collaboration tools (similar to Google Docs) because they knew their market sufficiently well to know that that would be of particular interest to them.
• Introduce the referral program at a stage in the customer - brand relationship that is appropriate evangelism. In some cases like Robinhood which likely has a target market of very competent customers who already understand what they will get and can hit the ground running with your product, incorporate the referral program as early as into your customer onboarding program as they tend to gain lots of traction when introduced at that point. This may likely apply for pre-existing customers for a special edition of a brand with which your customers are already accustomed. Otherwise, there are some circumstances in which new customers will want to feel more competent with the product before referring to others. In such cases, wait until that customer has already begun to settle in.
• Design your program to generate only high quality and trustworthy advocacy (ie over hard sales pitching that lacks true interest or understanding of the product). 

• Implement a customer review system and facility for handing complaints (which I call 'reverse referrals'). The psychology of influence / persuasion shows that social proof is very influential (because leads believe much less about claims otherwise). Consequently, these systems provide trustworthy social proof.

• Remove the burden of sales from most advocates. Offer to send the invitation to their contact on their behalf. This ensures that the advocate does not have a difficult time. Research shows that only a small percentage, often as low as 3% of the average person is not a competent sales person, even for a brand they like. However, when you observe members of your 3% hyper-social and influential person, pay special attention to him or her. If (s)he is not on YouTube already, you may need to groom him or her accordingly, along with rewards. Otherwise, this 3% within your industry may include social media influencers. Seek them out when you sufficiently established to deal with the potential influx of orders.
• Simplify the process as much as possible for all. Make the referral program as easy to share as possible (for advocates) and the entry barriers as low as possible (for referees). One way of achieving this is providing different social media options for sharing. 
• Improve the quality of referrals with an intelligently designed referral program. Consider the FreeAgent case above in which advocates can potentially earn 10% discount if their referee remains subscribed. The implication this is that advocates are likely to consider who they will refer more seriously than otherwise.
• Integrate your referral program into your loyalty / rewards program. While a business needs to retain customers (which is the raison d'etre of loyalty rewards programs and can be likened to blocking the holes of a leaky bucket whose outflowing water represents churn), referral programs help on the front end , ie to acquire new customers (like water being poured into the bucket). After all, even the best businesses generally lose 10% of its customer base yearly. 

• Emotional marketing, especially as it relates to deeply personal emotional marketing, is particularly suitable for referral programs. Stress human social ideals of togetherness, sharing, friendship, intimacy and so on.

Example: Starbucks used 2 cups in the header of their referral part of their rewards program to emphasize the idea of a shared experience and suggests a sense of friendship one may gain from the experience.

Example: Klova dovetailed the concepts of sleeping soundly with and the idea of togetherness to show a very intimate scene of a happy couple waking up together.    

• Cater to the human desire for (higher) status. In some cases, that may look like the Robinhood case above. In others, it may be more like Starbucks' attractive header with gold trim to lend an air of prestige and elegance to the program. Every element, including the frosted gold against black and font contribute to the sense of prestige. Marketers continue to notice that people care a lot about status, even more than money. 

• Previously, I discussed explainer pages as they relate to loyalty rewards programs. However, use very digestible explainer pages for referral programs which may or may not be part of your loyalty rewards program. Present the program as simply as possible. This may require you to ensure that the program is truly simple. If there are too many complicated moving parts, you can too easily lose people and their interest. If you absolutely must have a complex program, focus your message on the most important aspect to sell the idea and drip feed useful options at relevant stages.

• Tell the advocate how he or she will benefit. To this end, use taglines and emphasize how far the rewards goes within the context of your program. This might involve including links to your rewards catalog or other list(s) of rewards. 
  
  
  
  Case: Klova's 'Make money in your sleep' is an attractive proposition. 

• When you analyze the success of your loyalty rewards program, use the AOV for creating future success. For instance, if you can afford it, consider using the AOV as the basis for establishing the value of rewards / reward points to offer advocating customers for referring friends. Ideally however, offer this reward to new referred customers only AFTER they have made purchases to ensure that you break even. In other words, the AOV will not only be the reward but also the minimum purchase value required of a new customer for earning the reward.

• Immediately after a positive shopping experience, encourage customers to refer others. 83% of customers are willing to refer after a positive shopping experience. Apart from after feeling positive about purchases, I wonder whether those positive experiences include winning rewards,

• Place a CTA on your post-purchase page. Customers are 16 times more likely to share at this point.

• Integrate the refer / share CTA into current customer experiences (like the post purchase page) and NOT tucked away on other landing pages. This is when customers are four times more likely to share.

• Integrate referral marketing throughout your organization. Tell staff and all stakeholders how it works. Education and re-education at all turns is very important to ensure success.
• Psychology suggests that customers are more likely to repeat a spontaneous action (of referring new customers) if you reward them as a surprise, ie over when you reward them as motivated and advertised beforehand. In that case, also give surprise rewards for informal referrals that are not already part of your program and or to persons who you may wish to invite into the program. Another approach is to surprise the unsuspecting new customer by telling them that you have credited their account because their friend referred them. Encourage that new customer to thank the advocate, which may inspire both of them further in the way of making referrals as they see that your system truly works.
• Absolutely do NOT forget to give promised rewards. Set up your system so that the customer is credited as soon as their referee converts. 
• Encourage customers to share referral links over social media like Twitter. Example: After Starbucks did this, apparently thousands of customers their shared referral links.   
• In whatever way possible, incorporate an element of prestige. Marketers are finding that prestige is more appealing (than money) to leads.
• Get your customer experience CRX in order beforehand running a referral program. The ill fate of inviting guests to your home while you are building or otherwise ill-prepared to treat them well also applies to any referral program.
• Design onboarding and thank you correspondence that simply reiterates how the program works. Ensure all parties are clear on what they should expect re what they will get, how and when. As per usual, include a call to action (for advocates to invite more referrals).

Here is Starbucks' response to advocates. 

Here is Starbucks' response to referrals of the same program. 

• Offer several options for your customers to reach out to their circle of influence that may include submitting a friend's email address, sending a social media or Whatsapp link to the friend. The links carry codes that are embedded with ways of identifying the advocate.
• Analyze and adjust your program's performance. This includes paying attention to your analytics, managerial statistics, product reviews, surveys and so on.

CONTENT RELATED TO REFERRAL MARKETING

• Why the old 'earn and burn' loyalty program model is failing and a new approach for modern consumers.
• Tiered loyalty programs
• Use spend-based loyalty rewards programs to give greater rewards to customers with the highest customer lifetime value (CLV) ... and reduce costs while you are at it. 
• A great loyalty rewards program can not help your business if customers can not understand it sufficiently well to sign up. Create a loyalty rewards program explainer page.
• Brief overview of loyalty and evangelism as they relate to the sales funnel.
• Analyze how well your rewards catalog has been curated.
• Gift card programs may be designed to be stand alone or an integrated component of your current referral program. 
• The psychology of influence / persuasion suggests that using the principle of social proof is particularly useful when attempting customer acquisition.
• One way of acquiring new customers is to shout-out strategic alliances, ie other businesses with non-competing offerings but the same market. You may use tools like Instagram @tags. 
• Using brand storytelling for evangelism
• Case studies
• AirBNB
• Drop Box
• FreeAgent
• Robinhood
• Starbucks

Gift Registry Setup Tips & Checklist for Store Owners

The shopping wishlist feature allows your store's shoppers to create personalized collections of desired products and save for future reference. Although wishlists represent a shopper’s interest in your products without an immediate sale conversion, the shopper may distribute copies of their list to family, friends, and other stakeholders who may buy the contents of the list in whole or in part as a gift to the author.

Gift Registry Setup Tips & Checklist for Store Owners

• Encourage the registrants set up the registry as soon the event or key date is known and planning is reasonable. Set the timing and wording of advertisements accordingly. It is therefore ideal to consider the mind set of the registrants prior to the event. 
• Example: In the case of wedding registries, target advertisements around engagement announcements and other pre-wedding events to encourage registration as soon after the engagement as possible, ideally within no later than 4 to 6 months before the wedding. Advertising only around the wedding may attract registration later than ideal. Family and friends are often eager to start giving you gifts for many of the pre-wedding events, ie including the engagement party and shower.
• Example: Graduation-themed registries may also target registrants not as graduants but final year students. 

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• Allow registrants to have gift registries at different stores.
• Example: Newlyweds usually register at 2 to 3 stores, ideally with different price points. This is especially noteworthy if your price point occurs consistently on an extreme of the scale
• Gift registries are a gift from the gods of brand awareness. Essentially, whether new or not, your registrants commit to a type of evangelism; giving you free social proof and publicity to people who are probably similar to them and within their circle of influence. It is key that you provide a positive customer experience. Imagine what it would be like if a wedding guest arrived to the reception and someone forgot to order forks for hungry guests. Think of this growing public and even registrants as such guests. Prevent problems before they can occur by visualizing their every moment in your mind so you can take care of every detail. While everything else on this page applies, here are some basic examples.
• Registration should be easy and convenient
• Since your automatic fraud prevention policies will have already established rules to flag and even block cases where the billing and shipping addresses do not match, establish slightly different rules for gift registries beforehand. Frankly, this is also beneficial for the internal customer experience (ie your employee experience) as less time and other resources will be needlessly expended. (See fraud prevention phone script)
• Offer flexible options that are meaningful to registrants 
• Example: For wedding registries, registrants can specify a delayed delivery date that will translate into their receiving gifts after the wedding when the newlyweds have moved in together (if they had not already been) and are settled in after the honeymoon. This way, they will also remain within the grace period for requesting returns.
• Offer the option for registrants to receive notifications when items are bought. This helps couples to keep up with thanking guests and updating their registries, if they wish.
• Offer a 'plus one' to exceed expectations. 
• Offer discounts for remaining items. The registry can remain active up to several months to even years after the wedding.

• Offer the following tips and advice to registrants. 
• Post the link to the gift registry on any celebratory website. Example: Newlyweds often have a dedicated wedding website
• Announce the gift registry at the culturally appropriate time. Example: It is generally considered impolite to send gift registry information along with wedding invitations
• Revisit the registry to update it with any additions and or changes. 
• Select gifts that can be enjoyed between both parties over personal gifts that can be used by only one person. Guests typically prefer to contribute to these types of gift. 

• Send a reminder to registrants to thank their givers. What a wonderful excuse to keep in touch without being creepy. (See how to set up an automatic email campaign or learn the basics of MailChimp, the email marketing app). 
• Example: For wedding registries, registrants can be prompted to send thank you notes within 2 weeks after receiving gifts. The email campaign can provide tips, like including personalized details such as the product name and how it will be used. Depending on the product, registrants may even ask whether the guest wants an update of how the gift is adding value to their lives.
• Gifts of cash are now more acceptable than before. However, since this might be disadvantageous to you, see how such funds may somehow contribute towards the registry, possibly for some add-on services. Perhaps you can even partner with a bank that allows for guest deposits 

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CONTENT RELATED TO STORE OWNER TIPS & CHECKLISTS FOR SETTING UP A SUCCESSFUL GIFT REGISTRY

• Gift card and wishlist programs may be designed to be stand alone or an integrated component of your current referral program. 
• Gift registries from a marketing perspective
• Gift registries may have themes around specific events. Consequently, consider your options through tentpole marketing
• Gift registries are a gift from the brand awareness gods. Your registrants are giving you free publicity to people who are probably similar to them. It is key that you provide a positive customer experience.
• Use drip email campaigns to promote brand awareness for guests, especially if those guests are interested but not yet ready to buy otherwise for themselves or others. Remember, they were thrust onto your stage by someone else and may not be ready. Drip campaigns may be what is required to keep your brand fresh in their minds until they or their friends are ready again.
• Gift registries can be used as a type of promotional strategy to build brand awareness. See other promotional strategies that may be combined for synergistic success
• Apps for gift registries (among other things)
• Gift card programs
• Why the old 'earn and burn' loyalty program model is failing and a new approach for modern consumers.
• Tiered loyalty programs
• Use spend-based loyalty rewards programs to give greater rewards to customers with the highest customer lifetime value (CLV) ... and reduce costs while you are at it. 
• A great loyalty rewards program can not help your business if customers can not understand it sufficiently well to sign up. Create a loyalty rewards program explainer page.
• Brief overview of loyalty and evangelism as they relate to the sales funnel.
• Analyze how well your rewards catalog has been curated.

Landing Page 101

A landing page is the first page that a lead sees after clicking through an off-site advertisement (like Instagram story, email campaign, free or paid Youtube video, Facebook, Google, search engine results page / SERP and so on. This post will guide you through the steps of planning an effective landing page.

This great landing page not only looks attractive but also has many key elements that include a list of product benefits (top left); a key benefit or unique value proposition next to the price, 'lifetime access', as if justifying it; urgency; high contrast in the urgency element as black on yellow stands out; contact form with clear call to action / CTA 'Go to Step 2' button; security badges; payment methods and live chat window (bottom right)

USES

Its goal is to focus the lead's attention on only one thing; a single call to action (CTA) as follows.

• CTA 1: 'lead generation' form, aka 'opt-in', 'squeeze page', 'splash page' or 'lead capture page' form, ie a contact form that converts visitors into leads by collecting contact information. This is best done when coupled with the promise of 'lead magnet', aka a 'bribe', ie a non-cash payment using something of perceived value like 
• a gift card
• a discount coupon
• a chance to win something of perceived value
• free consultation 

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• CTA 2: 'click throughs', ie a sequence of pages (and or emails) through which visitors move according to their individual stage in the sales funnel. The sequence often occurs through email autoresponders. Either way, each page or email in the sequence sells the idea of a value proposition and product. Each page's CTA is to either go to the next content page or more directly to a product page or shopping cart.

DOs

• Prepare to get visitors to understand your message fully within 5 seconds or less
• Place the CTA above the fold (ie high on the page before visitors must scroll down)
• Use color contrasts. The CTA button should contrast with the background and other page elements. Colors on opposite sides of a color wheel stand out the most. See an effective example below with a yellow button and blue background. (The white text does not take away from those more prominent elements)
• Have only highly targeted content. Every element of content should be congruent with the message that motivated visitors to click through to the landing page. This is particularly true for click through pages. Use videos and images that reinforce the message, especially because they also speak to non-readers
• Deliver value. Your target market should perceive your offer as having value
• Clearly show visitors the value proposition.
• For lead generation, offers should be directly related to your main product to raise the chance that your leads can be converted
• Limit distractions from the CTA and offer. 
• Limit navigation away from the CTA

This is a lead generation landing page by the 'Welcome Screen' app. This kind of landing page is ideal from Youtube videos or other external links that provided some value on weight loss and restoring health. If value (perhaps in the form of a very informative how-to video) has already delivered some value, it is a 'reverse squeeze' / landing page because some part of the value has already been delivered. It covers an entire webpage. It therefore hides all of the website's usual navigation elements. However, it is interesting that it does not hide the Privy app (in the top right corner) or the Zopim Chat app (in the bottom right corner) that are also used on this Shopify store. This type of landing page is ideal for special promotions. It works in conjunction with otherwise competing apps that may be used for general newsletter signups.

• Limit exit points. This includes limiting the amount of navigation away from the page.
• Keep lead generation forms as short as possible
• The fewer fields you request, the better. Most marketers collect only the email address at first and then get remaining fields later. However, a second exception to this is the lead's 'first name'
• Avoid asking for address, telephone number (as these generally turn people off)
• Keep content short
• use bullet points to highlight each benefit
• material should be quick and easy to scan. For instance, short headings can have bold print with bullet point information
• Test different pages and elements
• Research suggests that basic 'Submit' or 'Contact Us' buttons are relatively ineffective options, especially as they attract spammers. Buttons that speak specifically about the offer are better like 'Sign up', 'download now', 'I want x now' and so on.
• Prepare an effective 'Thank you' page for after visitors complete the CTA
• Include social media icons
• Give leads something to do that moves them down the sales funnel
• Assure leads of their privacy. 
• Provide a link to your privacy policy. However, remember to keep visitors on the landing page. So set the link to open in a new window or better yet, to open as a popup window. To hopefully satisfy their concerns to the extent they will not engage the link at all, I set a tiny text window to appear when the mouse hovers close to or over the text of the link. The text says, 'We will not share your contact details without your consent.'
• Your details will not be shared with third parties
• Prompt leads to enter their MAIN email address to avoid missing time-sensitive information.

Whenever possible and without cluttering the page, remind potential leads to give you an email address that they use regularly. MailChimp allows you to have fewer content on the page. The help text appears only when the potential lead places the cursor inside the Email field. 

• Whenever suitable, include images of smiling people as they increase conversion significantly
• Prepare a confirmation page
• to instruct the lead to the next steps like 

• white listing your email address

• checking email for instructions on how to get the lead magnet 

• to create expectations like the frequency of promised content
• to invite friends, possibly for something in return

Landing Page Example: direct from Youtube video on Youtube. This is a classic landing page.

DON'Ts

• Avoid using the 'Home Page' as a landing page. Unless its message responds specifically to the goal of your marketing campaign (which is generally not the case), create a highly targeted landing page.

APPS TO CREATE A LANDING PAGE

• Apps that allow you to create landing pages. These include  

• MailChimp's 'general' signup form opens on a dedicated webpage, without navigation or other distractions. MailChimp has a free version for accounts with up to a certain number of mailing list subscribers (I believe 2,000). This option is quite attractive because adding new subscribers is full automated (unlike with some other options). Paste the automatically generated URL (as pictured immediately below) into HTML code. The resulting page will have a URL that incorporates your domain name in the earlier portion.

• Privvy 
• 'Welcome Screen'. It also has a free package

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RELATED CONTENT

• Finished the landing page? Engage your leads.
• Set up Instagram stories
• Set Up Email Marketing Autoresponses
• Motivate visitors to go to your landing page with a promotional video
• When you have completed your landing page, consider planning your sales pipelines.