In today’s competitive ecommerce landscape, crafting an exceptional subscriber experience is paramount for businesses looking to differentiate themselves, foster brand loyalty, and unlock growth opportunities.

As you embark on this journey, it’s crucial to consider how the subscriber experience will manifest online and offline. A holistic approach can yield powerful results.

One of the key benefits of investing in a strong subscriber experience is the ability to set your brand apart from the competition. In a crowded market where numerous companies offer similar subscription services, delivering generic expertise will make you blend in. On the other hand, engaging, brand-specific expertise is more likely to be remembered and effective in capturing subscribers’ attention and loyalty. A potent differentiator is the offline experience, an aspect that many brands overlook or ignore entirely. By thoughtfully curating the offline components of your subscriber journey, you can create a unique and memorable experience that resonates with your audience.

A well-crafted subscriber experience can drive trial and spending among your existing customer base. Studies have shown that, on average, existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and pay 31% more than new customers. By impressing and instilling your brand’s values and offerings through a powerful subscriber experience, you can cultivate a loyal customer base more inclined to explore new products and invest further in your brand.

Furthermore, a seamless and frictionless subscription experience can open doors to potential growth opportunities. When subscribers encounter a beautiful and user-friendly interface, they are more likely to consider upgrading their subscription or adding additional products to their current plan. By streamlining the process and making it easy for customers to engage with your brand, you can tap into the growth potential needed to take your business to new heights.

• Adopting a customer-centric approach is essential to creating a compelling subscriber experience. Take the time to understand your target audience’s preferences, pain points, and expectations. Conduct market research, analyze consumer trends, and gather feedback from your existing subscribers to gain valuable insights. This information will help you tailor your offerings and create personalized experiences that resonate with your subscribers.
• Consistency is vital when it comes to building a solid subscriber experience. Ensure that your branding, messaging, and overall aesthetic are cohesive across all online and offline touchpoints. This includes your website, customer portal, email communications, packaging, and any physical materials subscribers receive. A unified brand experience helps build trust and familiarity, making subscribers feel more connected to your brand.
• In addition to personalization and consistency, consider incorporating experiential elements into your subscriber journey. Surprise and delight your subscribers with exclusive offers, curated product selections, or special events. These experiences can help foster a sense of community and belonging, strengthening the emotional connection between your brand and subscribers.
• Staying agile and adaptable is crucial as you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of subscription-based businesses. Continuously monitor and analyze subscriber behavior, engagement metrics, and feedback to identify areas for improvement. Be open to iterating and refining your subscriber experience based on these insights, as this will help you stay ahead of the curve and meet your audience’s changing needs.
• Crafting a compelling subscriber experience is a multifaceted endeavor that requires careful consideration of online and offline touchpoints. By differentiating your brand, driving trial and spend among existing customers, and unlocking growth opportunities, you can position your business for long-term success in the subscription economy. Remember to prioritize personalization, consistency, and experiential elements while staying agile and responsive to your subscribers’ evolving needs. With a customer-centric approach and a commitment to delivering exceptional value, you can build a loyal subscriber base to propel your business forward.

Match your subscription to your “regular” shopping experience

When your subscriber experience seems disconnected from the rest of your ecommerce experience, it can confuse and create friction for customers. And that can, in turn, get in the way of conversions, increase churn, and reduce brand advocacy.

Referrals are essential to growing revenue. Research shows that customers acquired through referrals have a 37% higher retention rate than those acquired through other channels. Having a brand that drives many referrals puts less strain on your acquisition funnel—and your budget.

Adding a subscription offering to a business doesn’t mean building a new site. In fact, you should approach building a subscription offering the way you would add a new product. Make sure it harmonizes with your brand and that the purchasing process is the same. The more connected your experiences are, the more seamless it will be for existing customers to become subscribers.

Build a coordinating customer portal.

There is a better time to experiment with a new look. As a fast follow to creating a connected experience, the customer portal you deploy should match your brand aesthetics. That includes everything from the fonts to the colors to the logos.

A customer portal that diverges from your branding can confuse customers and raise questions about the legitimacy of your subscription program.

Fortunately, Upscribe’s out-of-the-box customer portal editor lets merchants easily choose colors, logos, and fonts to deploy a beautiful customer experience in minutes. There is no need to worry about complicated, time-consuming, and costly coding customizations to the portal.

Make it frictionless to subscribe.

A smooth subscriber experience is just as important as aesthetics. Not only will a frictionless experience improve the subscribers’ experience, but it will also likely reduce the need for customer support.

We’ve all been locked out of an account and forgotten a password. A recent survey indicated that 65% of respondents will forget a password unless they write it down. Prevent this problem by enabling Passwordless Login for subscribers. When a customer wants to get into their account, they will receive a secure email they can click to log in.

It’s also essential to meet subscribers where they are and let them manage their subscriptions directly by email or SMS.

Letting customers quickly get what they want is vital. Implementing these tactics (which come out of the box with Upscribe) will help a loyal and growing subscriber base. You’ll also increase average order value (AOV) and lifetime value (LTV).

Leverage data to make intelligent recommendations

Whether you use Klaviyo or another ESP, customer data is more readily available than ever. But having access to the data is not enough—you have to use it to deliver smarter, more on-target recommendations that improve the subscription experience.

Some ways to use data to personalize customer experiences are:

• Send them a message on their subscription anniversary. This petite engagement point can make a customer feel special and is a great way to differentiate your brand from competitors.
• Offer subscribers a discount on an item that complements their subscription. For example, if they receive a pound of coffee every month, send them a coupon for a new coffee mug. In the message with the promotion, mention how it’s the perfect accessory.
• Giving subscribers access to an exclusive pre-sale. This will not only make them feel special, but it’s also an opportunity to increase their lifetime value (LTV).

These touchpoints and sample engagement tactics are ways to show your subscribers that they matter. They go a long way toward building your brand, developing loyalty, and creating an experience subscribers remember.

Cut through the digital clutter

Now that you’ve built your subscription program, how will you tell customers about it?

These days, the apparent answer is email. Email is cheap and easy. Everyone is using it.

But email’s popularity is part of the problem. There’s more competition than ever for your customers’ attention online. Their inboxes are overflowing with marketing emails, and their phones are bursting at the seams with SMS messages.

As a result, you’re probably only reaching a fraction of your customers via email. Here’s why:

On average, people will open about 20% of the marketing emails they receive. And that’s 20% of the people who have signed up—it doesn’t consider all the customers who never signed up for your list or signed up but later unsubscribed.

Conversely, direct mail is the only marketing channel that allows you to reach 90% of your customers.

Direct mail has been around for a long time, but it’s a fully up-to-date marketing channel. With platforms like PostPilot, you can easily create customer segments, sync campaigns with existing email flows, leverage QR technology, and track ROI in real time.

Best of all, it works. Surveys show that people like to receive mail and look at almost everything they receive. According to the Association of National Advertisers, direct mail has a much higher response rate than email—9% versus 1%.

Postcards break through the digital noise, help you stand out from the crowd, and establish you as a premium brand, all crucial to growing your subscriber base.

Use direct mail to convert single purchases into subscriptions

Direct mail is a potent tool for turning new and existing customers into subscribers. It’s more effective than email. Though it’s also more expensive because you’re using it to increase your customers’ lifetime value (LTV), it can quickly pay off in sales and profits.

With PostPilot’s native Shopify and Klaviyo integrations, you can create a bulk campaign to target past customers who haven’t yet subscribed. You can also build automated campaigns that send postcards to new customers, incentivizing them to subscribe. You can target every new purchase or just customers who buy certain products.
That’s it–you can set it and forget it. Whenever a customer reaches a trigger point, such as purchasing a specific item or buying more than once, PostPilot automatically sends out a postcard inviting them to save with a subscription. Read on for our expert insights into creating effective campaigns.

Reduce subscriber churn with direct mail.

In addition to converting existing customers to subscribers, direct mail can be important in reducing churn.
Churn is when a customer stops buying, cancels a subscription, or lets a subscription lapse. Innovative brands will prevent it by using automated campaigns triggered when a customer goes a certain amount of time without buying. Maybe you’re already doing this with email.
But as we explained, if you rely exclusively on email, you can only reach a small fraction of your customers. Direct mail, on the other hand, lets you get nearly all of them.

PostPilot makes it easy to create automated win-back campaigns. To get lapsed subscribers back on track, create a segment of customers who don’t renew within a certain amount of time. You can use the same approach to cancel subscriptions, sending a postcard with an offer to entice them back.

Connect your online and offline experiences.

Just as your subscriber portal should look like your leading ecommerce site, your direct mail campaigns should be consistent with your online experience. Use the same colors, typefaces, and feel as you do for your website, emails, and ads—otherwise, you risk confusing and alienating your customers.

You can also directly bridge the online and offline experiences with dynamic QR codes. Adding a code to each postcard makes it a snap for customers to start a new subscription or re-subscribe. With these reusable QR codes, you can track your customer KPIs to improve the customer experience and target similar audiences to expand your reach.

Adopt direct-mail best practices.

It can seem daunting if you’ve never worked with postcard marketing—a whole new world. But that’s not the case; your team probably already has the resources to create successful campaigns.
Think of designing a postcard campaign as the best of a Facebook ad crossed with the advantages of email and some bonus benefits.
There are a few best practices to keep in mind.

Use strong imagery. Don’t make it complicated—a couple of straightforward, brand-appropriate images can go a long way towards getting your customers’ attention. For instance, if you’re selling supplements, consider featuring a lifestyle image on one side and a product image on the other.

Include a great offer. A compelling offer is essential to getting customers to take action and start (or keep) subscribing. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here–it’s all about what works for your brand. Some standard options include a percentage or dollar discount or a month free. If you don’t typically get a discount, you could opt for a BOGO (buy one, get one) offer, free shipping, or a bonus product.

Personalize it. Personalizing your direct-mail campaigns can increase your response rate. With PostPilot’s Shopify integration, it’s a cinch to create one-to-one custom postcards that are just as easy as you can personalize your email campaigns.

Make the benefits clear. You don’t need to get into all the details of your subscription. But you should briefly communicate its primary benefits— saving money, looking better, developing better habits, etc.—to convince customers to sign up.

Creating a memorable, loyalty-driving experience that helps take your ecommerce subscription experience to the next level has always been challenging, thanks to tools like Upscribe and PostPilot. Upscribe gives you all of the out-of-the-box tools needed to deploy a loyalty-driving online experience, while PostPilot gives you what you need to engage with subscribers offline.

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo with Upscribe and PostPilot today!