069: Ask Sarah: How to Grow Your Subscription Past the Plateau - with Print Cut Craft

Today on the Ask Sarah series, I'm talking with Tracy about the dreaded P word, plateau. What do you do when your subscription box hits a plateau? I'm giving Tracy real actionable steps on this episode. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Laundry Box Podcast. This is number 4 in our 8-week series called Ask Sarah, and I've got Tracy Gibson here, the owner of Print Cut Craft. We're going to dig into her question, but I'd like to introduce you to Tracy, catch up a little bit with her background, talk about her subscription, and then we're going to get into her juicy question, which anyone that currently has a subscription box has felt this at one time, and if you haven't felt this, you're going to feel it at one time. So we're going to dig into her questions soon. But Tracy, welcome to the podcast. Why don't you just introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about your business?

Hey Sarah, thanks for having me. I am Tracy. I own Print Cut Craft. I help Cricut owners master their Cricut and then also use our SVG files in a subscription box format where we create crafts and all the supplies are delivered to you. But that's not how I started out 10 years ago. I used to be a home ec teacher, but now it's called family and consumer science. And so I was a little bored being in the constraints of what you have to specifically teach. And so I would start to go teach scrapbooking classes in the South, and my family got really sick of traveling with me. So it was the point to the point where I'm going alone and I'm like, this is pretty boring going alone.

And so I thought, okay, you were just You're just traveling all around to these different conventions by yourself with your supplies that you were selling.

Yeah, I'd fill up my minivan with all my products and my grids, and I'd go set it up alone, and I'd do class, teach classes, and then I'd sell scrapbook kits. And normally my family most of the time would come with me, but after, you know, so many trips, they're just over it and they want to stay home and do their own thing, which I totally get. But then I was like, I was getting a little tired of traveling myself because it's boring and lonely doing it all alone. And so, but I loved teaching. And so I thought, you know what, I really love the creative aspect of doing something outside the classroom. So I decided I'm going to quit, I'm going to go full force in having my own business. I've always been entrepreneurial my whole entire life. And, and so that wasn't any big deal for me to just try to try something new. And so that pivoted from my family didn't want to go with me, so I'm going to try to do things online. And so I'm like, what could I do online? I'm like, I already have my scrapbook kits. And I already made printables. In fact, I made one, a printable for you for one of your early subscription boxes, years, like a couple years ago.

And so first year, yeah.

And so I was making printables and then a friend of mine told me, hey, did you know you can use your printables on a Cricut machine? And I'm like, no, I didn't know that. And so then I started playing with it because I really didn't have too much interest in a cutting machine because I already had one for my scrapbooking business, but I didn't put two and two together that I could actually combine everything. And so once I kind of combined it, I thought, oh, that's another way to consume what I'm actually creating. So I thought, that's cool. And then I kind of started fiddling with, well, I have printables, I already have 3 kids' travel journals, and so I kind of got the printable thing down. And then I sold on Etsy and just word of mouth, and I would do custom work for people. But that switched into, people started saying, well, if you can use your PNGs for on your Cricut machine, what else can you make? So I started making SVG files. And I started just doing all digital. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I really like this digital aspect. I don't have to travel, I can do everything from home. But then I kind of missed the interaction with people. And so that kind of switched to people saying, well, I bought an SVG, but I can only use it for one thing. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I have such an imagination that it's hard to contain my imagination all the time. And I'm like, you could do so many things with these SVG files. And so I'm like, if you just don't— you just don't know that you can do it, but let me show you. So that switched into me creating some online lessons, and then that switched into me making a membership for my people on how to make crafts using these SVG files. And then that pivoted into me making— I was already doing live classes like 7 times a year, and I already knew my people loved kits. And so I kind of just meshed it all together, and I was finally ready to do a subscription box, even though I've been lurking in your group for like years. And so I thought, it's been trickling in the back of my mind that I'm like, I think I want to do this. I think I want to do this. And then I finally did last year. At the end of last year, I started my subscription box. But what was the best part of it is that having my membership and the built-in audience, it was a piece of cake to sell initially the subscription box. So that's kind of where we're at today.

Okay. So you said all of that very fast. So I'm going to break it down for our listeners that maybe aren't processing it as fast as you said it. This was a period of what, 10 years that you went from pivot to pivot to pivot. So you said a lot of things back to back that you went here to here to here, but they were over time. It wasn't like you jumped from one thing to the other, like next, next, next, next. You were changing with what was happening in your life. You went from going to all these conventions in person, and then you started to do that, you know, locally, and then you started to get online. And then what you were doing, as you were explaining everything that you pivoted into, you were To me, you were filling the need. You were filling the next need that people were asking for. And anytime that we can do that, that's a great space to live in. It's not like we are creating something and hoping somebody will come do that. You are creating what they were asking for at every turn, at every angle. And I can hear it in your voice that you are the serial entrepreneur. Like, what is the next thing? What is my next thing? And you did join Launch Your Box a while ago and you've been through it watching and learning and, and you were applying some of the stuff to your digital business, but now it was time to to really sit down and figure out this subscription box. So tell us a little bit about the box. So what is the box called? Crafters Collective. Okay.

I have a— I started with— my goal was 25 members when we launched. I didn't know exactly how many of my members wanted a subscription box. I have been teasing it that I think I'm gonna do this, I think I'm gonna do this. And so I knew I got a few comments like, yes, when is this gonna come out? And so, um, just like we don't do anything perfect here. I used to be a perfectionist and I got over that about 2 years ago. And I'm like, we get stuff out the door. And even though it's B+ work, it's still really great. But since it's not up to my perfectionist standards, I, we're just letting things go and it's still going out with great product. But I, everything doesn't have to be perfect. And so I said, well, let's just start with 25. Let's see, my goal was 25. Let's pitch it. I ended up selling 100 to my list. And so that was my actual, like my, my hairy, scary goal was 100. So I'm like, well, I think I'll— 50 was medium. I'd be really happy with any number I had. But I was like, my ultimate goal was 100. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I reached my goal.

Well, that on your first launch, right?

First launch. But because I had a built-in audience, so— and I'm also giving them something that was a next step to what we were already working on. And so, um, that worked out for my audience.

Okay, so you told me you have hundreds of members, right? So you have hundreds of members in your membership that you are providing the digital files for and showing them how to use that. Is that correct?

And yeah, so in our membership they get 10 SVG files and we do a live craft each month. Well, some of them want to keep crafting more. I would keep making all these extra kits in between our live classes and we do other things, other events for the members that were like 3-day classes. And so I knew they, they liked kits. I knew they liked my SVGs. And so I thought, you know what, let's do a surprise box where they don't know what's in it. They're going to get the SVG files. I do prerecorded videos. I teach it live as well as they get instruction booklets because that's the teacher in me. We cover all learning styles. And so they love all the different ways that I teach it. So that has been like, I tried getting rid of the instruction booklet and they said, heck no, you need to keep that. I'm like, okay, I'll keep doing it. You guys like it. But, um, And so then I decided, well, we're going to take what we do and then each— my box is every other month because I didn't want to be too busy in the beginning because subscription boxes, they're a lot of work. And so coming up with all the product and what you're going to put in it, but I also wanted to teach new different skills that we're not doing in our membership or just kind of keeping everything fresh and new. So in our box, you get wood cutouts, you get the SVG files, you get the vinyl, the paint, all the things to make all these different things. And so we have two boxes. We have a tier tray box and then we have what we call our maker box, and we have a combo box. Most everybody gets the combo box where we make a bigger project and then we do a smaller vignette of tiered tray items.

Okay. Okay. So now you launched it, you had 100 out the gate. So then what happens after the launch? So catch me up from that launch date to now where we're at with it.

So we're at around 140 subscribers. And so between December and now, even though it's not been that long that I've had my subscription box, I can tell that I've plateaued with my audience. And so I originally, I ran a lot of my traffic has been from Facebook ads. And then this last year, Facebook ads haven't worked as well for me. And so I know that it's been on the back burner to really come up with a new plan, which is organic traffic. And I know that I've been needing to do it, but I really kind of had all my eggs in one basket, which I knew wasn't the best idea. But at the time, Facebook ads were working well for me. So we were kind of running Facebook ads, Throughout this whole time in between, our box was open. And so whenever we had every other month, we would just do a little mini launch to our list for like 4 days saying, hey, we have a new box, just information about the box. And we'd get, we trickled in 40 members over the last 5 months, which isn't, I mean, it's good, but I don't know. To me, I feel like I've kind of plateaued on my list because we don't have extra traffic coming in. The Facebook ads have kind of fizzled out. And so that's kind of where we're at. It's kind of like, I feel like I've kind of plateaued on my audience, the people who want it have it, and the people who don't just keep buying our kits or our classes or our membership separately.

Yeah.

Okay.

So here's my thoughts. So your question was, how do I grow my subscription past this plateau point? Right. And I think that everybody kind of hits this at some point. So the first thing that I think about when we hit a plateau is how do we shake things up? How do we do things differently than we've been doing them in the past? How do we make it new, fresh, and fun? Those are always things that I try to think about. And I don't know if that needs to be shaking it up with your launch style. So if we've been doing that little short window every month, every other month or whatever, let's try something different. So whatever we're doing with that kind of launch style in between, let's either go bigger or go different with it. And so we could brainstorm on some of those ideas, but we have to do something that doesn't feel routine and mundane to them because they're seeing it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I've saw that before. We need to shake it up a little bit in our, the way that we launch it to them. So that would be the first thing that I would want to look at. And then we didn't mention retention rate or churn in our discussion. So you've increased it by 40, but you've probably increased it by more than 40 because you've probably had some churn in here from, you know, a few of your months. So you've probably had, you know, increased by more. Do you know what your, your churn rate is?

Around 90%.

So you have about a 10% churn, a 90% retention rate, which is really good. But I think there's an opportunity there. That's where I think your biggest opportunity to get past that plateau is in your retention. If we can shift that up 5%, then our growth becomes growth and it doesn't become backfill. We're not filling spots. And so what I would want you to do, I want you to send out a member survey before your next little launch, and I want you to really— I want you to find out if you're missing something in the box. Is there something that they wish they had that they, they didn't get? I also want to know if you're giving them too much. So when I heard you say that I'm giving them the paint and this and this and this, do they already have that? Do they just need the actual pieces that they want? Do they already have paint and some of that other stuff? So are you giving them too much and then it's stacking up on them? So I want you to ask questions in a way where they can maybe use a dropdown menu and kind of pre-fill some answers for them and help them, you know, help you figure out, am I missing something? Am I giving them too much? Or what is it that they love about your subscription? What do they want more of and what could they do without? So I want you to kind of do some research and figure out what you're missing there on the retention rate, because you could, you could cut that in half and that would really help you get over this hump. From month to month. And then also, I'm curious to know about your involuntary churn. So involuntary churn means bounced payments that aren't recovered. So they're not going in and telling you that they want to cancel, you have involuntary churn. And I want to know, like, do you have a process in place for dealing with those bounced payments? Are we getting those? Are we recovering a big percentage of those? If there's not, that could be an area of opportunity to kind of reduce that churn that you're seeing. Because even if, even if you bump it by, you know, 3%, that's 3 people at 100 subscribers. That's 3 people every time. But if you're losing 3 people every time because we're just not following up on those bounced payments heavily enough to recover them, that could be an area of opportunity that would help that retention too. So I would look into that. You know, something that we do, we have the automated emails go out, you know, those go out automatically. We send a personal email from like my email box. We also send a text if they haven't responded to that personal email. So just a little bit more follow-up might help recover some of those involuntary churn. The other thing that I, I wanted to touch on because you mentioned it as we were talking was the exclusivity. So is it exclusive enough? You did say people buy kits, people buy kits. But are they seeing the opportunity to buy other kits as a way not to join the subscription? What's your thoughts around that?

Well, yeah, the people definitely— I have asked them some of these questions, but it was a while ago, and so I need to do a new survey. But I did ask them, they did like it that it's only specific to the people who get the boxes. And I have really tried to like really ramp up like the cuteness factor, but I love these boxes. And so I've really put extra thought and effort into what they are and what's in it. And the people have been loving the projects. So I think it's okay for that. But we did get some feedback that some— because I have extra boxes, a few extra boxes each time. So then I'm torn what to do with these boxes. Do I— can I sell them to my list? And then some of the people in the subscription box said, no, you said this was exclusive. And so I'm like, okay, now I need to figure out what do I do with this extra inventory? Because when we make our items, we make a few extra. And so it's not like it's a ton sitting on the shelf, but it's some. And so they, they do like that it's exclusive. The extra lessons that we do are more seasonal throughout the year, and it's— they're completely different projects. And so it just depends, because if the box is a surprise, they don't know what's in it. And so the live classes that we do have, they get to see what we're going to make ahead of time. So I don't know if— I don't know if I should be making it not a surprise. I don't know.

No, I think the surprise factor is great, and if they love that, don't change that. Here's what I think about those extra boxes, because we do that too. We have extra boxes because we could very easily mess up on some monograms, right? And so I need to have extra product there to, you know, help with that situation. So what I do to sell those extra boxes and to keep it exclusive is when I show up— so after my subscribers get their box and they open it and everything's good, then I do my live unboxing. And during that live unboxing, I give an opportunity for people watching to become a subscriber right then. And then they can get that box. So say I have 10 left over from this month. When I come in and open this box and people see like, oh my gosh, I want that box. I have 10 left. So the first 10 people that subscribe tonight have an opportunity to grab this box. So yes, they'll be set up to be charged for the next month, But all they have to do is, you know, I'll email them, you're one of my first 10 subscribers. Would you like to go ahead and get the May box? And they'll say yes or no. If they say yes, I'll manually charge them and then they'll still get their next, their June box. But that could be a way that you keep that exclusive because they're technically a subscriber. And that might also be a lead-in to them wanting to be a subscriber. So that could be a marketing tool. And then you can still stay true to your exclusivity within your subscriber base there. The other thing that I thought you talked a lot about ads. So as you were talking about the ads, I think everybody that has run ads feels the pain on the, the ad spend. And so it's a matter of how do we get in front of new audiences? And it's that organic traffic. When I read through your notes before we started the podcast, you know exactly what you need to do and you're working on that. So I don't think that I need to go into any of that with you, but what I think is that is we need an opportunity to get in front of new audiences. And you can do that through ads, which is what we've been doing. But you can also do that— I think a great thing for you would be teaching in other memberships. And I don't know how much you do that, but are there opportunities where at least once a month you could be teaching what you do in someone else's crafting membership or painting membership or DIY membership? And so when I was launching Launch Your Box, um, that was That was one of my goals. It was my second launch. And I was like, I just got to get in front of more people. And so my goal was to get on one new podcast and teach something business in somebody else's membership every single month. So I would reach out to podcast people. I would reach out to people I knew in the entrepreneurial space, or even like the crafting space. I said, hey, can I teach your, can I teach your craft people how they can make a subscription box out of their crafts? You know? So I would find those opportunities and reach out to people in your circle and say, hey, can I, can I serve your anyway? What are you guys working on? What could, you know, offer what you have? And the goal really is to serve their audience because when you can show up in a way that's serving, people naturally are drawn to you and they'll want to come back to you and they'll want to join your, your membership and hopefully your subscription box. So I would look at that as a big opportunity for you. And then I know that you mentioned you got to get back to doing Facebook Lives. And, and I'm like, why are you not doing this? I'm concerned that you're hiding all the good stuff behind closed doors with your members.

Yeah. After going through your new course and going through, um, I know all the things I've heard you say these over the last 2 years. And, but you said them in a different way this time in the new Scale Your Box. And it really stuck in my brain. So this time for my May box, I have a ton more photos. I added all of the old pieces that I could, that I could try to incorporate into these photos. So I've got a good start starting going from here forward on how to incorporate some of that. But yeah, I don't know. It's a process.

Okay. So I think that's a huge opportunity for you. And I know you know what to do and I know you know how to do it. So let's just make a plan and get it on the schedule. Let's be consistent with it and stop Saving all the good stuff. So only your members see it. If it's behind closed doors, nobody else knows what they're missing out on. Right. And I think that's what you've done. And it's created that exclusivity. Right. But nobody knows what they're missing. So we got to give them a little bit of a taste of that on a smaller level so that they want more of Tracy and they want more of what you're doing. And so let's just talk through those 4, those 4 points I was trying to make just so that everybody can recap with us. So when you've hit a plateau, the first thing I want you to shake things up, shake things up in the way that you're launching, make them new, fresh, and fun. Make it different. So someone sees it differently. Just like you said, you said it differently this time in Scale Your Box. And I was listening. So people are tuning us out. So we got to shake it up so that it comes differently delivered to them, reducing our churn. Um, you have an opportunity to really cut that in half, I believe. Um, and so let's Let's increase our retention, reduce that churn. And we talked about more exclusivity, which I think you're doing great of, but now we gotta, we gotta be visible. We gotta show everybody what we're missing and we gotta get in front of new people. So we have to increase our visibility with lives, with new audiences. And then as far as ads go, I don't want you to stop that. I just want you to look at it differently. So right now for me, ads are all about attracting someone as is engagement or a lead, but not a sale. So if we can kind of change our mindset on our idea of what ads are going to be— ads typically for us have been a sale. Like if I can get someone to buy something, um, now it's like, can I get them to consume some of my content, free content, some paid content? Can I get them interested in what I'm doing by some of those lead magnets or opt-ins that I have? So I'm willing to pay to get in front of new audiences, but I don't necessarily expect the sale anymore. So I just want to keep putting myself out there and keep generating those leads in between the cart, because those are new people. Those are fresh eyes on that launch that I'm going to shake up. And that could potentially be new members or new subscribers for you. And that's what's great about your business is that you have two opportunities to really capture them into your world through your membership or through your products. And so keep doing the ads, just have a different expectation and a different outcome in mind. So how do you feel about that? What feels good? What feels scary? What do we need to talk through?

Well, the Facebook Lives are scary. I did them all through the fall and I kind of got out of doing them because I was a little tired of doing them because I would pre-plan what I did. I'd make the craft ahead of time to make sure it's going to turn out. This is the perfectionist in me. And so going forward, after watching some other crafters who just go live and just wing it and we're just going to make something, I think I need to switch to that model because it's, it's less work. I was making too much work for myself. And so I am going to try to do the Facebook Lives, come back to doing something regularly with that. And you've talked about being consistent. I have not been consistent. That is like definitely on our list for my team. And we have a plan moving forward with that. I definitely want to try collaborating with people. I haven't done that. I actually am doing one class that's coming up in May. That's going to be my first collaboration, but that's something that I definitely need to work on. And yeah, and then I guess just trying to figure out what exactly do my members want and ask them. I think I'm not asking them enough. And for sure, you hit the nail on the head. I have, like, when you were talking about, you asked in the group a while ago, how many times do you post about your subscription box? I was laughing because I'm like, well, I already know I'm at the little low end of that little totem pole, not only for my subscription box, but for my membership. And so because I focus so much on Facebook ads, I really didn't put a focus on my website. And so I'm like, I was thinking, if you go to my website, you can find that I do these things, but it's not super obvious. It doesn't hit you over the head that what I do. And I was like, that is a fail and I need to go rectify that. And so being out there more, I for sure need to do all those things too.

Yeah. You don't have to do all those things at once, right? Cause that feels overwhelming. And then we don't do anything, right? Like, well, that's a whole lot of stuff I have to do and now I'm overwhelmed. So I'm just going to go eat a tub of ice cream in the corner and cry about it and not do anything. That's, that's what happens to me when I get overwhelmed, you know? So for me, it's like, what is the highest priority? What will move the needle the quickest? Um, and so when you think about those things, it's that Facebook Live. And I love how you said you were overthinking it. So you, you recognize that you were creating a lot of work for yourself, which was creating this barrier to actually doing it because now it was like this big heavy thing all the time on your plate to do because you had to prep for everything. So So what happens if the craft doesn't go the way you planned?

Well, that's why— and the reason why I pre-planned it as well is so I could get on and off as fast as I could. But now that I've done a few of these, I realize they're not that bad. It's not bad at all. And so I've done enough to feel like, okay, I can totally do this. I just need to commit to doing it. And so I'm over the hump of not gonna— I'm not gonna click that live button. I've got that part. That's okay. And I'm okay with trying to do it longer, but that was like literally my thought process. I want to be in, get out quick.

Yeah. But also if you're on longer, it's more opportunity to engage with your audience too. And if something goes wrong, like they're, they're seeing you as a real person. Do you know how many times I flip on a live and then I can't figure out the buttons and I have tech issues like that makes me a real person to my audience that thinks that I have everything together when clearly I don't. So if something goes wrong, You can say, you know what, sometimes things go wrong and it's like a learning lesson for them too. So I think you're going to be fine at that. I think you're going to do that well. So let's pick a time in a day that you can do that every single week and what's easiest for you. And that's what— that's important because it's not like when I'm going to have the most people live or when the most people are on or when they're most engaged. It's what's easy for you so that there's again another barrier removed from you doing it. When, when can I show up best? When's the quietest time in my life during the week that I can do this and not have all this other noise going on in my life. And if it make it easy for you, it's going to remove another barrier for you doing that. But I 100% think that you just have to put a few things in place and just do them. You know what to do, you know how to do it. But it's just kind of getting over that fear of what could happen, but you already have a built-in audience. We just need to go find more of those people. You've shown you have a proven product, you've shown proof of concept, you have an amazing group of people that are paying you every month to be a member or to be a subscriber. So let's just go find more of them and let's get over that, that hump. So at the end of every episode, I always ask people, what advice would you give to someone that is maybe hesitant to get started on their subscription box? Maybe they're listening right now and they're like, yeah, but Tracy has 400 No, no wonder her box is successful. What would you say to someone that's really wanting to get started?

I would say two things. One, my business really didn't start to take off until I picked the one thing, until I niched down. Once I niched down to just really focusing on the Cricut people, even though you can use my SVG files with any cutting machine, I just focused only on the Cricut people. That change alone really gave me momentum. And then because I happened to already have an audience, I would just say, um, work real— work on building an audience first on either maybe coming up with a baby product or something little, even if it's a free opt-in or something, to try to gain an audience. Because once you have the audience and you have a following and they know, like, and trust you, then it's going to be so much easier to sell to them.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, Tracy, if, um, we have Cricut lovers and users in the audience listening today, where can they find you?

You can find me at printcutcraft.net.

Awesome, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Thank you.

If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.