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Great Subscription Ideas

Lesson 3 from: A Crafter's Guide to Starting a Subscription Business

Mei Pak

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Lesson Info

3. Great Subscription Ideas

Lesson Info

Great Subscription Ideas

So let's talk about some great subscription ideas mystery boxes are and I think for the most part a lot of the subscription boxes out there are mystery boxes for the most part you don't know what you're getting in in the mail on and I think that's a really fun thing about it so like you know was I mentioned birchbox fair ivy stitch fix they're all mysteries you don't know what to expect on dh it's kind of a surprise and people like that so that's kind of fun ah there's also the blank of the month club so kind of like what I do I do the necklace of the month club you can do hearings of the month club my friend stacy does the kit club which she does once every other month if you could create a product in your current line and may get some turn it kind of somehow into a collectible something that you know people are going to want to start collecting that's also a really great idea because you're really encouraging them to stay on your subscription in a later section of this workshop we're...

going to talk about how to lower your unsubscribed rates because that's inevitable there are going to be some people who drop off and unsubscribed from your subscription but if you design it carefully from the get go and you design the subscription so that it's something that people just continuously want to keep receiving in the mail that ensures that your your lifetime value of anyone, customers a cz long as you can potentially make it be and if you sell consumables, so for all of you guys out there, if you sell bath and body products or skin care or anything that like, even with food, I know I can see these days a lot of people are starting to sell a lot of baked goods online. That's a great, I think, a really great subscription product idea to have, because once you're done using the lotion, once they're done with the lip balm, or once you're done eating this cupcake in ajar, whatever it might be, you're going to want the next one, right? So it's a very natural progression when you have something that's, a consumable also, if you are kind of an established business already, look at what is your best selling product and turned that into a blank of the month club. So, for example, in my business, I would say like, eighty to eighty five, maybe ninety percent even off all of my sales come from necklaces, and I saw all sorts of things I saw bookmarks, bracelets, earrings, bracelets did I say bracelets already cell phone straps, you know, a whole bunch of things I sell the charms by themselves, but everyone always just chooses to buy the necklace is I don't know why I think it's just easier to where you don't have to worry about like having hearing hole like pierced ears or anything like that. So I think it's just easy for people, so it made sense for me that I start a necklace of the month club going back to collectibles, so I was talking to one of the interviewees that we're going to bring on at the end of this workshop, wendy grants of shiny, happy world and just in talking to her, I was like, man, I can, you know, she made me think of this new subscription that I could potentially have, so as I just said, I saw a lot of necklaces, right? But what if I could start a charm bracelet kind of like a starter set? And then for every month I send them a new charm that they can then attach to their own charm bracelet, so that really adds onto that collectibles things like they don't want to just stop at one charm, they're not going to stop that to charms, they're going to stop it at least five, three or five or six charms, you know, they can really make it really chunky so that insurers that my subscriber will stay honest as a subscriber for us long as possible so here's an example that I want to show you of one of my favorite etc shops this is sarah broschi of tiny galaxies I don't know if you've seen her she's doing really well on etc but if you can see she sells mostly earrings and they're made out of resin and she puts really pretty glitter and then and it just makes you really girly and so she sells all sorts of things like she sells post hearings dangly earrings, she sells hair pins, bracelets, necklaces but just from this one screenshot on her home page, you can tell right away that hearings are kind of her thing and I remember when I was trying to do shopping on her etc shop and sarah, if you're watching this, this is kind of my hint hint, nudge nudge for you out there this would be so perfect if she couldn't turn this into an earings of the month club. It just makes sense because when I was shopping on her site I was just I want every color and I can't decide is just they all look good and I would love to start a collection of all the different shapes she has in all the different colors to match all of my different outfits, so if you have a what if your shop if you have a specific product line really identify and see what is currently selling really well and then turned that into your club or your subscription so expanding on that idea you could potentially bundle products for a subscription box so if you are currently selling a more accessible product like stickers for example we have one of her interview leases coming on she runs a sticker club and stickers by themselves you normally have you could bundle whole bunch of different sticker sheets together into one box so if you if your business is coming from from that kind of position you could potentially bundle a whole bunch of different things together for a really cool package for your customers. Another idea is you could have a subscription that kind of grows with you so this would be great for if you say sell baby clothing and your customer say for example you have a subscriber a new mom who just had her first kid one month old baby so she could sign up for a subscription that would be for baby ones for example or little babies clothings that grows with the babies so in the first month because the baby's girl really quickly don't they so you could have in the first month you could have one month old size baby onesie and then three months three you could have like a different design or a different outfit that would fit you're growing baby so potentially could think of ways of how how your products could maybe grow with your customers so have a good think about who your customers are and where they're at and with their lives so this would be a great idea for those of you who target moms or new moms a cz your ideal customer and then for those of you guys out there I know we have a few people at least in the live audience if you sell a premium priced product something that's a little more expensive or if your product is a little bit more time consuming to create and to make I would encourage you to think about how you can create a more affordable alternative or of your existing line and to create kind of a sister line to that so some ideas is to make it into a smaller size. So this when I when I wrote this when I designed this part here I was thinking of my friend adoua actually she's sitting in a live audience here of handmade by adoua dot com and she makes these really cute crow shade dolls on dh they their designs are based off of musicians and pop stars and like tv show celebrity, so they're really cute and they all have their own little personalities but it takes her forever to make these little dolls and as a result the prices tend to be a little bit higher than what most people would be opener willing to to pay for it so potential path she could take is to instead of making it in the regular size, making maybe make it smaller, and that would potentially cut down on a little bit of the production process in the production time. You could also consider it making it in different material lt's so in aguas case, she doesn't all with just with hand crushing, right? So what if you could fake create a graphic design cartoon off this, say, celebrity or pop star and then printed out on fabric? And then you could make a little plus she and stuff it with kind of soft toy push ups stuffing s o the idea of having little dolls that look like celebrities is still there, but you're using totally different materials, but that could potentially save you time and streamline and make that a more efficient process for you and then as a result, lowering the cost. Another idea, if you could also make it less detailed. And I want to note here that just because it's less detail doesn't mean that it's less in quality, you could definitely if you really sat down and think about how you can design something that didn't give didn't have all the qualities as your one of your fuller, more premium items. But still make it look cute and still make it look good in its own way with your own style, your own aesthetic you can I think you can definitely make this work so I just wanted to point out that it's not impossible if you sell more premium product or a time consuming product you can e I think it's possible to really think of ways to brainstorm on that and still give your audience something that they're going to enjoy it and if you have trouble like we can always brainstorm this I have a private facebook group for you guys to join and we can have that conversation so you can join that group at bit dot ly slash maker master minds we can all kind of help you out brainstorm on what your subscription product idea might be. Do you guys have any questions about product ideas so far? Do we have any questions having in the chat? Ok, so snappy gourmet has a question the question is do offer products that a customer can only get through the subscription or are they products of the customers could also buy individually yeah, so that's actually something we'll talk about in one of our future slide but exclusivity I think is really important and can really help sell your subscription so what I would encourage you to do actually is to make it exclusive so your customers can on lee get that specific product if they sign up for the subscription, because that would really encourage people to sign up. Because if they knew that, they could buy the products in the subscription in your regular stop in your regular shop. There's. Not much of an incentive to join your subscriptions. So I would consider. I would ask you to consider, to think about keeping them exclusive to your subscription. And I'll expand a little bit on that when we get there.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Email Pitch Template and Checklist.docx
Email Pitch Template and Checklist.pdf
Subscription Management and Shipping Tools.docx
Subscription Management and Shipping Tools.pdf
Your System For Selling Subscriptions.docx
Your System For Selling Subscriptions.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Great course, especially the interview with Stacey (part 6).

Nuvea
 

Mei gives lots of practical information and resources in this course.

Student Work

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