Well of course they aren’t. But that’s what I reckon it would cost me if I accepted all the subscription offers that landed in my email inbox, Facebook newsfeed and Tweet stream over the past year.
Of course that would mean I would not just be subscribing to magazines, newspapers, gyms, mobile phones and satellite TV subscriptions, but also:
Films (Netflix and Amazon Instant Video)
Music (Spotify, Deezer and Pandora)
Online training (Lynda, Udemy)
Healthy snack boxes (Graze, Nature box, Smile Snack, KlutchClub)
Cigars (Cigar of the Month Club, Cigar Connoisseur)
Razor blades (Dollar Shave Club, King of Shaves)
Recipes and ingredients (Blue Apron, Simply Cook, Spiceboxes)
Cosmetics (Birchbox, Glossybox, Mumtreats)
Teas and coffees (Whittard, Rave Coffee, The Cozy Mug)
Vitamins (Bulubox, Koge Vitamins)
Cake (Cake Slice Club, Sponge, Cake Nest, Hobbs House Bakery)
Socks (London Sock Co., HenryJSocks, Sock Fancy, FootCardigan)
Knickers (Lacybox, Secret Envelope, Knicker Club, Briefd, Blacksocks)
Ties (Freshneck, The Tie Bar, Rootbizzle, Tie Cargo)
Flowers (H.Bloom)
and even condoms (DollarRubberClub) and tampons (Pink Parcel, Juniper)
Not only would I need a bigger house, I would not be popular with the local postman!
Awareness is only half the battle
With so much online advertising noise out there, just getting my attention is a huge challenge for subscription services. Even the subscription businesses that do manage to cut through the noise and make me notice them need to convince me that they’re more worthy of my cash than all the others. Clearly, deluging my inbox hasn’t convinced me to sign up to all of these services and, in such a competitive market, throwing more budget at paid search and affiliates are unlikely to work any better.
We all know that word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of marketing, with Nielsen finding 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. For this reason most, if not all, of these subscription businesses have some sort of ‘refer a friend’ scheme that encourages existing subscribers to evangelise and bring in their friends, family and co-workers. It’s typically something like a ‘£x off your next subscription and £x off for your friend’. However, these simple schemes typically fail to deliver big bang subscriber acquisition and their performance tends to drop off as audiences tire of their identikit design and messaging.
Having implemented subscriber-get-subscriber programmes for over a hundred of the world’s leading brands and retailers, I’ve pulled together five simple but valuable tips on how a subscription business can fix its social marketing to make referrals really drive the business forward.
How to super charge your Subscription Referral Programme
1. Less than 20% of your subscribers will bring in more than 80% of all your referrals. If that sounds obvious, then why do many subscription businesses offer the same rewards to each subscriber regardless of the effort they’re willing to make? A minority of your subscribers, if properly motivated, can bring hundreds of referrals. Key to getting new subscriber acquisition at scale is identifying, challenging, celebrating and rewarding these ‘super referrers’. This can be done by using gamification and leader boards where super referrers are pitted against each other to win ‘money can’t buy’ rewards.
2. While some subscribers will only ever refer one friend, smart rewards and communal targets will motivate ‘super-referrers’ to go the extra mile and bring in multiple referrals.
3. To avoid referral programmes getting staid, rewards should be changed regularly and regularly reward those topping the referral leader board with a special prize.
4. Your referral programme will be more successful if subscribers are regularly reminded of the rewards they stand to earn. You could email subscribers when a friend joins as a result of their recommendation, and invite them to check their new position on the leader board, for example. Keep them engaged!
5. Referring is much more than just a post to Facebook or a tweet. Can you remember the person who first told you about Netflix or Uber? It was probably the office evangelist who had to tell you three or four times before you gave it a try. In other words, an evangelist will probably first tell their friends, then send an email invitation, then check their friend got the email and pester again a few days later to see if they did sign up. You should make it easy for them to send personalised referral messages through email or WhatsApp.
It took us years of trial and error to discover these tips for ourselves, and the process has turned us into huge evangelists for the concept of having customers fighting your corner. Subscriptions are great for those who want to update their knowledge as well as their bathroom shelves, so businesses should be making it easy for them to share their passions and in turn help them gain more trusted subscribers.
By Gideon Lask, Founder & CEO of Buyapowa.