8 Subscription Marketing Strategies to Increase Your Revenue

It is far easier and economically viable to retain customers than to bring in new ones. Subscriptions are one such business model that is designed to depend on existing customers to generate recurring revenue.

But this does not mean that acquiring new customers are out of the question! In order to maintain a balanced subscription business, it is important that you focus on reducing the churn rate and increasing new subscribers.

Anyone who has worked in a subscription business would know of the difficulties associated with bringing in and retaining new customers. Things can be a hit or a miss a lot of times and you would need to adjust your strategies in such a way that it benefits your business and your customers alike.

So, here we will look into the potential strategies that you can implement to give your subscription business a competitive edge. Before moving in depth to the possible marketing strategies, let’s cover the basics of subscription marketing.

Any process or strategies you implement to acquire new customers, and retain long-term & repeat customers can be constituted as subscription marketing.

Marketing efforts for a subscription product are different from those for a one-time purchase, primarily because subscription campaigns are aimed at building long-term relationships with customers. This would help you retain the customers for a longer period of time.

The marketing strategies that you implement should depend upon the product or service you offer. For example, a product like desktop management software should be marketed to enterprises rather than individual users.

There is a lot to be done to build and optimize the best marketing strategy. You will have to launch campaigns, collect the actionable data and analyze it to understand what works for you better.

Why do customers opt for subscriptions? One of the key reasons is the products themselves. Most of the subscription products are the ones that customers purchase on a regular basis. For example, a bag of coffee beans.

In such situations, getting a subscription makes more sense than repurchasing the product manually. There are several reasons for this, it could be that,

• The repurchase process is laborious and time-consuming whereas subscription can be automated and requires minimal interaction.
• Subscriptions are much more convenient
• The subscription pricing is set in such a way that customers can save more
• The product stock will be replenished with minimum effort

Subscription businesses may need to use several tactics or strategies to build a plausible marketing campaign. But whatever may be your campaign strategy, the core objective of it should be the same. These objectives include

• Add value to customers, even for those who would not purchase
• Build a strong relationship of trust with your target audience
• Appropriately communicate the value additions to customers
• Maintain a customer-centric approach and avoid being too pushy

A subscription campaign should establish the product’s value and its edge over the competition. It should also focus on exposing the product or service to a maximum number of core audiences.

There are several challenges in offering subscriptions and acquiring new customers. But some of them can be alleviated by marketing your subscriptions better.

Here we will see some of the prominent and effective marketing strategies for subscriptions.

1. Utilize your happy customers

People believe people! No amount of campaigning would stand equivalent to a positive review from satisfied customers.

Collect reviews from your customers and make them a part of your marketing campaign. You can use several tactics such as offering additional discounts or renewals free for getting reviews from customers.

Once you receive these reviews, market them on your website and share them on social media to attract new buyers.

In addition to reviews, you may also use the other contents that your customers generate for marketing purposes. It can be their YouTube videos, images they shared, blogs they wrote, etc.

Also, encouraging your customers themselves to share this content would help you reach a much larger audience who would not have been in your brand’s digital network.

2. Create the best email marketing campaigns

If you are not yet collecting the emails of your customers, drop all your other tasks and implement a system for collecting them without any delays. Email marketing is a necessary strategy that would take you closer to your customers.

You can use email marketing to reach new customers, communicate new offers and collections with existing customers, send cart abandonment emails, follow-up emails, and more.

The core aim of your email marketing campaign should be value-addition to customers. At the same time, you should focus on nurturing the relationship with your customers so they won’t abandon you for your competitors.

3. Post regularly

Content is King. Post content regularly on all your marketing channels to keep your customers engaged and updated. SEO-friendly content would help you gain more audience. 

Contents such as tips, tutorials, how-tos, and blogs would attract more users to your website. Also such content can help with reducing the churn rate of your website.

Also, content is the best tool to offer value to users without them having to buy something from you. This would help with brand awareness and brand engagement.

Plan your content beforehand and make a strategy that maximizes value for your customers to make this work.

4. Partnering with influencers

Influencing is a big thing now. You can partner with influencers who have a following that is relevant to your brand to best benefit from it.

Influencer marketing would mainly help you with two different things – trust and reach. An influencer endorsing your product would help build trust in users who already know your brand.

Nevertheless, such endorsements would take you to the forefront of users who are not aware of your brand.

5. Understand what makes your brand stand out

Take a good look at your brand and understand what makes you good. You can then use that information to market your brand best.

For example, if your product is the cheapest in the market, let everyone know it is the cheapest. You can send emails, write blogs, publish this on your website, and more to gather the attention of the readers.

In simple terms, this is nothing but – knowing your value and using it.

6. Offer special promotions to win over customers

Promotions are some of the most common, yet most effective subscription marketing strategies out there. You can offer several kinds of special offers such as – free trials, zero sign-up fees, etc.

In the case of existing users, you can offer free renewals too. You may also offer free one-time gifts with renewals to reduce churn.

7. Offer free trials

Free trials are one of the most common requirements of all users. The main reason behind this is its handiness itself.

Users can test your product and understand if it works for them with a free trial. Since it is free, users can easily use this without many hurdles. Moreover, such an experience would improve the brand image of the company and may help with customer acquisition in the future.

8. Start a loyalty program

A business would stay successful if it can keep its customers satisfied. What better way to gain your customer’s loyalty than starting a loyalty program?

A loyalty program should be one which rewards the customers for their continued relationship with the company. Treating such customers right would in turn help you grow your business.

Check out our article on Loyalty Equation for eCommerce

If you are looking to set up a subscription website in WooCommerce, the WebToffee WooCommerce subscription plugin is the right choice for you.

If you already have a WooCommerce website, just follow the procedures in this article to set up recurring WooCommerce subscription products.

If you prefer video, here is a video tutorial on how to set up WooCommerce subscriptions. Take a look.

In case you have not selected the platform where you want to build your subscription website, take a look at this blog on how to create a subscription website.

Subscription-based business models have become increasingly popular in recent years, and for good reason. Since the model works by offering a continuous stream of value, subscription services create long-term relationships with their audience, leading to increased customer loyalty and revenue.

However, building a successful subscription service requires careful planning and execution, as well as a deep understanding of your target audience and their needs. By implementing the strategies outlined in this blog, such as regularly communicating with users and offering special promotions, free trials, loyalty rewards, etc., you can increase the effectiveness of your subscription marketing efforts and drive growth for your business.

Ultimately, the key to success in subscription marketing is to focus on delivering real value to your customers and building a community of loyal subscribers who see your service as an indispensable part of their lives.