Subscription marketing has one goal: to get more buyers to buy your subscription plan.

Some businesses are designed for repeat orders. Think health supplements, meal services, coffee, etc. For these businesses, it’s ok to not make a profit on the first sale. The idea is that once the buyer signs up they will likely continue buying in the future. The marketer has opportunities to monetize the relationship over time. These brands need subscription marketing.

Then there is a whole other group. Things like dog wheelchairs, room air purifiers, steel plates to bake the perfect pizza, etc.

People don’t typically buy a dog wheelchair more than once. These brands don’t need subscription marketing.

But if your business depends on repeat, ongoing orders you are going to love this idea. Say you are the marketing manager at zonediet.com (made-up example) and are working on PolyphenolRx Plus page. Buyers on this page have two purchase options:

Looking at the analytics data and notice that 60% of buyers purchase the one-time plan. You also notice that people who take the subscription plan have a much higher lifetime value. Our objective is to get people to buy the monthly auto-ship plan (and not the one-time option).

On the current page, everything is laid in front of the user. This can cause analysis paralysis (too many options). Also, the shopper is likely to pick the one-time option because they don’t want to get into a monthly membership.

I had an idea to make this better

We added a priming treatment. The idea is to activate System 2 for the shopper. Where System 1 cares about the short-term (impulsive emotional side), System 2 cares about the long-term (rational side).

Now when the user reaches the product page we show a welcome message and ask them to make a selection (click to see zoomed image):

This activates System 2. We fully expect most shoppers to select, “I want to change my life for the long term” option. Who wouldn’t? When they do that we show them this screen (click to see zoomed image). Notice we’ve eliminated the one-time purchase option.

The user will be surprised but immediately remember, “Oh that’s right, I did say I wanted long-term benefits”. It’s now 7% more likely people will stick with this choice.

If the shopper had selected “I’m looking for benefits on the short term” they would have seen this:

FURTHER READING

We hope you enjoyed this subscription marketing article. We’ve spent the last 13 years in our marketing lab, experimenting with ways to optimize conversion rates and grow sales. If you’re interested we’d like to share the key lessons we’ve learned:

— The most important page on your site is the product page. Why is that and why focus on product pages?

— On the product page (also called PDP) the most important element is the product description. This is where we present our product sales pitch (also called product story). This product story presentation needs to be perfect. We have just one chance to convert this visitor (only 15% of visitors ever return). Learn how to construct the perfect product story.

— The opening of your product description really matters. We call it the art of the start and it’s covered in this article: The Art of The Start.

— The Myth of the Perfect Product Page

— Once the basic product story has been developed you need to rewrite it to influence the psychology of the buyer you are trying to convince. Because shoppers are exposed to so many ads they rely on a mental checklist to decide if they should consider a brand, or not. We’ve identified these 9 checklist items and developed a conversion copywriting process to influence them. That knowledge is revealed (with examples) in our most important article of all: Conversion Copywriting: How to Craft a Product Story That Converts.

ABOUT FRICTIONLESS COMMERCE

We deliver an unfair advantage to technical product DTC brands (for example, Dyson) by improving advertising effectiveness by 20% in 90 days. This is achieved using a buyer psychology conversion copywriting framework. All paid traffic eventually reaches the product page and this is where we strike. Our process.

If you like doing the hard work yourself, our founder Rishi shares conversion ideas on LinkedIn every day. Connect with him here.

If you want to make your life easier and still increase conversions, jump on a call.