Turning One-Timers into Subscribers: The Power of Establishing Routines

Unlock greater post-purchase revenue with the power of brand storytelling and establishing routine.

Routine-building and brand storytelling will always be the best strategy to unlock subscription revenue. 

Think about it: the driving factor pushing a one-time customer into a repeat, high LTV subscriber is never rooted in the 10% or 15% discount received as part of a Subscribe & Save deal. Instead, the real value lies in the product itself and how it impacts the customer. 

Educating customers on the value your product presents as a part of their ongoing routines makes them all the more likely to buy.

Let’s look at the Health & Wellness vertical – if you sell a haircare product, the results will look different after two weeks, one month, two months, or over a year of using the product routinely. To convince a customer to commit to that level of product adoption, the post-purchase journey must carefully build customer expectations around specific timelines and consistent product use. By showcasing tangible results that customers can see or look toward, they are more likely to see it through.

For non-subscribers, post-purchase emails should act as brand-building touchpoints highlighting product benefits. Messaging like “Step one of your health journey begins today!” or “Don’t lose the amazing progress you’ve made toward healthier hair!” are far more impactful than a notification like “Hooray! Your order is on the way!” or “You’re halfway through your order! Time for a refill.”

Visuals or UGC images that educate customers on what to expect at each step of their journey are also important in showcasing the value of routine. Our friends at Graza do a wonderful job of guiding customers through their olive oil journey with a robust PDP that visually maps out the lifecycle of each variety of olive oil, including best use cases, and even links out to several fun recipe ideas. 

Once your post-purchase email flows are dialed in, expand to SMS. Short and punchy SMS reminders can be a great motivator for staying consistent and reaching product-use milestones.

By reframing these touchpoints as storytelling opportunities centered around the main benefits of your product and showing support along the way, customers seamlessly funnel into a routine mindset which makes a subscription a no-brainer. 

This strategy extends beyond Health & Wellness – many subscribers (myself included!) have subscriptions to clean, low-acid coffees, olive oil, pet food, and much more. 

By honing your post-purchase content around product storytelling, you build a brand narrative for customers that focuses on value and why they need to come back again and again.