When I started my legal subscription business, I made the mistake of thinking that desktop was the way to go. Everyone seemed to be using desktop computers in their law offices, so I figured that's where they would do their research and sign up for our service. But I was wrong. In reality, most people were using their smartphones to access our website and sign up for our service. It wasn't until we launched a mobile-first website that we started to see real growth in our subscription numbers. So if you're thinking about starting a subscription business, make sure you prioritize mobile from the very beginning. It's where your customers are, and it's where you're going to see the biggest return on investment.
Promising a refund to your prospects increases the chance of convincing them to subscribe to your products or services. This is especially true if you're still in the initial phase of scaling a subscription business and haven't proven anything yet. A money-back guarantee gives people peace of mind and the option to get their hard-earned money back if they are unsatisfied with their decisions. For example, in our business, we are confident in offering a money-back guarantee because that means we have faith in our own products. It also encourages us to improve our services and slowly gain our customers' trust as time goes by. Once they see how valuable our offers are, they willingly subscribe to our products each month and proactively refer us to their friends and family.
One of the most important things you can do when scaling a subscription business is to develop a referral system. For example, we scaled our business by using a referral system that gave our customers an incentive to share our service with their friends and family. For every new customer that signed up using their referral code, we gave them a month of service for free. This not only helped us to attract new subscribers, but it also helped to keep our existing customers engaged. As a result, we were able to grow our business at a sustainable pace and develop a loyal customer base. Apart from offering discounts, you can simply make it easy for customers to share referral links with their social networks. Whatever method you choose, focus on making it as simple and straightforward as possible for customers to refer your business your way.
Allow customers to cancel their subscription whenever they want. When shopping around for a subscription-based service – you probably tend to proceed with caution when signing annual renewal contracts. The risk feels less financially substantial when we're given the option of canceling month-to-month, even if the subscription price is higher per month than competitors.
Increasing client satisfaction has always been our approach to growing our business. From being a small national setup to growing globally, we encouraged our customers from the start to get even more satisfaction from becoming subscribing members of our business. We then offer them a faster-processed product, alerts to new products, and being first in on deals and discounts we offer. Most importantly, the key to growth and expansion with a membership aspect to your business is to not bombard members with harassing emails. What has worked well for us is to offer the customer an option of how many emails they would like to receive from us. This increases positive responses to our emails and eliminates customers canceling subscriptions. We generally send out emails bi-monthly with a good chunk of information rather than annoying low info daily emails.
Outsource non-revenue generating activities to a virtual assistant so you can focus on more scalable tasks. You can purchase a block of hours until you are confident enough to hand off more responsibilities. This frees up your time to concentrate on selling and negates the need to hire an internal employee. During the hiring process, give a paid test project to your top 2-3 candidates. This will reveal what it’d be like to work with them ongoing. The best person on paper may not always be the best fit once you factor in this test. Outsourcing is a necessary step to scale in the most cost-effective way. It may also reveal a stellar independent contractor who may eventually be worth hiring as a full-time employee.
The number one tip for subscription based companies is to focus on providing value to your customers. It is also important to build a strong customer base by a free trial. The free trial is important for a subscription based business because it allows customers to try out the service before they commit to it. This is important because it helps reduce churn (the number of people who cancel their subscription) and it also helps to build brand awareness. Free trials also give customers a chance to see if the service is actually worth paying for. In the case of a SaaS solution, customers would be able to try out the service and see if it is something that they would actually use on a regular basis. The easier that you make it for an IT buyer to sign up, the quicker your adaption rate will become.
The number one tip for subscription businesses is to create a superior customer experience (CX). Your customers would want to subscribe to your service immediately, so you need to be careful with the online sign-up and payment pages. They must be created in a way that does not present itself as an obstruction. Customers will also expect self-service, with the ability to access the online portal at any time. They should be able to easily read and download invoices, add or remove users, and update payment methods. Furthermore, quality service needs to be provided throughout the customer lifecycle.
If you are scaling a subscription business, you must anticipate that not all your customers prefer the same payment method to process their transactions. Allow them to use payment vehicles that they find convenient to manage, as some want to use digital wallets like PayPal and Apple Pay while others are comfortable paying through their debit or credit cards. Keep in mind that customers who are interested in your products or services end up disappointed when you only provide one or two choices, especially if that's not their preference. That said, conduct an interview or survey before scaling to ensure you know your customers' most-used methods and put them among the payment options.
Most people have come to expect exactly what they order online. The most successful influencers and subscription based businesses I work with are constantly surprising their members with something extra. A special sticker, mobile device decal, custom socks, keychain or other unique branded merchandise tends to increase customer satisfaction and WOM marketing. Creating a small surprise for each customer sets the tone for growth and value.
People need a compelling reason for why they should become a member or subscribe. Clearly outline the benefits and make sure they are highly desirable. If you can create a sense of community around your subscription or membership, you will stand out against the pack. More than ever, people seek a sense of belonging and community. You can create that community through social media, Facebook groups, and consistent communication with your members.
One of the most effective ways to scale up a membership or subscription business is to make the joining process as simple and painless as possible. It should be equally accessible to join via a webpage, mobile app, or through a virtual or call agent. If a potential customer faces any challenge or resistance during the signup phase then it might be enough to turn them away for good. Keep the number of signup and info forms to a minimum, and make sure that your payment system is equipped to receive a wide variety of credit and debit cards. This should also include an easy and intuitive way for customers to cancel or modify their subscription within the first 24 hours of joining; this will save frustration on their end and time on yours.
A fixed monthly subscription fee can frequently work against you. To gain a competitive edge in the market, it is crucial for us to be able to manage complex pricing systems in a very structured, transparent manner. Pricing plans for subscriptions may be tiered based on functionality, discounted to encourage large purchases, metered based on usage levels, or tailored to reward loyalty. They can be modified in conjunction with partner promotions, based on the time of day the service is used, altered to encourage activity from specific geographic locations, based on term to lock in long-term commitments, or based on the time of day the service is utilized. Overage fees, free trials, digital coupons, early bird specials, freemium to premium games—the list is endless. I advise starting out with just 2 or 3 simple, unexpected pricing tiers and gradually changing them as you hear from your clients. Set a price above your ideal price point to make it appear more appealing if you have one.
One excellent tip for scaling a subscription or membership business is to add more revenue channels. Focus your expansion efforts on opportunities that will further the experience of and better serve your audience. There will always be members who want more of your service. Offering these individuals new solutions, better access, etc. expands your reach not just to them, but new prospects as well.
At Shoutcart, we offer three simple pricing tiers, including a free option. My best advice is to always offer a low-cost or free option to get people in the door. From there, you can upsell them to your other tiers as they begin to see the value in what you're offering. Another great way that we've scaled our subscription business is by creating an affiliate program. This has allowed us to get our service in front of a larger audience. And as more people sign up for our service, we're able to reinvest that money into marketing and customer acquisition, which further helps us scale. Lastly, I would recommend always being on the lookout for ways to automate your business. The more you can automate, the easier it will be to scale. At Shoutcart, we've automated a lot of our processes, from customer onboarding to payments. This has allowed us to focus on other areas of the business and further grow our company.
Consider that raising your subscription prices could be detrimental to your business. Even if you see other companies doing this, you may not necessarily know how this is working out for them. Furthermore, if a similar business in your industry has raised their subscription prices, but your company has not, people may start to opt for your business instead of that one, which ultimately will help yours in the long run.
To increase membership subscriptions, give perks to customers the longer they are a part of the program. Offering better coupons with membership rewards to loyal customers will benefit customer retention efforts. Profits will increase from the retaining customers as well. Word of mouth marketing from loyal customers explaining the benefits of joining the subscription is also achievable through this method, thus branching out to new potential customers.
Payments for goods are typically made upfront with cash or credit, or a credit line is extended with terms of net-30. Both of these methods are not very effective for regular payments. Optimizing cash collecting requires automation. Businesses that sell subscriptions must swiftly collect money while maximising collections and lowering write-offs. Keep in mind that nowadays, relatively few subscription programmes rely on straightforward domestic monthly credit card charges. There are a variety of payment channels to evaluate and deploy, especially with international sales. The setup time for some of them can be a month! After defining your market, you must decide which collection methods are most suited. There are probably several that you're not even aware of.
I invest my time, resources, and money in providing high-quality content to customers and ensure that they get the best value for money from our company every time they interact with us. My team examines performance metrics and makes the necessary changes to the content per the requirement. We create personalized offers that help scale subscription or membership businesses by leaps and bounds.
Invest in quality infrastructure that can handle scale. If you want to be able to grow effectively, you will need to have reliable systems that seamlessly integrate all of your payment gateways, customer facing portals, and other technological systems. This is one area where you cannot afford to cut corners or else you run the risk of failing to deliver when rising demand bottlenecks your performance. When you start with a solid foundation, you give yourself the start you need to be successful now and in the future.