We are creating a women-centric Subscription Box Business. What are the best channels of customer acquisition for this?
Hi - we have worked with a number of subscription box services. I have over 15 years helping startups in various industries and spaces. In terms of best channels it depends on the company. How long have you been in business? I would need more detail to give a proper answer but here are some avenues that might work. 1) I would do a big launch announcement and use a key influencer in the space to host it 2) I would send the launch news to the top tier media outlets in your market and in national markets 3) Put resources towards a great short shareable video that explains what the UVP of your service is 4) Find a journalists or writer friend and take them for coffee and brainstorm 20 different press angles for your business -- earned media is one of the best ways to acquire customers 5) Put effort into your content marketing strategy and specifically instagram -that's a great place to market to women. In short you need a combo of:
1)Earned media
2) Owned media (social channels)
3) Paid media - sponsored posts, boosting FB ads,etc
If you're limited on resources focus on the first two as they don't cost you anything but your time. If you have the money consider bringing on a consultant or agency to help manage and execute some of your strategies. There are no 'best' channels - every service, ecomm and business is different so requires a different approach Good luck and if you want more info I'm happy to hop on a call.
You will never know if you have never tried.
Here is a great way thought:
1. Find out where these type of people are spending their time. Try not to focus on Facebook and Instagram since these are getting pretty saturated by now.
2. Find out which problems they are having
3. Solve a part of their problem for free. This will help you build trust and likeability.
4. They will thank you for your solution and will ask themselves who this person is.
5. They will discover your subscription box service and will have more trust about the quality of the service since you helped them out first.
Build value first before asking anything in return, no matter what channel they are.
It's called reciprocity.
pinterest, instagram, tinder, linkedin could be obvious choices.
Channels are connected to business models. validated market - product fit and product - model fit is the foundation.
I understand that you don't have a strong foundation and hence this question.
Refer to brain balfour articles on these topics at coelevate and reforge. If you require to work on this together, message me.
As some others have mentioned, the best channel is the one that you put effort into and are able to make work for you. You won't know which one that is until you've made your best guess on where to start, put together a plan, and executed on that plan for some period of time in order to measure your results and have data to inform how to proceed from there.
With that said, my recommendation on the channel to pursue first given your market would be Instagram, and Facebook as a secondary.
At LemonStand, we work with many subscription box companies, and women-centric boxes tend to do really well with a well executed Instagram marketing plan.
Usually, they follow a three-fold approach: 1) Deploy a quality organic content strategy. Quality imagery, with quality hashtags and captions. 2) Supplement with paid posts. Start small, experiment and measure results + iterate. 3) Work with influencers. You can use one of the many influencer marketing platforms to get matched up with an influencer, or find influencers yourself and reach out to them.
Another channel worth exploring is working with bloggers who already write about topics related to your box. Often times you can find box reviewers who will write a review if you send them a box for free. I've seen this approach have very positive results, and often goes hand-in-hand with Instagram marketing.
There's an article published recently on our blog that covers some tips on Instagram marketing for eCommerce brands. Check it out: https://blog.lemonstand.com/marketing-tips-instagram-for-ecommerce/
If you'd like to talk about leveraging Instagram to acquire customers for your subscription box business in more detail, let's set up a call!
It depends on your market and product.
But as of today... since things change so rapidly.
1- Facebook
2- YouTube
3 - Insta
4 - Snap
It's all about building an audience and following
