subscription pages Archives - The Good Optimizing Digital Experiences Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:51:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 5 SaaS Growth Strategies That Work (Based On Analysis Of 15 Top AI Tools) https://thegood.com/insights/saas-growth-strategies/ Wed, 13 Aug 2025 20:42:36 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=110756 The AI boom isn’t just about better technology; it’s about smarter growth strategies. While everyone’s talking about features and capabilities, there is another, equally compelling story that lies in how these tools convert free users into paying customers at unprecedented rates. We dove deep into the user experiences of 15 top AI tools, documenting over […]

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The AI boom isn’t just about better technology; it’s about smarter growth strategies. While everyone’s talking about features and capabilities, there is another, equally compelling story that lies in how these tools convert free users into paying customers at unprecedented rates.

We dove deep into the user experiences of 15 top AI tools, documenting over 100 monetization touchpoints, upgrade pathways, and conversion tactics. What we found were five distinct patterns that drive revenue for these leaders.

These strategies aren’t just for AI. They’re blueprints that any SaaS tool can adapt to accelerate its own growth. Here’s what we learned.

The data behind the patterns

Our analysis covered tools spanning text generation (ChatGPT, Claude), search (Perplexity), design (Ideogram, Leonardo.AI), video creation (Runway), and productivity (Grammarly, QuillBot). Each tool was examined across four critical areas:

  • Monetization elements: Upgrade CTAs, limit notifications, premium feature gates, and more
  • Monetization pathways: The specific user journeys from free to paid
  • Pricing and payment screens: Where users actually convert when they decide to upgrade
  • Missed opportunities: Places where tools could be driving more conversions
Monetization doc gif

What emerged were five clear patterns that high-converting tools use consistently.

Pattern #1: The progressive squeeze

The strategy: Start with subtle hints, then gradually increase conversion prompts as users become more invested.

Who’s doing it: Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity have mastered this approach.

How it works: These tools begin with gentle upgrade suggestions embedded in the interface. A small CTA in the sidebar, a mention of plan limits in account settings. As users engage more, the messaging becomes increasingly direct.

Claude exemplifies this perfectly. New users see a subtle “Free plan” indicator and a small upgrade CTA. After several conversations, users get friendly notifications about approaching limits. Only when limits are actually hit does Claude present the strong upgrade push with clear urgency messaging.

A screenshot from Claude as an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

ChatGPT follows a similar pattern but with more touchpoints. Multiple upgrade opportunities appear once logged in, but the real conversion push happens when users try to upload files or access advanced features.

A screenshot from ChatGPT as an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

Why it converts: Users invest time and mental energy before hitting any hard walls. By the time they reach limits, they’re already committed to the tool and see clear value in upgrading rather than switching to alternatives.

The missed opportunity: Many tools go straight to hard limits without the progressive buildup, losing users who might have converted with a gentler approach.

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Pattern #2: The feature tease

The strategy: Show users exactly what they’re missing by displaying premium features prominently, then gating access.

Who’s doing it: Ideogram, Grammarly, and Leonardo.AI excel at this approach.

How it works: These tools don’t hide their premium features. Instead, they showcase them prominently with visual cues like lock icons, blurred previews, or “Pro” badges. Users can see the feature, understand its value, and often interact with locked elements that trigger upgrade modals.

Ideogram shows locked features upfront on the dashboard, displays private galleries as gated sections, and lets users click through to see upgrade benefits. When users generate images, editing options appear with clear visual indicators of which features require upgrading.

A screenshot from Ideogram as an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

Grammarly shows blurred premium suggestions alongside free ones, lets users see statistics with tone analysis grayed out, and provides partial feature previews that create curiosity about the full experience.

A screenshot from Grammly as an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

Why it converts: Curiosity combined with FOMO creates powerful motivation. When users can see exactly what they’re missing and how it would solve their problems, the upgrade decision becomes much easier.

Implementation tip: The key is showing enough value to create desire while maintaining a clear visual hierarchy between free and premium features.

Pattern #3: The moment of need

The strategy: Present upgrade options precisely when users are most invested and would benefit most from premium features.

Who’s doing it: Runway, QuillBot, and Character.AI time their conversion prompts perfectly.

How it works: Instead of generic upgrade CTAs, these tools interrupt workflows at strategic moments when users are actively trying to accomplish something and would most benefit from premium features.

Runway waits until users want to export in 4K resolution or remove watermarks, both of which are moments when they’re already committed to using the generated content.

A screenshot from Runway as an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

QuillBot triggers upgrade prompts when users hit word limits mid-task, not during idle browsing.

a screenshot from Quillbot showing an example of saas growth strategies.

Why it converts: Perfect timing equals the highest conversion rates. When users are already invested in a task and premium features would immediately solve their problem, the upgrade becomes a logical next step rather than an interruption.

The psychology: This taps into the completion bias. Once users start a task, they’re motivated to finish it, making them more likely to pay to remove obstacles.

Pattern #4: The transparent countdown

The strategy: Create urgency and build trust by clearly showing usage limits, remaining credits, and reset timers.

Who’s doing it: Perplexity, Grammarly, and Copy.AI have perfected transparent limit communication.

How it works: Instead of surprising users with sudden limits, these tools constantly communicate remaining usage through progress bars, countdown timers, and clear messaging about when limits reset.

Perplexity shows “2 queries remaining today” with each search, giving users clear visibility into their usage without anxiety.

A screenshot from Perplexity as an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

Grammarly displays credit counts and refill timers for AI features, so users can plan their usage accordingly.

A screenshot from Grammarly as an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

Copy.AI uses a prominent word count progress bar that updates in real-time, showing exactly how much of their monthly limit has been used.

A screenshot from copy.ai an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

Why it converts: Transparency builds trust while creating healthy urgency. Users appreciate knowing where they stand and can make informed decisions about when to upgrade rather than feeling tricked by hidden limits.

The trust factor: When users trust that limits are fair and clearly communicated, they’re more likely to see upgrading as a reasonable business transaction rather than being forced into paying.

Pattern #5: The omnipresent nudge

The strategy: Place multiple upgrade touchpoints throughout the interface without being intrusive.

Who’s doing it: ChatGPT, QuillBot, and Ideogram have mastered multi-touchpoint conversion.

How it works: These tools strategically place upgrade opportunities at different points in the user journey, including header CTAs, sidebar reminders, settings page options, and feature-specific prompts. The key is making each touchpoint feel contextual rather than repetitive.

ChatGPT places upgrade CTAs in the dropdown menu, file upload tooltips, model selection interfaces, and account settings. Each serves a different user intent and provides value beyond just asking for payment.

A screenshot from ChatGPT is an example of effective SaaS growth strategies.

QuillBot integrates upgrade opportunities into the workflow, for example, in premium mode selectors, feature benefit explanations, and contextual prompts that feel helpful rather than pushy.

Quillbot upgrade integrations are a good example of effective saas growth strategies.

Why it converts: Repetition without annoyance increases recall and provides multiple chances to convert users at different readiness levels. Some users need to see upgrade options multiple times before they’re ready to act.

The balance: The key is ensuring each touchpoint provides value or information, rather than simply asking for money repeatedly.

The standout performers

While all 15 tools showed growth-focused design, three stood out for their sophisticated monetization strategies:

Claude excels at the Progressive Squeeze, building user investment before presenting upgrade opportunities. Their limit messaging feels helpful rather than restrictive, and the upgrade pathway is seamless.

Ideogram masters the Feature Tease, showcasing premium capabilities so effectively that users understand the upgrade value before reaching any limits. Their visual hierarchy makes premium features aspirational rather than frustrating.

Perplexity nails the Transparent Countdown, creating urgency without anxiety through clear limit communication and value-focused messaging.

Common missed opportunities

Our analysis revealed several patterns where even successful tools leave money on the table:

  • Timing failures: Many tools show upgrade prompts during onboarding when users haven’t yet experienced value, rather than waiting for engagement.
  • Value communication gaps: Some tools gate features without clearly explaining the benefits, leading to confusion rather than desire.
  • Conversion pathway friction: Several tools send users to generic pricing pages rather than contextual upgrade flows that maintain momentum.
  • Limit surprises: Tools that suddenly cut off functionality without warning create frustration rather than conversion motivation.

Applying these patterns to your SaaS growth strategies

These AI growth strategies aren’t limited to AI tools. The underlying principles work for any SaaS looking to improve free-to-paid conversion:

Start with your user journey mapping

Identify key moments where users experience value and where they encounter limitations. These are your conversion opportunity points.

Audit your current upgrade messaging

Are you using the Progressive Squeeze, or do you jump straight to hard limits? Are you showing users what they’re missing with Feature Teasing?

Review your limit of communication

Do users understand their usage limits, and when they reset? Transparent Countdown reduces churn and builds trust.

Optimize your touchpoint strategy

Map where upgrade CTAs appear in your interface and ensure each serves a specific user need rather than just asking for payment.

Test your conversion timing

Are you presenting upgrade options when users are most invested (Moment of Need) or just when it’s convenient for your UI?

What does this mean for your growth strategy?

AI tools are teaching us that successful monetization isn’t always about restricting features; it can be about showcasing value, building trust, and timing conversion opportunities perfectly. The tools growing fastest aren’t necessarily those with the best AI models, but those with the smartest user experience design.

These patterns work because they align business needs with user psychology. Instead of seeing limits as barriers, users experience them as natural progression points toward greater value.

The AI boom provides a unique laboratory for studying growth tactics at scale. These tools process millions of users and can iterate rapidly, revealing what actually drives conversions versus what we think should work.

As AI capabilities become more commoditized, user experience (including monetization design) becomes the key differentiator. The tools implementing these patterns now are building sustainable competitive advantages that will persist even as the underlying technology evolves.

Taking action on these insights

The most successful SaaS companies will adapt these AI growth strategies to their own products before their competitors catch on. Start by analyzing your current monetization approach against these five patterns:

  1. Map your user journey to identify Progressive Squeeze opportunities
  2. Audit your feature visibility to implement Feature Teasing where appropriate
  3. Review your limit of communication to adopt Transparent Countdown principles
  4. Time your conversion prompts to leverage the Moment of Need psychology
  5. Optimize your touchpoint strategy using Omnipresent Nudge best practices

The data from these 15 AI tools provides a roadmap, but implementation requires careful testing and optimization for your specific user base and value proposition.

Ready to apply these AI growth strategies to accelerate your SaaS growth? The Good specializes in analyzing user experiences and implementing conversion optimization strategies that turn insights into revenue. Our team has helped dozens of SaaS companies optimize their monetization flows using data-driven approaches just like this analysis.

Get your personalized monetization strategy audit. We’ll analyze your current user experience against these proven patterns and create a prioritized optimization roadmap tailored to your product and audience. Schedule a consultation with our team to discover how these AI growth strategies can accelerate your revenue growth.

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How Top AI Tools Turn Free Users Into Paying Customers


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Conversion-Centered Design: 7 Principles That Drive SaaS Upgrades https://thegood.com/insights/saas-upgrades/ Mon, 23 Jun 2025 16:57:26 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=110665 Let’s be honest about the SaaS upgrade challenge: you’re not just converting free users to paid accounts anymore. Today’s SaaS landscape includes freemium-to-premium transitions, plan upgrades, feature unlocks, usage-based expansions, and a dozen other monetization moments. Each represents a different psychological decision with unique friction points. Most SaaS companies approach these upgrade opportunities with the […]

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Let’s be honest about the SaaS upgrade challenge: you’re not just converting free users to paid accounts anymore. Today’s SaaS landscape includes freemium-to-premium transitions, plan upgrades, feature unlocks, usage-based expansions, and a dozen other monetization moments. Each represents a different psychological decision with unique friction points.

Most SaaS companies approach these upgrade opportunities with the same basic playbook: add an “Upgrade Now” button and hope for the best. But the companies exceeding their conversion goals understand something different: every upgrade scenario requires its own conversion-centered design strategy.

What is conversion-centered design?

Conversion-centered design is the practice of building digital experiences by making design decisions that serve a specific conversion goal. Unlike traditional user experience design, which prioritizes general usability and user satisfaction, conversion-centered design focuses on guiding users toward specific actions through strategic design choices.

In the case of SaaS upgrades, it’s about understanding the user behavior behind different types of SaaS upgrade decisions and crafting experiences that remove friction at precisely the right moments.

Beyond free-to-paid: the full spectrum of SaaS upgrades

Before we dive into design principles, let’s map the actual upgrade landscape most SaaS companies navigate:

Free trial to paid subscription

Free trial to paid subscription is the classic conversion challenge, where users evaluate whether your product delivers enough value to justify ongoing payment. Users typically weigh their decision based on factors such as feature completeness, onboarding success, and competitive alternatives.

Freemium to premium plans

In a transition from freemium to premium plans, users already love your basic offering, but need to justify paying for advanced features. This involves different psychology than trial conversions. You’re asking satisfied users to spend money, not preventing churn.

Plan tier upgrades

In tiered pricing plans, existing customers hit limits or need additional capabilities when considering an upgrade. These users are already paying, so the decision typically involves budget approval and feature value demonstration, rather than product evaluation.

Usage-based expansions

When customers exceed included allowances for API calls, storage, or monthly active users, they will often consider a usage-based upgrade. The decision here is often reactive rather than strategic, requiring different messaging and strategy.

Feature unlock purchases

In this scenario, individual premium features are available for one-time purchase rather than as part of a plan upgrade. Examples include advanced reporting, integrations, or compliance features sold separately.

Seat-based growth

In order to get tool access for the whole team, a user may need to purchase additional user licenses or a team account. This decision involves both the original user and new team members, creating complex decision dynamics.

Annual vs. monthly billing

Convincing users to commit to longer-term contracts for discounts is tricky. This upgrade isn’t about features, it’s about cash flow and commitment.

Each of these scenarios requires a different conversion approach because the user psychology, decision-making process, and friction points vary significantly. Let’s explore how conversion-centered design principles adapt to these diverse upgrade contexts.

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The 7 principles of conversion-centered design for SaaS upgrades

Principle 1: Context-driven focus

Traditional conversion design emphasizes “creating focus” around the action you are leading users towards. In SaaS applications, that focus must be contextual. A user who has reached their storage limit requires a different focus than someone exploring premium features during onboarding.

How this works in practice:

For usage-based upgrades, focus should be immediate and solution-oriented: “You’re running low on API calls. Upgrade now to avoid service interruption.” Remove all other navigation options and make the upgrade path the primary action.

For feature exploration, focus should demonstrate value: “See how advanced analytics helped Acme Corp increase conversions by 34%.” Here, you can include secondary actions like “Learn More” or “See Example Report” because the user isn’t facing immediate urgency.

The key is recognizing where users are in their usage journey and matching your design focus to their mental state.

Here is a good example from Lovable. After creating a design, when you attempt to share it with your team, you are contextually prompted to “upgrade to collaborate.”

Principle 2: Progressive value architecture

Instead of dumping all premium features on users at once, structure your upgrade experience to build conviction progressively. This principle is especially important for complex SaaS products with multiple upgrade paths.

How this works in practice:

Design upgrade flows that reveal features progressively based on user engagement rather than showing everything upfront. Track which users click “Learn More” vs “Upgrade Now” to understand where additional information helps vs. hurts conversion. To implement, you can consider an upgrade architecture like:

Level 1: Immediate benefit

Lead with the single most compelling reason to upgrade based on the user’s current context. If they’re hitting usage limits, start with expanded capacity. If they’re in a specific workflow, highlight features that enhance that workflow.

Level 2: Supporting benefits

Once users engage with the primary benefit, introduce 2-3 supporting features that reinforce the upgrade decision. These should be directly related to their demonstrated usage patterns.

Level 3: Full feature set

Only after users show continued interest should you present comprehensive feature comparisons. Most users never need to see this level; they convert based on the immediate benefit alone.

Principle 3: Consistency across touchpoints

SaaS upgrades happen across multiple touchpoints, like in-app prompts, email campaigns, billing pages, and feature gates. Consistency across messaging, timing, and value presentation will support upgrade conversions.

How this works in practice:

  • In-app feature gates: When users encounter locked features, the messaging should match what they’ll see on upgrade pages. If your feature gate says, “Unlock advanced reporting,” your upgrade page shouldn’t suddenly talk about “premium analytics.”
  • Email upgrade campaigns: Match the urgency and tone of in-app experiences. If your app uses gentle nudges, don’t send aggressive “Last Chance!” emails. The psychological approach should feel consistent.
  • Billing-triggered upgrades: When users approach usage limits, the upgrade flow should feel like a natural extension of their current experience, not a disruptive sales pitch.

Grammarly excels at this with its “writing update” emails, which share your usage statistics and include personalized upgrade benefits. They also maintain the same helpful, educational tone as their in-app suggestions. Users receive consistent value messaging whether they encounter upgrade opportunities in the app or via email.

Principle 4: Outcome-focused benefits

SaaS users don’t buy features, they buy outcomes. But different upgrade scenarios require different outcome framings. A user exploring premium features during onboarding has different priorities than someone hitting usage limits.

How this works in practice:

Use outcome language that matches your user segmentation research. Different user segments care about different outcomes, even for the same features. Your “productivity tools for SMBs” messaging should differ from “enterprise compliance solutions,” even if you’re selling similar capabilities.

Depending on the upgrade scenario, here are some examples:

  • Trial-to-paid: Focus on productivity and competitive advantage outcomes. “Close deals 40% faster with advanced pipeline analytics”
  • Freemium-to-premium: Focus on elevated capabilities and professional outcomes. “Transform from good to exceptional with premium design tools.”
  • Plan upgrades: Focus on growth and scale outcomes. “Handle 10x more leads without adding headcount”
  • Usage expansions: Focus on continuity and momentum outcomes. “Keep your growth trajectory without interruption.”
  • Feature unlocks: Focus on specific workflow improvements, “Cut monthly reporting time from 8 hours to 30 minutes.”

Perplexity does this effectively by emphasizing the advanced capabilities you’re missing out on if you run out of your five free pro queries per day.

Principle 5: Friction-aware CTA design

Not every upgrade decision carries the same level of friction. Annual commitments create more friction than monthly upgrades. New feature adoption creates more friction than usage expansion. Your CTA design should account for these friction differences.

How this works in practice:

  • Low-friction upgrades (usage expansion, monthly plan changes): Use direct, immediate CTAs. “Upgrade Now,” “Add More Storage,” “Increase Limit”. These can be prominent, high-contrast, and positioned aggressively because user resistance is low.
  • Medium-friction upgrades (plan tier changes, feature unlocks): Use value-reinforcing CTAs: “Start Free Trial of Pro Features,” “See Premium Features,” “Try Advanced Tools”. Provide trial options or demos to reduce commitment anxiety.
  • High-friction upgrades (annual contracts, major plan changes): Use progression-based CTAs: “See Pricing Options,” “Calculate Savings,” “Talk to Sales”. Focus on information-gathering rather than immediate commitment.
  • Advanced CTA strategy: Implement dynamic CTAs that change based on user behavior. First-time feature gate encounters might show “Learn More,” while repeated encounters show “Start Free Trial,” and high-engagement users see “Upgrade Now.”

Principle 6: Social proof and trust building

The social proof that convinces someone to try your free trial won’t necessarily convince them to upgrade to enterprise features. Match your trust-building elements to the specific upgrade decision and user context.

How this works in practice:

  • For security-conscious upgrades (compliance features, enterprise plans): Emphasize security certifications, enterprise customer logos, and compliance badges, “Trusted by Fortune 500 companies with the highest security standards”.
  • For performance-driven upgrades (advanced features, professional tools): Highlight usage statistics and performance improvements, “Pro users complete projects 3x faster on average”.
  • For team-based upgrades (collaboration features, multi-seat plans): Show team success stories and collaboration outcomes, “Marketing teams using our collaboration tools report 50% better campaign coordination”.
  • For usage-based upgrades (expanded limits, additional capacity): Display growth-stage social proof, “Over 10,000 scaling companies choose our unlimited plan”.
  • Trust-building implementation: Position trust elements where conversion anxiety is highest. For high-commitment upgrades, prominently display customer logos and testimonials. For usage expansions, emphasize reliability and uptime statistics.

Suno, an AI music creation platform, includes new feature upgrade options on the same page as featured creators, so you can see how popular artists are using features.

Principle 7: Conversion path optimization

Remove every unnecessary step between the upgrade decision and upgrade completion. However, “unnecessary” depends on the type of upgrade and user psychology. Some upgrades benefit from additional information, while others suffer from any delay.

How this works in practice:

  • Immediate need upgrades (usage limits, access blocks): Minimize to single-click upgrades where possible. Pre-populate billing information, default to current payment methods, and confirm changes without additional steps.
  • Exploratory upgrades (feature discovery, plan comparison): Allow for investigation without requiring immediate commitment. Provide detailed feature comparisons, trial options, and clear pricing information before asking for upgrade decisions.
  • Team decision upgrades (enterprise features, multi-seat plans): Build in consultation and approval workflows. Provide team trial options, detailed ROI calculators, and easy sharing tools for decision-making groups.
  • Budget-conscious upgrades (annual plans, major tier changes): Include savings calculators, payment plan options, and clear cancellation policies to reduce financial anxiety.
  • Advanced optimization: Implement progressive profiling where users provide information gradually rather than all at once. For complex upgrades, break the decision into smaller commitment steps rather than requiring full upgrade commitment immediately.

The future of SaaS monetization design

SaaS upgrade optimization requires more than applying basic conversion principles to billing pages. The most successful companies understand that different upgrade scenarios require different psychological approaches, design strategies, and optimization metrics.

The 7 conversion-centered design principles are a great way to start doing just that.

But it’s not a one-and-done process. Iterate your designs and conduct user testing to figure out which upgrade paths are working and which aren’t.

As SaaS markets mature, upgrade optimization becomes increasingly sophisticated. Successful companies will move beyond the basics and:

  • Embrace usage-driven monetization: Move beyond simple tier-based pricing to value-based and usage-responsive pricing models that require more nuanced upgrade design approaches.
  • Implement AI-driven personalization: Use behavioral data to personalize upgrade timing, messaging, and pricing presentation for individual users rather than broad segments.
  • Develop ecosystem-based upgrades: Create upgrade opportunities that span multiple products or services within a broader platform ecosystem.
  • Focus on revenue expansion: Prioritize existing customer upgrade experiences over new customer acquisition as markets become more competitive.

Ready to optimize your SaaS upgrade experiences across every monetization touchpoint? The Good’s Digital Experience Optimization Program™ specializes in helping product-led companies design sophisticated upgrade experiences. Check it out and learn how you can take your business from product-market fit to sustainable scale with conversion-centered design techniques customized for your business and users.

Find out what stands between your company and digital excellence with a custom 5-Factors Scorecard™.

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Drive and Convert (Ep. 091): Turning One-Time Buyers into Loyal Subscribers https://thegood.com/insights/drive-and-convert-ecommerce-subscription/ Tue, 10 Oct 2023 14:20:37 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=105608 Listen to this episode: About This Episode: People have a lot of options when it comes to subscriptions. And now more than ever, people are conscious of where and what they spend their money on. In this episode, Jon and Ryan discuss how to acquire and retain subscribers with proven strategies including personalization, various types […]

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Listen to this episode:

About This Episode:

People have a lot of options when it comes to subscriptions. And now more than ever, people are conscious of where and what they spend their money on.

In this episode, Jon and Ryan discuss how to acquire and retain subscribers with proven strategies including personalization, various types of subscriptions, and tactics for increasing your number of subscribers. They also cover how to look at things from a consumer perspective in order to fully understand what needs companies can address with their subscription services.

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

  1. The different types of subscription services 
  2. Why personalization is important 
  3. Why brands need to identify where customers churn
  4. Seven strategies to increase subscriptions

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, hit us up on Twitter. We’re @jonmacdonald and @ryangarrow.

Subscribe To The Show:

Episode Transcript:

Announcer:
You are listening to Drive and Convert, a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine, with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Ryan:
Hello, Jon, thanks for being here. Excited we get to connect again today about an interesting topic, I’ll say, that I think will have some debate. You want to talk about subscriptions. Subscriptions were up 20% through the pandemic and then now the growth has dwindled pretty dramatically. And I get reached out to pretty regularly by a lot of partners or companies that want to partner with us to handle all of our subscriptions across Logical Position, and as aggressive as they’re getting, it tells me they’re struggling.

Jon:
That is usually a fair sign, right?

Ryan:
I’m like, “All these subscription companies are very aggressively going through my sales team.” But as a business, we all want subscriptions because it’s just automatic money we can look at and know it’s coming back in. Amazon subscriptions are great, we use them internally in our family, but over this last past weekend watching football, I don’t know if you’ve seen these commercials or not, but there are subscriptions to end your subscriptions.

Jon:
Yes.

Ryan:
So evidently it’s a problem enough that I can now subscribe to something that will take away my subscriptions and tell me where all my money’s going.

Jon:
You know when there’s an ecosystem there, there’s definitely a problem, maybe an opportunity. I think that’s where we’re at, right?

Ryan:
Yeah, that’s where I look at these things too. Yes, I probably waste a lot of money on stupid subscriptions, but there’s also an opportunity that I enjoy that I don’t have to think about certain things. My brain is going in multiple different directions all constantly with too many kids and my wife being gone for a week, leaving me single parenting, so subscriptions are great.

Jon:
I’ll show up with a bottle of wine and check in on you on Friday. How’s that?

Ryan:
Yeah, yeah, and see if I’m still here. So, I’m excited to hear from you on from just a conversion standpoint and how businesses can get some subscribers. And hopefully we can talk through too how they can keep them and don’t become one of those subscriptions to unsubscribe and get out of that. But I think you have to have it in the competitive environment that we’re in.

Jon:
Yes, I agree.

Ryan:
If you’re not thinking through lifetime value and how you can get subscriptions, I’m probably going to tell you your business has a very soon tombstone approaching it.

Jon:
Yes. Well, with customer acquisition costs where they are, it’s really necessary to continue to earn from that initial spend. You’re one of the biggest advocates I hear of, “I will break even on that first sale so that I can have them in my database and sell to them again.” Well, what if, in a magical fairy land, you’re able to convert that first one into a subscription? So now you’re paying… you know you’re going to get a better lifetime value out of that customer-

Ryan:
Exactly.

Jon:
… so that’s why this is so important.

Ryan:
Yep, so fully agreed. You need to figure out a subscription for your business somehow, some way, whatever that looks like. And if you do that, you have to find a way to get people to bite on that.

Jon:
What I want to cover today is how you can convert these buyers into subscribers, so it sounds like we’re aligned on that, for sure.

Ryan:
For sure. And so you’ve come up with basically a good way to look at subscriptions, there’s only two types in your world. So what are those two?

Jon:
At a high level, there’s really two types, there’s the product subscriptions and digital subscriptions. And I think most people haven’t really thought about this, but you could offer both as a brand. And there are really multi-billion dollar companies who offer just one. So the opportunities are out there. But subscription based is a recurring subscription that really the goal there is just to provide a seamless shopping experience.
This is like Stitch Fix is a really good example of this. If you don’t know Stitch Fix, you go online, you answer a questionnaire, maybe have a video chat with a personal stylist, and then each month you get a box of curated clothing that are handpicked for your personal wardrobe based on what your preferences are, your sizes are, et cetera. Customers like this because of the convenience factor, “I don’t have to think about looking good in clothes anymore, it’s taken care of for me. I did a little bit of work upfront, but I never have to leave my hous, everything comes to me, I can try it on, if I don’t like it, I ship it back.”
But options show up at my door, so it’s a convenience factor, and I think that most brands don’t think about subscriptions in that way. What most brands think about is the Amazon model. You mentioned Amazon earlier, right?

Ryan:
Mm-hmm.

Jon:
Subscribe and save, right? This is where you go to buy and it says, “Hey, do you know what? Most people want this every three months. Do you want this every quarter?” You’re like, “Yes. I can cancel it any time. I’ll save a little bit of money perhaps by doing subscribe and save.” So you have options there. But I think that most people don’t think about the curated approach. They’re thinking about, “How do I get my product to reorder as quickly as possible?” But I wanted to call out both of those exist for product subscriptions.
The second one is the digital subscription. This is one we all know too well and the one that you mentioned the TV commercials are about like, “Oh, I didn’t know I was still paying for Netflix.”
“Well, we’ll help you cancel all these things that you don’t realize you’re doing.”
Personally I see those commercials and I’m like, “Do you not look at your credit card statement ever? You just had no idea Netflix was charging you? Okay.”

Ryan:
I wish I had that much money that I didn’t have to worry about it.

Jon:
Right. I’m thinking, “Who are these people?”

Ryan:
I track my $10 subscriptions all over the place.

Jon:
If I had enough money that I didn’t care about what was hitting my credit card every month, then why do I care about hiring somebody or paying for another subscription to cancel these subscriptions? The whole thing is weird to me. But regardless, I think when you think about this along with the e-commerce subscription models, these are really popular more in digital products and software as a service. So, these are companies that are going to provide ongoing access to these digital tools for a regular fee, typically a monthly or yearly, something of that sort. We’re surrounded by these as we just talked about, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime is a good one, Walmart has their own, maybe you know what that’s called, I keep forgetting, but it’s like Amazon Prime.

Ryan:
Yeah, I honestly don’t remember.

Jon:
Walmart Plus or something, maybe [inaudible 00:07:00].

Ryan:
Yes, I think-

Jon:
Yeah, okay.

Ryan:
… that’s probably it.

Jon:
Everything’s plus these days. If you want to pay extra on a monthly basis, just add plus to the name, Disney Plus, all of these things. So think about it, there’s a couple of different ways to charge subscriptions.

Ryan:
Okay, great. So we’ve got two different kinds. We’ve got the digital things that we all subscribe to lately, and then the product ones, which most of the people listening to this probably want more of. As we’re looking at subscriptions and whether they do or don’t have them, what do you see as some of the primary benefits of these subscriptions other than some of the obvious like, “Hey, they’re going to be auto shipped, it’s going to be great”?

Jon:
Right. I think overall they offer a more personalized experience, and I think that’s really what you should be thinking about here. What’s the benefit to the consumer? Yes, if you’re listening to this and you’re a brand, you want more sales, and that’s your in for subscriptions. I probably don’t have to say anything else, you’re like, “Yes, I want subscriptions, of course.”
But if we come at it from a consumer perspective, then we have a really good understanding at that point of how to benefit. And really there’s three main ways I look at this. The first is that you’re enhancing that customer loyalty and satisfaction. Again, it’s in the eyes of the consumer. So there’s a couple of benefits here of subscriptions in the sense that you’re able to learn so much about your consumers this way. You’re able to gather insights and data enabling you to really address those customer needs and their preferences.
So you know, for instance, Amazon, they know people reorder this product every three months, so now they turn that into a subscription, make it easy about that cadence, most people want it once a quarter, that’s what we’re suggesting. That’s just scratching the surface of that. But you can also plan out your stock levels, for instance. You know that a popular flavor gets reordered or a popular scent or size. That is all stuff you can use for planning out and making sure you’re never going to run out of products that will upset the consumer because the last thing you want to do is have someone want to buy, and you’re unable to do that.
But I think this really matters because there’s research out there from Epsilon that indicates that 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase when you offer a personalized experience. So, this is a win-win. You’re going to offer more personalization around what people want, and you’re going to get to know your customers better, and the consumer is going to reward you with purchasing more because it’s closer in line with what they want to do.
So the other thing here is you’re reducing customer churn, and I think that’s a big one because customer churn is just going to kill your lifetime value. And so if you can get people into a subscription, they’re much more likely to stick around for a longer term. Sometimes it’s because it just shows up and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, I forgot to cancel that. I’ll remember to cancel it next week,” and then they forget until next quarter.

Ryan:
Yep, that’s what you hope sometimes.

Jon:
Yeah, right. Let’s be honest, that’s what a lot of brands hope for, especially those that are charging $10 a month or something, they just hope you forget. The second benefit for brands really is that increased customer lifetime value. I just mentioned that, but depending on various studies, acquiring a new customer, it’s anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. We’ve all heard these stats over the years. The reality is that subscriptions just increase that customer lifetime value quite a bit through recurring revenue. So you’re extending that relationship with the customer, so there’s no negatives about that that I can see.

Ryan:
Well, it’s interesting because thinking through that personalization piece. I don’t think many brands are thinking through subscriptions like a Stitch Fix. Stitch Fix does a lot of upfront work for that subscription

Jon:
For sure.

Ryan:
And the one that comes up most often in calls is coffee. Coffee subscriptions like, “Just subscribe.” Coffee companies do two things every single time. Number one, they tell me about how they’re all saving the farmers all over the world that are living in poverty growing coffee. And then they also tell me that they will ship it to me every month, or they’ll give me a little weight thing that automatically ships it. Okay, but that doesn’t to me feel like it’s a personalized subscription. There’s no effort that’s gone into that for the vast majority of coffee companies to learn, what’s my flavor profile? How do they know that I’ll like this one? I don’t want the same flavor coffee every day for the rest of my life.

Jon:
It should be somewhat of a treat, right? If you’re looking at it in that way, how do you surprise and delight? And I think a subscription allows you to do that, especially if you tell a consumer, “Subscribe and we’ll send you something special each month.” Do you know who’s really good at this, speaking of coffee? Is Nespresso, the pods. Now, I’m not suggesting that they’re the best coffee or anything of that sort, it’s decent. But the reality is every time you order, they always throw additional pods into the box that you didn’t order. So they’re helping you to try other things. Now, here’s the kicker. I used to buy Nespresso all the time before I pulled up my big boy pants and got a real espresso machine, but-

Ryan:
Meanwhile, I’m still drinking Nespresso over here.

Jon:
We live in Portland, Oregon, this is coffee capital of the United States here. The reality is that every pod they would send me that would be one of the new flavors was always twice as expensive as whatever pod I had ordered. So, most pods, espresso, are 70 cents or something. I’d always get the sample pack and I’d be like, “That’s really good. I like that.” Go online, I look at it, it’s like $1.25 a pod, I’m like, “Whoa, hold on here. I appreciate that upsell, but I’m not really that into it.” But I think that they probably sell a lot more coffee by doing that at a higher price because there you go.

Ryan:
My average coffee through the special is like $1.40 right now.

Jon:
Mm-hmm. They got you, right?

Ryan:
They did.

Jon:
And it’s not worth it. It can be worth it, for sure. Coffee could be that much better or really aligns with their flavor profile, et cetera. But I guess back to the point, which is really what you’re looking to do here is increase that customer lifetime value and how do you bump that up? I think Nespresso has done that really, really well.
The last one, really, is improving customer retention. And I think this is important because the churn rate for subscription services is only 5.5% and that’s compared to 6.7% for one-time purchases. And this really indicates that loyal subscribers are much more likely to stay engaged and continue their subscriptions. So I think this is something that most brands don’t think about. They just think about, “Oh, I can continue to get additional revenue off of that subscription.” But I think encouraging long-term customer relationships really shows how your brand can continuously provide value, and that’s what Nespresso is doing with the [inaudible 00:14:38] household and pushing their $1.40 pods, right?

Ryan:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s where most companies that go into subscriptions really fail, unfortunately, is they’re not thinking about the consumer at all. When they go into subscriptions, it’s 100 percent about, “What’s my P&L look like? What’s my lifetime value? I’m just going to add a subscription and be done.” And we failed at this quite a bit at Joyful Dirt in trying to understand subscriptions. We’re like, “We want more subscriptions because that’s easier for us, so let’s just do it. And I’m sure customers do it because everybody wants subscription.” That was essentially our thinking. It was like, “Let’s make it an easy button for predictable revenue, and hopefully they forget.”
And if that’s the way you’re going into subscriptions, I think you’re doing it wrong. It can’t be, “I hope they forget, so they keep getting this.” And we didn’t go through and understand the consumer enough to know how often do they even need this where it’s like, “Yeah, you should be using this once a quarter, so you need a new shaker once a quarter.” Well, it turns out our customers didn’t need it once a quarter, most of them were once a year because they weren’t fertilizing as often as we recommended, but most people don’t fertilize every single watering of their plants.
And so when you’re looking at once a year subscriptions, it really doesn’t fit the model of subscription really. And so what we should have done is gone back and said, “Okay, well what do we need to do to provide value in a subscription, and what does that look like to our consumer?” And I think that would’ve been a much more valuable process for us and probably would’ve helped get a lot more subscribers, honestly.

Jon:
Right. And what’s the big difference there? One is wanting to sell more product, and the other is wanting to sell more product, but it’s through being helpful to the consumer. And I think if you take the consumer’s perspective on this, then you’re going to end up with a much better overall experience for everybody and more sales. So I think that really makes a lot of sense.

Ryan:
Okay. So we know we need subscribers. If we don’t know that, go listen to this again. We know we want subscribers at this point, but it’s probably not just as simple as putting some version of subscribe and save on my site, and letting that be done. So how am I going to turn that one-time buyer of a T-shirt into a subscriber?

Jon:
That’s the beauty here, right? No matter your subscription service model, there’s always ways to attract those customers and onboard new ones. So let’s talk about a lot of these ways. First of all, I highly recommend you upsell your annual plan or cross-sell bundles. So think about points to upgrade. What are these opportunities that you’re going to offer consumers to upgrade? So remind them why they should upgrade to a longer term plan or add more product to that subscription box.
So who does this really well? Going back to Amazon, they have Amazon it used to be called Fresh, now I think it’s Amazon Pantry, where you can add several items, and then once a box is full, meaning it makes enough sense to ship those products to you, the shipping becomes free. So they’re encouraging you to buy more at the same time, you’ve got to fill up your box. They’re gamifying it, again, you’ve got to fill up this box to get the free shipping. And they’re incentivizing you by saying, “Hey, if you fill this up, we’ll ship it to you for free versus what the other costs might be.” And it’s pantry items, so it’s items that the weight could be pretty heavy, you get a two pound bag of sugar or flour, all these things you start thinking about that, that could add up, but it’s super convenient.
So I also recommend along with this, is really just offering discounts like 10% off by calling out your pricing page. And what I mean by this is it’s a discount, but you more frame it as basically a bundle price so you’re upselling to a year bundle of that service as opposed to a month. So if people prepay for the year, they’re going to save a little bit of money. And I think that that’s fine, I don’t look at that as the same as a discount straight off the top. It is, right? It’s a discount, but it’s in the psychology of a consumer, it’s different. I think that’s important.
The second opportunity is really to just identify where these customers churn on your site. So map that entire buying process out. What is that digital buying journey like? Somebody comes to you and sees an ad, hears from a friend, comes to your site. And then identify the patterns where people are dropping off. Where is that churn happening on your site? And if you map this out for your customer lifetime value as well, you can then figure out how to tweak that.
So you can say, “Okay, well if I know that my customer lifetime value is $100, I want get it to 110, how do I go about setting up a subscription that’s going to get me to 110?” So you could use this as a tool to fix customer churn, but also to increase that customer lifetime value. And you could use this to find ways to win people back before that churn, so hit them up with the notification.

Ryan:
So when you’re going to map where they drop off in the conversion process, so like, “Hey,” you’re kind of watching, okay, click here, click here, click here, and then hey, they abandoned it in the cart when they looked at shipping, so maybe free shipping and a subscription is helpful, step one. And then the other one would be, “Okay, once they buy, I need to map out lifetime value to figure out where they’re dropping off. And they bought this, but they didn’t go to this step and buy this, so I need to encourage them to take this step.”

Jon:
Right. And what I’m saying is less about encouraging them to take that step, more about saying, what is the value where people stop buying? What is that average lifetime value where people drop off?

Ryan:
Oh, on the original conversion?

Jon:
Yes.

Ryan:
Okay.

Jon:
Instead, set up a subscription that will help bump that up. So this is similar to the game that a lot of retailers play around free shipping where they say, “Okay, my average lifetime value is 50 bucks. I’m going to do free shipping over $55.” So they’re getting people to add in to increase that initial order value. So it’s the same game people are playing.

Announcer:
Your you are listening to Drive and Convert, a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your hosts are Jon MacDonald, founder of The Good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors into buyers, and Ryan Garrow of Logical Position, the digital marketing agency offering pay-per-click management, search engine optimization, and website design services to brands of all sizes. If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Jon:
The third is to offer more than one subscription product or service. So basically you’ve got to curate your options here, and I think too many brands say, “Oh, I’m just going to have one option, and I’m going to launch this as a subscription and people will take it or leave it.” Well, I think what you need to do is really be careful about how you’re curating this. What I mean is that if you offer more than one type of subscription, there’s a service out there that helps brands do this, it’s called Recurly. It’s a subscription management platform, and they did research and they found that 70.4% of businesses offer more than one subscription. So what you should do in this sense is, say that you offer subscription pet box service, why not have a box for dogs and a box for cats instead of just a pet box service?
Pretty high level example, but I think that’s what I’m talking about here. Maybe if you’re Stitch Fix, they do a really good job of curating that, but it’s also seasonal. So in the summer, they’re not going to be sending you heavy wool sweaters. They know based on your address what the weather is seasonal right there, and they’re going to address that with what they send you. So I think really just focusing on having more than one subscription product can really bolster your selection there.
Well, I guess we’re already at what, four? Discouraging downgrades. So the best thing you can do here is offer people to pause subscriptions. So you’re basically taking the negative out of that situation. So as a consumer comes in and they are looking at subscribing and they say, “Wow, I’m not sure I really want to do this, but it’s cheaper, I’ll probably give it a try.” If you tell people, and Amazon’s great at this, going back to that example, that they can cancel at any time, then you’re removing that barrier. So you have to be able to offer a way to cancel. But I suggest instead of that, you offer a way to pause. Now you can pause indefinitely.
So the vitamin service that I use, actually, I use a direct to consumer vitamin service, and I love it because there are times I’m out of town and I forget to take my vitamins with me or whatever, and then I end up with an extra week or whatever of these vitamins. I’m not ready for the refill shipment yet. I can go in, they send me an email, “Hey, you have two days before your shipment sends out. Click here to pause it if you want to delay that shipment.” They call it a delay. And then you go in, you just say, “I want to delay two weeks.”
“Great, no problem.”
They still get the service, instead of me just stacking up these extra vitamins from all these shipments, they’re really providing a convenience factor for me, and it’s helped me to stick around. So build that, basically, loyalty at that point and provide a better customer experience.

Ryan:
So you need to message this in the cart or on the product page like just-

Jon:
On the PDP.

Ryan:
On the PDP, okay. Got it. So say, “It’s easy to pause, no worries, delay.”

Jon:
Yep, exactly. I like the word pause, at that point, but once somebody’s in the flow, I like the word delay. So it’s a little different connotation, but if you’re thinking about buying, at that point, you’re not thinking about delaying, but you want the option to pause it. When you are in the middle of it and you realize you need to push it back, the word delay works a lot better.

Ryan:
Yep, I agree with that. Okay.

Jon:
Okay. So next one is enhancing the product page user experience. So this is what we just talked about, we’re refining that user experience around the buy box area. So when users come to your product page, the Add to Cart should easily be identifiable, but also a Subscribe button should be identifiable. And I think this is what’s really interesting is so many brands make it really complicated to subscribe. They make you answer all these questions and make all these choices, “I want to do it and I want it every month or every number of weeks, and I want this flavor,” et cetera. You need to try to make that as simple as possible.
And again, this is where Amazon wins, they say, “Most people want this every three months, how about you?” and they default it to the three months. So I think this is something to really be thinking about with making it as easy as possible for people to subscribe. I see this error too many times, people make it super complicated.

Ryan:
Now in the Stitch Fix example, that obviously is going to be pretty complicated to figure out who I am. So if you’re in that model, is it just get the subscription and take care of the complexities after I’ve signed, or do you think in that scenario I’ve still got to go through this process and understand what I get before I click buy?

Jon:
Yeah, I think that in that stance, the trade-off is the amount of value for what you’re asking. So you’re asking the consumer to answer a bunch of questions, go through the quiz, perhaps talk to a stylist, but think about the value for them. We’re not just having sugar delivered, the value is there because it’s curated products just for me in my size that they think will look good on me and/or I will want to wear.

Ryan:
Got it.

Jon:
So there’s a little bit of extra work that goes in upfront, but the value that’s being delivered every quarter or every month that box comes is well worth it to me as a consumer.

Ryan:
Okay. I think that’s an important metric then to look at is you have to be thinking about this first from a consumer standpoint, not a business standpoint, and say, “Okay, if I’m asking for these extra clicks, I’d better be providing 10 clicks worth of value for those two or three clicks that I’m asking them to do, and it has to be very clear and obvious.” Okay, I like it.

Jon:
Next is providing a clearer visibility on the benefits of subscribing. So many brands just say, “Subscribe.” I’m like, “Well, okay, why do I want to do that?” So you have to really offer incentives and detailed information here. So add the details of the benefits of upgrading to a subscription, provide additional benefits on why they made a good choice after they subscribe, so this could be a reassurance tactic even before checkout or even in checkout. I’ve seen really good messages around this letting people know that this is going to be recurring charge is required, but at that point you could say, “Hey, do you know what? You’ll never have to give us your info again.” So I’ve seen people turn a negative into a positive just through the right messaging around this, and I think that’s what I’m trying to say here is really provide clear benefits to the consumer and help them reassure.
Last is improving the visibility of product details, so this is having all of the reasons why somebody would subscribe above the fold on content pages. Another mistake that we see quite a bit is brands stuffing the subscription benefits and ability to subscribe down the page, so they have a one-time purchase at the top, then at the bottom you say, “Oh, you can also subscribe, and here’s more details on that.” You need to find the healthy balance between having too much information in the buy box, and hiding that you can subscribe and how to do that.
And so that’s really what this is about, improving the visibility of all of this by making sure that the subscribe options are above the fold so consumers know that they have those options. Often what we recommend doing is testing different layouts, but you could also just test different products, and what I mean by that is set up a recurring product and a one-time product and then refer to each of those two product pages. So you could say, “Looking to subscribe? Click here,” and it takes you to the subscription page where you can really dive into what the benefits are there. So there are definitely options in how you want to handle that depending on the complexity of your product and the options that go with it.

Ryan:
Well, and I think it also… that real estate in the buy box area is getting complicated. Some of the PDPs I see in the buy box… you’ve got even some that buy with Prime, you have PayPal, you have Affirm, and some of them have Affirm, Klarna, and some of the other ones like all the… I’m like, “What are you doing on that…” And that’s probably a case study from Jon like, What are you doing in your checkout? You’re distracting people too much.
But some of it might have to be a give and take. You might want to test, maybe they don’t need a firm multi-pay if they’re doing a subscription at a smaller individual bite-sized price point, potentially.

Jon:
I agree, and I think it’s a challenge that I think a lot of brands just push to the consumer. They just say, “It’s on you to decide what’s best for your needs,” but they don’t offer a lot of resources to help that consumer make that decision.

Ryan:
And I think a lot of people like an expert telling them probably what’s best like I do. If I’m going somewhere to buy something, I expect you to know the product and know me as a consumer enough to be able to suggest something that makes the most sense.

Jon:
100 percent.

Ryan:
Just tell me, and if I don’t like it, your suggestion, I won’t take it and I’ll buy something different, but that’s fine, at least you’ve tried. And there is one other one I wanted to get your opinion on. I’ve started to see examples popping up of direct-to-consumer brands doing a modified version of a digital subscription. Most brands are just giving loyalty programs, but some of them are allowing you to buy into a VIP membership where, I’m going to make a number up, AOV is 100 bucks, and the VIP membership gives you special offers to certain exclusives, whatever, you’re adding much of value. But maybe it’s 10 bucks a month.
And so you might say, “I’ll sell you this for 90 bucks.” You add on, “It’s the same price for you out of the gate, but you’re going to be part of our VIP and you get charged 10 bucks a month moving forward into an exclusive group,” which, if you can pull that off, I really like the idea behind it.

Jon:
So, I’ve done some research on this, and the best one that we found in our research was Restoration Hardware-

Ryan:
I probably have one of those.

Jon:
… so, it’s a furniture company. Right. So if you were buying anything that is $1,000 or more, it makes sense to sign up for this program because the program ends up paying for itself when you do that initial purchase. Here’s the kicker, almost everything at Restoration Hardware is at least a thousand bucks. So they intentionally did that to help reduce the barrier. Now, what does it give you? It gives you free delivery. It’s really that key selling point.
What are they going to do? They’re going to charge you $149 to deliver your couch. Well, guess what? For $10 a month, “Actually, I make out because I’m $120 in on the year, I save myself $29 over with the shipping charges, okay, just throw it in.” The problem becomes that it’s one of those subscriptions that you forget you have and you realize, “I’m not going to be buying a couch every year. What do I need this for?”
But what they’re trying to do is be able to track your preferences and then start sending you really targeted mailers, start really marketing to you in a way that is going to help you to increase your customer lifetime value with them. So we went through this, we bought a sofa from them, love it, it’s been great. We never get an ad for a sofa. We just don’t because it’s like two years old, why would I buy another one? So now whenever we get a postcard from them or anything else, it’s always about other pieces of furniture that we could buy from them. And it’s pretty genius when you think about it that they’re running that program at that scale.
Now, the article I read about this that really, I thought, best summarized it, I’d have to find, wasn’t prepared with that today, but I will say it is one of their biggest money makers, is that program. And the math behind it, it just blew my mind that how much money they make from that, and it’s almost all pure profit. It’s really interesting. Same thing with Prime, Prime’s the same way, Amazon Plus, all of those. How do you think they can afford to bundle in all these services? It’s because it’s an insurance policy is how you really look at it. You are as a brand… they’re basically de facto creating an insurance policy for themselves, or an annuity of sorts. It becomes an investment arm.

Ryan:
No, and I think it’s as a brand, it’s basically, I don’t think I could get into or start a brand where I didn’t aspire to getting to that point. You might not get that out of the gate, but if you can get a rabid fan base that’s willing to pay you for exclusive access to certain things, whatever that looks like for you and your brand, I think that’s when you’ve become a brand almost. It’s like the proof that, “Hey, these people are willing to pay me 10 bucks a month to be special.” You’re paying to be special, essentially, but people are willing to do it. There’s brands like… if Nike started charging for access to sneakers, I’d probably pay it. Nike, don’t do that to me, please, but I probably would.

Jon:
Give them the Air Jordan subscription.

Ryan:
Well, yeah, because the sneakerheads, they could probably… I don’t know what the number would, but I bet there’s a subscription of 250 bucks a year you could charge for early access or almost guaranteed you get one drop a year you’re guaranteed to get, and it would pay for itself in the secondary market probably. And then I envision a world in which that is the more the norm where you are subscribing directly to brands because you like who they are, what they embody, and you want to have that special access to that brand.

Jon:
Yeah, I love it.

Ryan:
So lots on subscriptions and there’s many ways that we can be encouraging the conversion, which is what we’re trying to do here. But I think it boils down to think from the consumer’s point of view first. You have to be adding value, don’t just throw a subscription on your site and assume you’re done because if there’s no value or you don’t understand your consumers’ purchasing habits, there’s very little value on that.
And then there’s a lot of things you need to be doing on your PDP pages to make sure that you’re capturing people appropriately. There was, I think eight of them, or seven of them. And so we have improved visibility. Be very clear on what you’re giving them. You need to test and measure within that buy box area because there’s so much demand for that real estate, and it’s very limited, especially on mobile. You don’t want to cancel, you want to pause. And you need options, it is not going to be a one size fits all, so it’s options for delivery, that’s a box for dogs and a box for cats, box for dressers versus T-shirts, something like that.
You get to map your process and understand where people fall off. And then you need to offer upgrades. And this is the one area where Jon did use the discount word on a site, but it’s not necessarily a discount because you’re having people pay up front all at once, but there are upgrade opportunities that basically become your subscriptions.

Jon:
Yeah, awesome.

Ryan:
This is a meaty podcast. Some of you might not be able to listen to this at double speed and get all the points from Jon, so you might have to listen to it a couple of times. But Jon, thank you for the education.

Jon:
Yeah.

Ryan:
This is a big one, I think.

Jon:
Well, thanks for hanging in there with me today on this, and we’ll have to do more on this because there is a lot more about subscriptions, and we definitely packed a lot in today, but-

Ryan:
We did. We did.

Jon:
… there’s always more to talk about, so I appreciate it. Thanks for the good chat.

Ryan:
Yeah, thank you, Jon. Cheers.

Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Drive and Convert with Jon McDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.

The post Drive and Convert (Ep. 091): Turning One-Time Buyers into Loyal Subscribers appeared first on The Good.

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How to Create Successful Subscription Pages: Tips and Winning Examples https://thegood.com/insights/subscription-pages/ Fri, 28 Jul 2023 15:33:45 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=105116 Subscription-based models have revolutionized businesses. Whether it’s streaming services, online publications, ecommerce products, or SaaS companies, subscriptions have become the cornerstone of successful organizations. One element plays a significant role in capturing and retaining customers: the subscription page. A subscription page is the gateway to a customer’s ongoing relationship with your business. It’s where potential […]

The post How to Create Successful Subscription Pages: Tips and Winning Examples appeared first on The Good.

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Subscription-based models have revolutionized businesses. Whether it’s streaming services, online publications, ecommerce products, or SaaS companies, subscriptions have become the cornerstone of successful organizations.

One element plays a significant role in capturing and retaining customers: the subscription page.

A subscription page is the gateway to a customer’s ongoing relationship with your business. It’s where potential subscribers evaluate the value proposition, make a purchase decision, and join your audience. Thus, the importance of a well-designed and optimized subscription page cannot be overstated.

In this article, we explore subscription pages, explain why they deserve optimization, teach you how to make your own, and share our favorite examples for inspiration.

Additionally, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and strategies needed to create compelling subscription services that captivate your target audience.

What is a Subscription Page?

A subscription page is a web page that allows users to sign up or subscribe to receive updates, content, services, and access to digital products or physical products.

A subscription page typically includes fields where users can enter their personal information (such as name and email address) and/or payment information. It often provides an option for users to select their preferences, areas of interest, or product tier.  

For example, in an ecommerce store, a subscription page might refer to a product details page with a subscription option. On the other hand, it might refer to a landing page for a subscription box company.

A content site (like a news website or blog) would use a subscription page to subscribe for updates, pay to access premium content (this is called a paywall), or both.

A SaaS organization would use a subscription page to sell access to its digital product. These often offer multiple subscription levels (pricing tiers) for different levels of access.

Why Should You Optimize a Subscription Page?

Like any other page on your site, your subscription page deserves thoughtful optimization. Making iterative, data-based changes offers these benefits:

Increased Conversion Rate

Optimization helps improve the conversion rate of your subscription page, meaning more visitors will sign up and become subscribers and/or customers.

By making the page more user-friendly, visually appealing, and persuasive, you can encourage visitors to take action and subscribe.

Audience Growth

A well-optimized subscription page can attract a larger audience to your subscription company. By making it easy to understand the benefits of subscribing and highlighting the value they will receive, you can attract more potential subscribers.

Targeted Marketing

Optimization allows you to tailor your subscription page to specific target audiences. By including relevant and personalized messaging, you can attract subscribers who are genuinely interested in your offerings, which results in higher engagement rates and more effective marketing campaigns.

Optimizing a subscription page often means creating multiple pages for different audiences or ad campaigns. As such, this allows you to tailor the page to the people who land on it.

Data Collection

An optimized subscription page can help you collect valuable data about your subscribers. By including optional fields (aside from billing details) to capture additional information (such as demographics or interests), you can gain insights that can inform your marketing strategies and allow for more targeted and personalized communication.

Better User Experience

An optimized subscription page means a better user experience. By ensuring the page loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and has clear and concise instructions, you create a positive impression and make it easy for visitors to subscribe.

This can lead to higher satisfaction and better engagement with your content or offerings.

Less Abandonment

A poorly optimized subscription page may lead to high abandonment rates, where visitors leave the page without subscribing to one of your subscription plans. By identifying and addressing potential barriers, such as complex forms or excessive information requests, you can reduce abandonment and increase the chances of conversion to trial subscriptions or paid tiers.

What Factors Affect Subscription Websites?

Before we can talk about boosting subscription conversions, it’s important to understand what motivates people to subscribe in the first place. Then we can boost conversions by applying pressure to those motivations.

Data from Deloitte Digital’s global survey on subscription preferences tells us that financial incentives, convenience, and access to premium content are the primary reasons people subscribe to services (in that order).

info graphic showing customers' motivators for subscription pages

Financial incentives are the biggest motivators. They are 1.6X more important than other factors. This shouldn’t be a surprise, of course. People love to save money.

In regards to digital services, traditional services, or consumable products, this means lower prices. In regards to subscription ecommerce services, people also like to save money by not paying for repair costs and not paying for delivery.

Convenience can mean a lot of things, like fewer interruptions, automatic payments, simple and fast delivery, and control over the product delivered.

Access to premium content is just what it sounds like. People are willing to pay to see, view, read, watch, use, and order the good stuff. But they also want special treatment.

Other Considerations for Subscription Pages

While those factors are the most important subscription motivators, they aren’t the only ones. California State University study learned that people tend to care about

  • Added Value: The subscription must have added value to make the customer feel that it is “proprietary and differential.” Consumers are most willing to pay for content they consider to be of superior quality, exclusive value, or meeting their emotional needs.
  • Perceived Service Quality: Consumers are more likely to pay a subscription if they perceive the value of the service to be far greater than the free option.  
  • Usage Frequency: Habits play a role in whether we make purchases. If a customer makes repeat purchases at a site, they become more willing to make subsequent purchases.

How to Create a Subscription Page for Your Website

Asking someone to commit their wallet to a recurring expense is a big ask, so your subscription page needs to be convincing. These five steps will create a great page.

Step 1: Have a Clear Goal in Mind

First, decide what you hope to achieve with your subscription page.

Do you want them to subscribe to a paid tier? Or just start the free trial? Do you want them to subscribe to the product they’re currently viewing, or add a different subscription?

Then, define who your subscription page is for. Do you have a wide range of customers or a narrow target? How will this person benefit from the subscription plan? What problems will it solve for them?

Answers to these questions will guide the process as you build your subscription page.

Step 2: Offer Valuable Benefits

Before expecting customers to hit that subscription button and type their billing details, it’s important to explain the benefits of an active subscription.

Outline the benefits your customers will receive by subscribing. Try to be realistic here. If your product saves 5 minutes of time per week, you shouldn’t call it a “time saver.”

Make sure your benefits are worth paying for. If not, you may need to go back to the drawing board and redesign the product or service.

In these cases, it helps to survey a group of people who represent your audience. Ask them about the kinds of benefits they would pay for.

Step 3: Create Membership Tiers

Many subscriptions offer multiple plans that accommodate different customers, their needs, and their budgets. Subscribers of lower tiers can always be pushed to higher tiers later.

Consider whether your subscription requires multiple tiers and what they should look like. Make sure the price increase of higher tiers is worth their benefit.

Check out this Zendesk pricing page. Notice how they offer plans for each type of customer and even a custom plan for customers who don’t fall into one of those categories. Visit the full page to see how they cleverly compare their plans to help customers decide.

zendesk subscription pricing page

Step 4: Avoid Too Much Information

As you create your subscription page, it’s tempting to fill it with as much information as possible. Many people do this in order to answer every question and overcome every objection.

In most cases, however, too much information can overwhelm your audience. They may assume that your product or service is too complex or hard to understand.

Instead, prioritize the information your audience needs to see. What do they expect to see? What do they need to know? And what action do you expect them to take? Consider offering a trial subscription to reduce the commitment for new customers.

If you feel like the necessary information is creating too much clutter, consider displaying it in smart design. For instance, collapsible FAQ questions are popular ways to put more information on a page without creating a mess.

Patreon does a great job of explaining its platform and the benefits you’ll receive without too much copywriting.

patreon information page

Step 5: Don’t Make Your Customers Think

Generally speaking, your customers don’t expect to spend a lot of time thinking about how to use your site. They want it to be intuitive so they can get what they need and move on.

If your site is complex or untraditional, there’s a good chance your visitors will abandon it for something more familiar.

Make the experience simple for your customers wherever possible. They should understand exactly what they’re expected to do in a moment. If they get stopped by an error when they try to move forward, you’ve just inserted friction into the customer experience.

For instance, suppose your site requires customers to choose a size before moving to the next step. In this case, the size selector should be highlighted (or made obvious in some way), and the “Next” or “Add to Cart” button should be muted, hidden, or grayed out.

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8 Winning Examples of Subscription Websites

Let’s look at some of the best subscription pages and websites. These examples will give you inspiration to help you design your own.

1. Beer Cartel

beer cartel subscription pricing

Beer Cartel offers a range of beer subscriptions based on your preferences.

Why it’s a good subscription page:

  • Clear and direct instructions so the visitor knows exactly what to do.
  • Simple choices that are easy to distinguish. No confusion here!
  • There’s a clear price benefit to choosing a higher subscription tier.
  • The benefits of each option are clear and concise. No unnecessary copy here!
  • Testimonials, press mentions, and awards are great social proof.
  • Next page (see below) lets you control the duration of your subscription. It also provides more detailed information, frequently asked questions, and customer reviews.
beer cartel product page

2. Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club sells shaving products for men. Some products are sold one-off, and others can be purchased as subscriptions.

dollar shave product page

Why it’s a good subscription page:

  • Photos and videos are high quality and informative.
  • The subscription option is pre-selected.
  • Usage tips help would-be buyers get the most value out of their purchase.
  • Choice of delivery cadence is a nice touch.
  • Descriptive text is comprehensive but not overwhelming.
  • Overall, the page is clear and simple. There’s no confusion about what to do next.

3. HelloFresh

HelloFresh is a meal subscription. You can get pre-portioned ingredients and delicious recipes to cook at home.

hello fresh homepage

Why it’s a good subscription site:

  • The home page is super simple: It explains how the program works, the benefits, and shows off some examples of recipes you could receive.
  • There’s only one way forward. Even the sample recipes expand on the same page without sending you somewhere else on the site. Every link sends you down the path of completing your subscription.
  • The second page of the path (see below) requires you to make choices, but the interface is simple and intuitive. The progress indicator at the top is a great feature to help customers understand where they are in the process and what’s next.
  • Selecting meals is the last part of the process, after checkout, which encourages users to get through payment quickly so they can get to the good part.
HelloFresh personalization of subscription plan

4. The Telegraph

The Telegraph is an award-winning, multimedia news brand known for its quality, credibility, and authority. They’ve been in business for more than 165 years.

The Telegraph subscription page

Why it’s a good subscription site:

  • The signup page is remarkably simple. There’s nothing confusing about it.
  • There’s a clear difference between the two pricing tiers. The first option is significant savings. Neither option is a significant investment, which helps conversions. Remember, saving money is the top subscription motivator.
  • The second page is equally simple (see below). It’s smart to include the order summary on the right to remind the customer what they’re getting.
The Telegraph checkout

5.  Audible

Audible is an audio membership that gives you access to countless books, podcasts, and original content.

Audible homepage

Why it’s a good subscription page:

  • Audible knows that people care about price, which is why they focus on it so much. They clearly highlight “3 months free” and “Try for $0.”
  • The “What you get” and “Frequently asked questions” sections include all the information you need to make a decision but without overwhelming you.
  • Showing popular podcasts keeps you focused on your goal: getting to great content.
  • Showing podcasts from celebrities and influential people is a great way to subtly boost the value of the offering .
  • The subscription progression is very simple. There’s only one way forward.
  • Tie-in with Amazon Prime is smart since people already trust it (and likely have it).

6. Bright Cellars

Bright Cellars is a wine subscription that’s matched to your unique taste profile. Your preferences are determined with the help of a short quiz.

bright cellars quiz for subscription personalization

Why it’s a good subscription site:

  • Since taking the quiz is the first step in the subscription process, it’s good that everything pushes you in that direction.
  • The “how it works” information is simple and easy to digest.
  • Lots of social proof down the page.
  • The quiz (see below) is simple and easy to answer quickly. This is a great way to give visitors momentum without asking them to make a commitment.
  • After completing the quiz, but before seeing the recommendations, visitors must submit their email address. This is a smart way to re-engage them if they choose not to buy now.
bright cellar personalization quiz

7. The New York Times

The New York Times is a daily news organization with millions of print and digital subscribers.

The New York Times paywall

Why it’s a good subscription page:

  • It’s a very simple page because that’s all it needs to be.
  • Pricing tiers are clear and understandable right away. They are smart to use a weekly price, rather than a monthly price, because it feels like less commitment.
  • The list of included features is concise yet informative. Graying out what you don’t get in the lower tier is a great way to push fear of missing out.
  • While most visitors are after the digital subscription, they included a method to get the print editions just in case.

8. eHarmony

eHarmony is a popular online dating site that has brought millions of people together.

eHarmony homepage

Why it’s a good subscription page:

  • Smiling couples is exactly what you want to see on a dating website!
  • The call to action is actually a brief quiz, which is a great way to get you into the subscription flow without asking for a big commitment.
  • The page has tons of great social proof.
  • Lots of great information and a video on how it works.

How The Good Can Help with Your Subscription Website

If you aren’t happy with the performance of your subscription website, The Good can help. We have experience optimizing the subscription processes of countless ecommerce, SaaS, and content sites.

Recently we worked with the Telegraph to improve their subscription experience. They came to us with the goal of improving conversion and retention rates. How did we do it?

First, we improved paywall conversions and subscriber quality using user testing, session recordings, heatmaps, heuristic analysis, and over-the-shoulder research. We adjusted the messaging, layout, paywall placement, timing, and other paywall journey elements.

After optimizing the paywall, we improved the onboarding experience for customers to retain new subscribers with the help of heatmaps and heuristics.

The result was a 30% reduction in same-day cancellations, improved subscriber quality and acquisition rates, and increased paywall conversions.

If you aren’t happy with the performance of your subscription page (or your entire subscription website), contact us and learn how we can help you secure more conversions, retain your subscribers, and ultimately drive revenue.

Hundreds of millions in revenue generated with our strategic optimization programs.

But don’t take our word for it. Hear about the amazing results from 15+ years in business, straight from the source.

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7 Proven Strategies to Win Subscribers (Instead of One-time Purchasers) https://thegood.com/insights/how-to-sell-subscriptions/ Tue, 30 May 2023 15:39:04 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=104791 After soaring by over 20% during the first two years of the pandemic, membership revenue growth percentages have now fallen into single digits. The competition for consumers’ attention and limited budgets extends beyond traditional retail rivalry with the rise of delivery apps, quick-service restaurants, and media platforms. As a result, many consumers are experiencing subscription […]

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After soaring by over 20% during the first two years of the pandemic, membership revenue growth percentages have now fallen into single digits.

The competition for consumers’ attention and limited budgets extends beyond traditional retail rivalry with the rise of delivery apps, quick-service restaurants, and media platforms.

As a result, many consumers are experiencing subscription fatigue, causing them to reconsider their spending habits and prioritize where their hard-earned dollars go.

To thrive in this competitive environment and counteract subscription fatigue, businesses must employ innovative strategies that captivate consumers and compel them to subscribe.

Our article presents 7 strategies to help your business increase subscriptions and reignite AOV (average order value).

Understanding subscription-based business models

To address various subscription-based models, we’re going to first explore and clarify how companies use subscription models across diverse industries.

What are subscriptions?

Subscriptions are recurring agreements or payments made by customers to access and receive products, services, or content. Many industries use subscription-based business models, each catering to different customer needs.

What is subscription-based ecommerce?

Subscription-based ecommerce uses recurring subscriptions to provide a seamless shopping experience.

Companies like Stitch Fix, an online personal styling service, deliver curated clothing and accessories to their subscribers.

how to sell subscriptions with personalized tests as seen on stitch fit website

Customers take a style quiz, and based on this information, professional stylists handpick a personalized wardrobe which is shipped to the subscriber’s doorstep either monthly or quarterly.

Digital subscription-based businesses

Along with ecommerce subscription models, subscriptions are also popular in the digital and SaaS (software-as-a-service) sectors, where companies provide ongoing access to digital tools, software, or platforms for a regular fee.

We’re surrounded by digital subscription-based models through streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and others which offer access to a vast library of content for a monthly or annual subscription fee.

Benefits of selling subscriptions online

A subscription business model offers a personalized experience for customers while providing businesses with predictable revenue streams and an opportunity to foster long-term relationships.

Let’s review some benefits that businesses see when they sell subscriptions.

Enhanced customer loyalty and satisfaction

Subscription services can gather customer insights and data, enabling companies to understand and address customer preferences. 

And this matters because research from Epsilon indicates that 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.

Knowing your customers can help you tailor your offerings proactively, provide relevant recommendations, and exceed customer expectations, reducing the likelihood of that dreaded customer churn.

Increased customer lifetime value (CLTV)

CLTV is one of the most important subscription metrics because it helps companies determine and measure the lifetime value of their customers (how much your company can expect from a single customer throughout the business relationship).

Depending on various studies, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.

Subscriptions increase CLV through recurring revenue over an extended period throughout a relationship with a customer. The longer a customer continues to purchase or subscribe, the larger the lifetime value is.

Improved customer retention

The overall churn rate for subscription services is only 5.57% compared to 6.77% for one-time purchases, indicating that loyal subscribers are more likely to stay engaged and continue their subscriptions.

Subscriptions encourage long-term customer relationships through recurring engagement and continuous value delivery.

Types of subscription services (with examples)

From subscription boxes, service access, subscribe and save services, recurring donations, and digital product subscriptions, here are some types of subscription services and examples of brands that have perfected the subscription model.

Subscription boxes

A great example of an ecommerce subscription service, subscription boxes are curated packages of products or samples that are delivered to subscribers on a recurring basis, typically monthly.

These boxes often cater to a particular customer’s need, personalizing the experience. Packages can be themed (like snack items) or different types of the same product (like dresses).

TryTheWorld offers a subscription-based gourmet food box service. The company curates boxes filled with authentic food products from different countries worldwide every month.

Try The World subscription page

Subscribers can explore the tastes of different cultures without leaving their homes.

Membership and digital subscription services

For membership and digital subscription services, customers pay a recurring fee to gain ongoing access to online or offline products, services, or exclusive benefits.

Some membership services offer exclusive access to a company’s blog or resources page. Others offer video courses or lessons to subscription members.

Amazon is a prime example of this. Amazon Prime offers customers a paid membership program with various benefits and exclusive services.

how to sell subscriptions using benefits like Amazon Prime

Subscribers pay a monthly or yearly fee to access tons of key features like free and fast shipping on eligible items, unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows through Prime Video, access to Prime Music, Prime Reading with a selection of ebooks and magazines, and exclusive deals and discounts during events like Prime Day.

Subscribe and save subscriptions

“Subscribe and Save” is a program offered by various online retailers and allows customers to set up recurring deliveries of certain products at discounted prices.

With Subscribe and Save, customers can choose from eligible items and select their desired delivery frequency, such as monthly subscriptions.

This gives your customers the convenience of automatic deliveries without the need to reorder every time. It also provides the brand with more predictable revenue.

Customers often receive a discounted price on the items (like 5% off for subscribing), making it an attractive option for regularly consumed or replenished products such as household essentials, personal care items, pet supplies, and more.

Chewy offers an Autoship program where customers set up pet supplies to be delivered monthly.

Chewy products

Recurring donation subscriptions

Nonprofits or charities can set up a recurring donation option for their customers.

A recurring donation subscription is where individual customers or organizations commit to regular, ongoing donations to a specific cause or organization.

Recurring donation subscriptions provide stability and predictability for nonprofits.

Donorbox is specifically designed for nonprofit organizations to accept online donations. It offers features that allow nonprofits to set up recurring donation options.

Donorbox website as an example of how to sell subscriptions for nonprofits

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7 Strategies to increase subscriptions

No matter your subscription service model, there are always ways to attract potential customers and onboard new ones.

With the competition for consumers’ attention, you’ll need to clarify your value to your audience with these expert strategies.

Strategy 1: Upsell your annual plan or cross-sell bundles

While pushing price increases on your services might scare away customers, you can do it without jeopardizing customer loyalty. Instead, offer incentives like annual plan subscriptions, advanced features, additional products, or one-time products.

Longer plan options provide the company with stable and predictable revenue over an extended period. Additionally, they also offer subscribers the advantage of reduced costs in exchange for a longer commitment.

The strategy: Point to upgrade opportunities

Remind subscribers why they should upgrade to a longer-term plan or add more products to their subscription boxes.

Offer discounts like 10% off the annual plan by clearly calling it out on your pricing page. You can also email monthly subscribers encouraging them to upgrade and save immediately or try to cross-sell complementary products.

how to sell subscriptions with a well-designed subscription page

Squarespace offers an annual/monthly toggle so customers can see the price difference. They also show how much customers save on each plan by highlighting percentages.

Strategy 2: Identify where customers churn

Net revenue retention (NRR) measures the overall revenue generated from existing customers over a specific period, accounting for any revenue lost due to churn (customer attrition) and any revenue gained from upsells or expansions.

By improving NRR, subscription-based ecommerce companies can mitigate the negative impact of churn on their revenue and uncover new avenues for growth.

The strategy: Map the buying process

Identify patterns in where customers drop off and voluntary or involuntary churn. You can do this by mapping your average customer lifetime from when they hit subscribe to where they churn.

This way, you can find opportunities to win them back before they churn by sending discounts through email or in-app pop-ups.

Strategy 3: Offer more than one subscription product or service

Recurly, a subscription management platform, found that 70.4% of businesses offer more than one subscription or service. For example, a subscription pet box service might offer boxes for both dogs and cats.

Offering additional subscriptions can grow your revenue and provide additional value to your customer base.

The strategy: Curate additional options

Total Payment Volume (TPV) is the total value of transactions processed or payments made within a period.

Recurly also found that ecommerce subscription businesses selling physical products benefit from curated goods that boost their TPV, like a Box of the Month.

Recurly graph showing percentage of TPV from one-time purchasers

Caption: Box of the Month subscriptions have very high TPV.

If you offer physical goods with your subscription, consider curating additional subscription options like exclusive collaborations with popular brands or limited-edition product releases.

This increases the perceived value of your subscription and creates a sense of excitement and exclusivity among your subscribers, driving them to make additional purchases and contributing to a higher TPV.

Strategy 4: Discourage downgrades

Downgrades occur when customers switch from higher-tier subscription plans to lower-tier plans, resulting in reduced revenue and potentially impacting profitability.

The strategy: Offer subscription pauses

Subscription pauses allow customers to temporarily suspend their subscriptions without canceling them completely. This option is particularly beneficial for customers who may be facing temporary financial constraints, lifestyle changes, or other circumstances that make it difficult for them to utilize the subscription benefits at the moment fully.

Clearly communicate the process, duration, and any associated fees or limitations to customers, ensuring transparency and managing expectations.

option to pause a subscription

Source.

Allowing your customers to pause accommodates their needs. This can improve retention by building loyalty and reducing the likelihood of customer attrition.

Strategy 5: Enhance the product page user experience

When users land on a product page, the add-to-cart button should be easily identifiable and distinct from other elements, such as flavor options or additional CTAs. Then, users know exactly what primary action they need to take to proceed with their purchase.

The strategy: Refine the UI of the buy box area

This involves making the add-to-cart process more intuitive and removing any potential confusion. For example, the add-to-cart button should be clearly distinguishable from other elements.

For example, LyfeFuel shows a flavor pre-selected when the user arrives on the product page. Subscribe & save is shown as a toggle, limiting the amount of vertical space above the add to cart button.

LyfeFuel product page

Test this buy box area, analyzing user behavior through heatmaps and additional customer feedback to identify any hangups in the purchase process.

Strategy 6: Provide clearer visibility on subscription benefits

You can add layers to your add-to-cart experience by providing clearer feedback on the benefits of subscribing to your products or services.

The strategy: Offer incentives and detailed information

When users switch from a one-time purchase to a subscription mode or vice versa, consider adding details of the benefits of upgrading.

Kachava website on how to sell subscriptions by showing the customers the benefits
special offer pop up from four sigmatic website

Since the user chose to subscribe, this provides additional benefits on why they made a good choice. Or, if they chose a one-time purchase, this shows why they need to take advantage of all the benefits.

Strategy 7: Improve the visibility of product details

When users land on a product page, they expect detailed information about the product without scrolling down the page.

The strategy: Update the above-the-fold-content on product pages

Above-the-fold designs often fail to match users’ expectations, creating frustration when locating product details.

For example, some businesses use thumbnail images and short descriptions above the fold to introduce the product. However, they only provide detailed information about the product further down the page.

Businesses can follow Oats Over Night, which uses elements such as product names and reviews to present each product page as an individual page.

overnight oats product page

While the page may also focus on getting users to subscribe to multiple products, the above-the-fold content still presents each product as a standalone item.

Test different layouts and content above the fold on your product pages to determine what works best for your users.

How to attract and retain subscribers

What business doesn’t want to attract and retain new customers? Here are some creative strategies to help fuel your company’s subscription growth: 

  • Content marketing: Create informative and engaging content to attract and educate potential customers. Provide tips and industry knowledge through blog posts, articles, and videos. This will establish your brand as an authority and capture leads. Check out resources like Content Marketing by Kaleigh Moore for expert advice on using content marketing effectively.
  • Post-purchase offers: Maximize customer engagement and retention by providing post-purchase offers. This encourages customers to return for repeat purchases and increases their lifetime value. Explore our insights on post-purchase offers to learn more about how to implement this.
  • Customer loyalty program: Foster long-term relationships with your customers by implementing a loyalty program. Rewarding loyal customers with exclusive discounts, personalized offers, and VIP benefits encourages repeat purchases. To help you optimize your program, read our additional insights on off-season loyalty program strategies.
  • First-purchase anniversary gift: Show appreciation to your customers and celebrate their loyalty by offering a special gift on their first purchase anniversary. This creates a memorable experience and strengthens the bond with your customers. Learn more about discounting tactics.
  • Special offers for specific groups: Tailor your offerings to specific customer segments such as teachers, students, or the military. Providing pro deals or exclusive discounts for these groups demonstrates your support and appreciation and helps you tap into other markets and expand your customer base.

The keys to subscription growth

The strategies we provide offer innovative approaches to captivate consumers and incentivize subscription adoption.

At The Good, we understand the importance of data-driven strategies to enhance subscription conversion rates. Our team of experts specializes in optimization and can help you implement these strategies.

Whether you need assistance refining your user interface, implementing personalized offers, or fine-tuning your post-purchase strategies, our team supports your subscription growth goals, no matter what they are. Contact us today to see how we can help you. 

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