Sometimes, subscriber acquisition is as easy as flipping the switch on your subscription program. Other times, acquiring new subscribers is a finicky balance of clever subscriber acquisition strategies, the right messaging, and perfect timing.
Because it’s such a tricky balance, it’s very easy for brands to start layering discounts with free gifts, free shipping, and a starter kit.
At that point, it’s just love bombing customers. It can earn you a lot of customers in a short period of time, sure, but if they all cancel after they get the deal, none of that effort and cost is worth it.
In this article, we’ll share our top subscriber acquisition tactics that are both sustainable in practice and more likely to retain the subscribers you acquire from your efforts.
Frame your subscription around VIP benefits, not discounts
“Give them discounts and they will come… and they’ll subscribe because the upfront discounts are just too good to pass up.”
Said no brand ever, because the reality is that discounts don’t always work as well as you want them to. That’s not to say discounts aren’t an effective customer acquisition strategy (they are, one hundred percent).
But when you rely on discounts too heavily or too consistently to drive sales, you create a discount culture that’s really hard to get out of.
“I think discounting is fine, but if you’re constantly seeing a 20%-25% discount, no one’s going to buy at just 15% off.” -Ashvin Melwani
What does that mean, exactly?
A discount culture is the belief held by your customers that there’s always a discount around the corner that they can, and should, wait for.
Rewrite the narrative by creating a VIP subscription program and making sure everyone knows about it.
So, you’ve added a few benefits to your subscription program, like:
- Exclusive access to VIP events
- Fast tracks to customer service
- Free shipping
- A consistent discount (5-10%)
- Regular free gifts
- Rewards
- Early access to products
- Impact on product development
And, you’ve listed those benefits across your buy boxes, landing pages, and emails. You encourage your existing subscriber base to share the rewards they’ve earned on their socials.
Of course, you can’t offer every benefit. But adding benefits to your program and fewer discounts gives customers real reasons to subscribe and stay subscribed.
Digital punch cards
Digital punch cards are a rewards system for existing subscribers and help to retain them longer by offering gifts at certain points in their subscriber journey. For instance, you might offer a bandana at their third order, a mug at their tenth, and a mystery gift at their fifteenth order.
How does this retention effort help with acquisition?
It’s all about letting your subscribers know ahead of time what they get if they subscribe.
Digital Punch Cards work a little differently from general subscription benefits because they’re based on the length of their subscription, or the number of purchases.
Knowing this ahead of time helps new subscribers build up a retention mindset. They’re already excited about purchases they’ll make down the road.
Play up your branding
Grazoid, the name for subscribers of Graza.
Skinsiders, the name for Clean Skin Club subscribers.
The Clear Pee Club, Buoy’s name for their subscription program.
Creating a name for your subscribers or your subscription program works the same way a mascot does for sports teams and B2C brands (soooo incredibly well, if you haven’t noticed).
There’s a psychology behind this, too.
It’s tough for the human brain to connect emotionally with a company, a factory, ingredients, or products. We need faces, a community, and something to attach to.
Creating a group name creates the ability to bond with the brand and connect with a community of like-minded people.
Build some excitement around that group. Add some surprise and delight measures…
That’s powerful. That’s effective. It can do a lot for subscriber acquisition and retention.
Rely on social proof and influencers
The rise of indulgent social media pairs so nicely with capitalism that most brands would be foolish not to take advantage of it in some capacity.
That doesn’t mean you have to pay a celebrity to enforce your brand. It doesn’t mean you have to pay anyone, really, though you might want to.
Fortunately, there’s more than one route to do this.
Affiliate marketing is one of the simplest ways, allowing bloggers, regular customers, social media influencers (and anyone else who wants in on the action) to flaunt your brand left and right for revenue shares.
Paying an influencer a flat fee upfront is another option. If you have been on social media in the last five years, you know there’s no shortage of influencers to choose from.
Influencers like Sarah’s Day (the biggest YouTuber in Australia) easily earn six-figure brand deals without batting an organic mascara-coated eyelash. When the profitability of influencing on social media drives you to open your own filming studio and marketing agency, you know there’s something to it.
Offer free shipping only to subscribers
Free shipping can be a great intro offer, but it’s even more powerful as a subscriber acquisition strategy.
There is a caveat, though. If you’re already offering a discount as a welcome offer, offering free shipping as well might raise your CAC too high.
If you ship internationally, these costs can go up significantly. Look at your average churn rate, LTV, and CAC to determine if free shipping makes sense for your brand.
Push side cart upsells or checkout upgrades
Side carts and checkout upgrades aren’t just a clever way to boost AOV. They’re also highly effective tools for acquiring subscribers.
The customer has already gone through the store and picked out what they want. Then, they get that cool slide-out cart on the side of the page to show them what’s in their digital (but bedazzled) bag. That’s where the subscriber conversion happens.
All it takes is a CTA to show that, by subscribing, they get all of the items in their cart at a lower cost, or with free shipping, or with a bonus gift.
They’ve already done the hardest part by hitting checkout. But by adding a subscription CTA in that checkout process, you’re adding a layer of temptation that’s hard to pass up.
Optimize your landing pages
Let’s say you’re running paid ads across search engines and multiple social media channels. Potential customers that click on the ad could get redirected to a listicle, a video storefront, a reviews page, a PDP, really anything else.
No matter where they land, there should be certain elements on the page that push the reader towards a subscription:
- Product and brand education
- Social proof or some level of credibility
- Commerce optimization
Product education sets the expectations around the product itself—what it does, what it’s made of, how long it takes to be effective, and so on.
Social proof is there to back up the claims you make.
Commerce optimization then funnels the excitement and reassurance they’ve built about your product or brand into purchase and subscription.
Optimize your PDPs with subscription highlights
If you aren’t informing your customers of your subscription offering within your PDPs, you’re missing out on a huge acquisition opportunity.
Here are some best practices to optimize your PDPs for better subscriber acquisition:
- Default your buy box to the subscription offer: When customers click add to cart, the box should offer two options: subscribe and save or one-time purchase at full price. Make “subscribe and save” the default option.
- Show the price incentive side-by-side: Show the full price under “one-time purchase” and the normal rate slashed to highlight the discounted rate under “subscribe & save”
- Default to the most preferred delivery frequency: Either set your frequency based on purchase latency or the frequency most commonly selected by existing subscribers. This helps you avoid churn due to “too much product” down the road.
- Highlight your subscription value options: Outline all of the benefits of being a subscriber, such as early access to new products, exclusive discounts, and free shipping, to show them why it’d be valuable to them.
Excite them with a welcome gift
Have a coffee brand? Send new customers a nice container to store your grounds or beans in (avoid the frother; every brand sends one and now customers have fifteen of them).
Are you a cereal company? Send a branded spoon or bowl that new subscribers will proudly show off.
The point is that offering a fun and useful gift as a welcome offer is an acquisition tactic that pays dividends.
Not only does it live with your subscriber, reminding them of your brand day in and day out, but it’ll also be noticed by their guests, show up in their social media posts (even if it’s just in the background), and potentially even used by family and friends that stay over night.
Key tip: Make sure that any gift you offer correlates with the product. Bowl with cereal. Mug with coffee. Make it make sense, or it’s useless to your customer.
Hand out samples of your product
Samples have been an effective acquisition strategy for centuries (literally), and they’re still just as effective today.
The simplest way to do this digitally is to sell a sample pack that includes multiple flavors, scents, colors…
If you want to take it a step further, you could offer a discount for subscribing to one or more of the products in the sample pack.
Ask current customers to become subscribers
One of the easiest (yes, easiest) ways to acquire subscribers is to farm your existing customer base. They’ve already purchased your product(s) at least once. They know your brand. They know the product(s) well enough to decide whether or not they want to keep purchasing.
All you have to do is reach out via email or SMS to let them know that you have a subscription program and there are really great benefits involved.
Implement these subscriber acquisition strategies with Stay AI
Stay AI is the only subscription management platform designed to help you both acquire and retain subscribers for long-term, sustainable growth.
We use proprietary AI tools that help you build high-converting PDPs, A/B tests to find what really works for your subscribers, and customer portals that boost AOV.
Get started with Stay AI today.
