If you've been selling subscription products for a while, you will know it's a little intimidating to turn first-time customers into subscription customers. By all standards, acquiring subscription customers is different from promoting one-time purchases. And as such, a different approach is required to acquire subscription customers.

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However, the struggle lies between balancing the high customer acquisition cost and making efforts towards attracting subscribers to your business. 

In this article, we’ll discuss techniques that will help you expand your business and increase your profit margin through subscription customer acquisition.

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Techniques for acquiring subscription customers

You probably know one or two ways to acquire subscription customers, but the more techniques you know, the safer is it for your subscription business. This is so that if one technique doesn't work for you or has a seasonal downtime, the others will work and ultimately increase your recurring customer base and customer lifetime value.

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Here are five of the most used subscription customer acquisition strategies:

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Build a captivating landing page for your subscription landing page

For clarity, the subscription landing page isn't your store's landing page. This landing page is a standalone web page that potential subscription customers can “land” on when they click through from an email, ad, or other digital location to check out your subscription products or services. This page gives potential customers explicit information about your subscription plans and how it works. And this is necessary because it helps potential customers make a quick decision since they know what to expect in a snapshot.

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As an example, here is what the subscription landing page of RAW Coffee Company looks like

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Some excellent additional tips to bear in mind when developing your subscription landing page are:

• showcase engaging images of your subscription products                
• always showcase your brand's distinct value 
• explicitly state the duration and advantages of your subscription
• utilize user-generated content and customer reviews
• and offer compelling calls to action

Optimize your eCommerce store for sales

According to a Shopify report, it actually takes just 0.05 seconds for visitors to form an opinion of your business from your landing page. This is why your only job isn't merely to communicate value to your store visitors as quickly as possible, but to also give attention to providing simple, functional, and intuitive shopping experiences that will give them a strong impression and keep them coming back. These are a few things you could do to enhance your page in order to increase your subscriber acquisition and retention rate:

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• position your navigation tools like search buttons, add-to-cart buttons, or checkout buttons at distinct vantage points for users to shop. 
• you can lose your potential subscribers if their preferred payment method is unavailable, which is why you need to ensure that your site has several payment options.
• lastly, the need for speed! Optimize the speed of your website and page load times. 53% of site visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. 

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Offer mouth-watering discounts

This is an age-old strategy with the same applicable benefits in today’s eCommerce world. If it is done right, giving discounts can boost client retention and entice them to continue doing business with you. Beyond that, discounting can help you achieve other business growth goals like increased brand awareness and more sales.  One thing to avoid is placing so much discounted value on first purchases alone. The value of the incentive you offer should be evenly spread throughout the lifespan of your subscription packages so that your subscribers can continue to enjoy these benefits and not cancel. 

To make discounting work for you, you've to set a goal in line with what you want to achieve and offer discounts only when customers take actions that aid your goal. For example, if the aim is to get new subscription customers, you can offer a first purchase discount such as "Get 15% off your first order."

If the aim is to increase your average order value, you can offer product bundles by showing them products that complement their order and offering them discounts when they place more orders. Alternatively, you can offer free shipping for orders above a certain price. "Free shipping for orders above USD 300" is a good example.

If the aim is to increase brand awareness and sales, you can offer them seasonal discounts on holidays or special events. "Get 30% for every order you place on Black Friday" is a good example, and the examples, as well as aims, can vary depending on your business goal.

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Adopt acquisition-based marketing 

Acquisition-based marketing focuses on acquiring customers that are already looking for the type of products or services you offer. And as long as you own a subscription business, your journey to acquiring new subscribers never ends. This is why you need to develop a strategy that works for your brand and that will continue to increase brand recognition and lead generation. Some of the marketing strategies that will benefit your brand at any growth level include:

• ‍Search engine optimization (SEO)

Every business has got potential customers online surfing the web and looking to buy their product or use their services every hour of the day. The downside is that there are probably hundreds or thousands of other brands selling your products or services already. But SEO helps you rank higher in search engines and get found by your ideal customers.

This is why SEO remains a worthwhile investment that promotes visibility for every website and online. And to do it right, you need to identify your industry/niche and brand's keywords and use them throughout your site. You can even step that up by starting a blog and gently distributing those keywords across your blog while educating your readers. However, you need to be careful not to overuse the keywords

• ‍Focus on your brand’s communication style and user experience

Ensure that you are consistent with your brand voice, which should largely portray your brand identity. For instance, Nike is known for its inspirational tone and pattern of communication with an element of grit that has fostered a brand image that encourages resilience. Your brand’s purpose can also be explained clearly on your about us page on your site.

Write captivating and easy-to-read headlines, product descriptions, and call-to-action for a smooth user experience on your site. It is important to also use alluring images and product photographs for more representation of your brand to site visitors.

• ‍Omnichannel marketing strategy

One of the numerous perks of using a subscription management software like Chargezen that come with an in-built omnichannel feature is that it allows you to target and engage your customers through different engagement channels.

You can reach the different categories of customers through customized promotional messages and campaigns via a messaging platform like email, SMS, and various social media platforms.‍

Offer both one-off and subscription sales

Of course, the goal is still to keep your customers hooked on your products and subscription plans, but an unassuming trick to acquiring new subscribers is keeping the one-off purchase option open as bait for those customers who will need a little more convincing.

Once you have gotten potential customers to try out your products just that one time, you can channel your advertising efforts into getting them to buy again or converting them to subscribers by leveraging on their awareness of the value your product or service offers.  You can emphasize the subscription option at the conclusion of a one-off purchase by including easy-to-use upgrade buttons for the subscription option during checkout, or by prioritizing the subscription option over the one-time purchase option on a product detail page.

Summary

The next step to take after starting a subscription business is to get as many subscribers as possible. And that is why you need a sustainable subscriber acquisition strategy so that you can build a loyal subscriber base at any point.

A good strategy that works for your brand will increase profit, reduce your churn rate, and enable you to create an exceptional end-to-end user experience for your customers. But what good is it if you invest so much to acquire these subscription customers and lose them to churn? This is why thousands of merchants trust Subscription by Chargezen to take care of their customers as they bring them in.               

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