The Holidays Look Bright ­– And, So Do Subscription Trends.

illustration of a hand holding a phone and subscribing to an ecommerce service

While most are looking forward to the holiday season on a personal level, many professionals in consumer brands are working feverishly on forecasting, inventory planning, and promotional and merchandising activities to maximize revenue for this critical season.

The holidays often involve more effort and present more challenges for brands, but the opportunity to capture holiday spend, increase order volume, acquire new customers and capitalize on existing customer relationships can be vital for a successful year. The culmination of all the work, investments in advertising and increased customer touchpoints may also be an opportunity to cultivate long term, year-round recurring revenue by leveraging those customer touchpoints to promote subscriptions.

Subscription models are thriving!

Consumers continue to embrace subscriptions across numerous categories. A 2021 study by Attest found participants have significant interest in subscriptions for:

  • Food and beverage: 51.3%
  • Personal care, health and fitness: 44.4%
  • Clothing and shoes: 39.4%
  • Pet products: 37.3%
  • Toiletries or cosmetics: 36.1%
  • Hobbies (crafts, reading, sports, etc.): 35.5%

Why promote subscriptions?

If your product fits into any of the categories above or is a consumable product in any way and you haven’t explored offering a subscription model, now may be the time.  According to Juniper Research, subscriptions are expected to reach $275 billion by the end of 2022.

Improve your bottom line:

  • LTV: Customer Lifetime Value is a critical metric in forecasting long-term growth and keeping acquisition costs in check. According to the book, Marketing  Metrics, chances of converting an existing customer is 60-70% vs. 5-20% for a new prospect.*
  • AOV: Creating value-packs or unique subscription bundles with different product combinations allow you to boost Average Order Value while also adding more value for your customer. Clearly a win-win scenario.
  • Customer loyalty: Reducing churn and improving retention by as little as 5% can increase profits by 25-95%.*

Capitalize on the captive, transactional customer with fulfillment marketing.

Your storefront and checkout cart are great places to promote the benefits of a subscription service. But, where else can you reach transactional customers who might not be aware? Getting creative with in-box, fulfillment marketing is an additional way to present your message during the unboxing experience when your customer is somewhat captive. It’s the perfect time to demonstrate the value of your subscription offers to customers who have chosen to order your brand. Inclusion of a highly creative insert, along with a QR code driving them back to your shopping site, is an inexpensive way to capitalize on this often-underutilized customer touchpoint. Even if they don’t respond immediately, they may save it to use before their next order. Either way, it increases the likelihood of a reorder.

The holidays are a great time of year! Be sure to make the most of all your advertising and acquisition efforts to onboard new subscription customers and ring in the new year with a newfound steady stream of recurring revenue. Now that is something worthy of a New Year’s toast!

* Retention Science

Circular headshot of Bill in glasses

Bill Erpelding | Demand Generation Manager | Bill.Erpelding@distributionmgmt.com