094: How I Generated $20k in Extra Revenue with a Holiday Gift Box

What if I told you you could generate even more revenue this year from your existing subscriber base? On this episode, I'm sharing my exact strategy that generated an extra $20,000 in only 4 days. 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 Launch Box podcast. We are knee-deep into the fourth quarter, and if you're like me, you're feeling it on every single level. I mean, let's be honest, we've been battling this sales roller coaster all year long, and I'm not giving up on it. I have been up, I have been down, I've been back up again, and I'm just gonna fight my way through the rest of 2022. But Last week I sold my annual holiday gift boxes and I sold out in 4 days. And it's been such a successful item that all I have to do is rinse and repeat it year after year, and I'm having consistent success. And with the roller coaster of the year of being up and down and up and down, up and down, I thought, I really am grateful. I'm grateful that I was able to generate an extra $20,000 over the weekend. And I'm gonna break it down for you today on this podcast episode. I'm gonna tell you exactly what I did, what I do year after year. It's literally a strategy that you rinse and repeat. So once you lay it out and implement it for year 1, you just do the same thing every year and you're creating this habit. You're almost creating like a ritual for people to come buy these gift boxes from you year over year. They expect them, they know when you're gonna sell them, they, they're planned for them. And it's such a great thing. And you still have time to do this year. You can literally do this now. And so I'm going to break it down for you, my holiday gift box strategy, so that you can do the exact same thing. And I want to tell you that it's not just me. It's not just me that has these results. There are members of our mastermind having similar results. I was thinking about a story. It's one that you might remember from a previous podcast episode. But Nicole from thegpboks.com, she joined Launch Your Box back in the fall of 2020, and she jumped in and started building her audience for guinea pig box owners. And she said, yeah, this is a great strategy. I'm gonna launch a one-time box. And so she launched her one-time holiday box for Christmas, and she sold hundreds of them, and she hadn't launched her subscription box yet. And this is why I'm telling you this story, because you might be listening and haven't launched your subscription yet. And you might think, well, this doesn't apply to me, but it does. You could launch a one-time holiday box right now for Christmas, and then it will propel you into 2023. And that's what Nicole did. She launched her one-time box. She had been working on building her audience and she sold hundreds of this box, like hundreds of them. So then in 2021, in last year, her subscription went from 0 to like 700 or 800 subscribers that year. And she continues to grow and nurture. Launched a second box this year for bunnies. But it was this one box, this one holiday gift box that she put together that really was the catalyst for having her successful subscription box. It was the proof of concept that she needed to launch the monthly subscription. And now she's, she's got monthly recurring revenue month after month after month in her bank account. Paying her well because she got started and she got started with this one-time holiday box. So even if you haven't launched yet, you can do this. But I wanna make sure you have been working on building an audience first. You can't launch anything to no one. And you know that I talk about audience building is super duper important. So I wanna make sure you've been audience building before you start this. If you've been working on audience building for 30, 60, 90 days, let's launch a one-time box. If you're brand new and you haven't even started audience building, we're not gonna put together a one-time box. Well, I need you to focus on building that audience. But if you're a subscription box owner already, it's an amazing way to grab additional revenue right now. We want to capitalize on the customers that are always already buying from us. Okay? So our subscribers are our most loyal customers that we have. Not only do they buy the subscription box, but they buy stuff out of our shop month over month. They want more of what you have. And so we're going to create a holiday box that they can give to themselves, they can give to their loved ones, they can give to their friends. And but we're going to generate some serious extra revenue with it. So let me just break it all down for you. If you've got a notebook, if you're listening while you're walking on your phone, maybe grab the Notes app. Let's take some notes. Or just listen and you can go back and make notes later. But let me break down my strategy. So I always run my presale of this holiday box in late October. So usually the last couple weeks of October are the perfect time. And people ask me like, why, why is that the perfect time? It's because you're getting in before like the November holiday rush. So you know what it's like in November. More ads, more big box stores, more noise, more of everything starts to happen in November. Black Friday gets earlier and earlier every single year. So I like to do it in late October, where there's not a lot of noise going on. We're getting in before the big box stores are really promoting things, and so that I can feel seen and heard as I'm promoting this box. That's why I do it at the end of October. And another reason is that I do it because a lot of times I don't even have the product ordered yet, and I, I did it this way my very first year because I wanted to see how much I would need. Like, I didn't know what I was gonna sell, how many of them I would sell. So I wanted to get an idea of how many of these boxes I needed. So I did a presale to kind of see what the interest level was, and then I ordered more after the presale and sold the rest of them. So it was a way for me to figure things out without just buying a bunch of inventory that I wasn't sure if it was going to be sold or not. So that's the way I did it the very first year, and it's just worked out flawlessly to continue to do that year after year, even though I know my number from month to month, how many I'm going to sell. It just works out because here's another reason why doing it in October works out so well, is that I have all of November to put these boxes together. You know, I have the monogram box. I have to monogram all of these in between all of our regular orders, all of our subscriptions for November and December. So I needed time to work these in, and so it gave me enough time that I wasn't working like a crazy person between Thanksgiving and Christmas every single year. I mean, I'm still working like a crazy person, but not double crazy person. So pre-sell the box late October. That was my plan. So in September I started to build a waitlist, and even in September I still wasn't sure exactly what I was gonna put in the box, but I was building a list while I figured that out. So hear me say that you don't have to have it all figured out while you're building a waitlist. Like, put the waitlist up and then let's sit down and figure it out. You don't, don't think that everything has to be perfect before you start something. So the first thing that I did was I set up a landing page on my website. It was very simple, not complicated. It was basically a picture of a box and a signup form and very little details. Because again, I'm telling you, I didn't know it was gonna be in this box yet. I just knew I was gonna have a holiday box and I knew I wanted to build a waitlist. I didn't know all the details yet, so I just let them know that our holiday box presale was coming soon. I put a picture of the box that I had from last year. You can make a mockup, whatever you wanna do, and ask them to give me their name and email. And then I also set up a keyword inside my texting app. So if they text me the word gift, they went on the waitlist in my texting app. So I was building a list of emails and I was also building a list of texts. So those are the first two things that I started in September. And then every time I do this weekly live every week, so every week when I was live, I would mention that the holiday presale was coming up. I would give them the date, kind of like a save the date. This is coming. I'm getting so excited about it. I still didn't have it all quite figured out yet. I wanted to drive traffic to those waitlists. So whether they wanted a text from me or an email from me or both, here was the way that they could— my call to action was sign up on the waitlist, send me the word gift in the text, or here's here's the link to my landing page to sign up for the waitlist. Super simple. I just casually talked about it as I was going live and promoting other products or other things. I was also posting about it a few times a week. So on my social media, I created some graphics. They were, they were kind of like save the date graphics or join the waitlist graphics. And I would mention that the October presale holiday box presale was coming, make sure they were on the list because they would get first dibs. And so about twice a week up until— it was like mid-September when I started this up until October 21st was the day that I sold them. So I had a little over a month, so maybe 5 weeks. Twice a week I posted to join the waitlist. I also mentioned it when I was live every single week. So it was in front of them a lot. And so that was my strategy with the socials. Now we're getting down into October and I believe I had it all figured out by the beginning of October. What it was gonna be, what was gonna be in it. And I, and I decided on a number and I was kind of conservative with my number this year because I just told you at the beginning of this episode that my sales have been kind of up and down. Like I'll be down one month, I'll be way up one month or a couple months I'll be up and then I'll be back down a little bit. So I was really nervous and I don't wanna get all my cash tied up in inventory. So I was conservative with my number. I did a just a tiny bit less than what I did last year, and I felt good about it, and I wasn't sure how fast I would sell out. So last year I didn't sell out right away. It took up until December for me to sell out. So that kind of made me nervous, knowing what my sales were like this year. And anytime I make these decisions, I'm making them based on the data, the history that I have. Okay, not a feeling. I make a lot of decisions on feelings, but not this one. I could see data. What did I do in 2018? What I do in '19? What did I do in '20, '21? And you could see a gradual growth every single year of where I increased these boxes. But because of the up and down of the 2022 economy, I was like, let me just play it safe and do a little bit less than I did last year, and maybe I won't have to spend the next 3 months selling all of them. So that was my goal. Okay. And so as I got closer, I decided on what I was gonna put in the box, and I wanted it to remain a mystery. I've done a couple different versions of this throughout the year. I've let them pick like bright, bold fun and classic neutral, like I let them pick a color palette. I had a couple different boxes, but this year I was gonna do one box, because I think when you give too many options we confuse people and they can't make decisions. And I think that's what happened last year. That's why it took me longer to sell my boxes last year. And so I decided that I was gonna just do one box. And make one offer and see if the clarity on that would make it easier for people to purchase. And so I also wanted to give them a little insight about what would be in this box, because they always ask me the question, what's in the box? Can you tell us what's in the box? And I never want to do that. So, but I made it clear. I made it clear what was in the box, but it also made it a mystery. So here's what I told them. You were going to get an exclusive design t-shirt. An exclusive custom sweatshirt, a matching accessory, and a monogrammed mystery item. Okay, so instantly in their mind, if they love my t-shirts, if they love my sweatshirts, they knew they would love this box. They don't know what these designs are. They don't know what the color palette is. So all of that is still going to be a surprise, but allowed them to see the value of the box and whether this box was for them or not. And so I laid that out for them. And the day before the launch, I sent one email and one text to those waitlists. Now there wasn't a lot of people on these waitlists. Okay? So there was about 50 people on my text waitlist, and I had about 600, a little less than 600 people on the email waitlist. Not a huge pool of people. And so I sent that out. One quick email, one quick text that said, hey, you get first dibs. We're opening the preorder tomorrow, but because you're on the waitlist, you get first dibs today. And so I sent that email in the evening, closed my computer, went to bed, and woke up the next day and I had a bunch of boxes sold. So I was like, all right, this is going to be great. Now I'm excited. Now I'm going to show up live with a little bit more enthusiasm because I sold a bunch of boxes overnight. And so now it's launch day for the box. So that you're seeing what I did pre-launch, talked about it a lot. I drove traffic to my waitlist and then I did the waitlist the night before with just one simple email and one text. Now it's launch day. Now I have to tell the world that these boxes are available and I need to generate some buzz and excitement. So I've got to show up live with some energy. Okay, I need to be excited. I need to share my enthusiasm with the world, with my audience, and I need to get them purchasing these boxes. And there's really, there's really 3 things. Okay, there's really 3 things that I want you to do when you're launching anything, and that is to create Scarcity, urgency, and exclusivity. Those are the 3 things that really make a difference in any kind of launch. But I want to remind you, I didn't have any of this product. I just figured out what I was going to put in these boxes a few weeks ago. None of the product was there yet. And because the product was so size-specific, I wasn't even going to order it until I got through the pre-launch. That way I could order the exact sizes. I could adjust and increase whatever size was selling best and plan for more boxes later after the presale. But I didn't have anything to show them. I didn't have any sneak peeks. I didn't have any teasers. So I just had to show up live, just me face to camera, bringing the energy. And I really needed to talk about the scarcity, the urgency, and the exclusivity so that people had a reason to buy and to buy that day. And so my scarcity was really that these were limited numbers. And I said, hey, I have less than I did last year. These are limited. If you want a box, you probably need to get in on the preorder. I don't know if we're going to have any after the preorder. The urgency was that if you did the presale, it guaranteed you a box in your size and it's only available now. It was only available for a short amount of time. So if, if you want to guarantee that you could get one of these boxes, you needed to buy during the presale. I gave them a reason to not put it off. I gave them a reason to buy it right then, because it was not going to be available later. And then the exclusivity factor that I gave them was that you're not going to be able to get these items outside of this box. These are only available for the holiday gift boxes. So you don't wanna wait till you see this and have missed out on it, cuz it won't be back. So I created the scarcity, the urgency, and the exclusivity. I created feelings of needing to go buy it right then. And that's what we wanna do for any of our launches. And I brought the energy of all the fun. The only thing I had to show, because I didn't have any of the product, was the box, and I had— I was using the same box that I used last year as a cute little Christmas box that I had custom made, and I had pictures that I had taken last year. Now I, I wish I would have taken more pictures. I didn't take enough pictures, but I had some. So I shared a picture that was in a cute little red box and got them excited about giving it as a gift. And so this is all on the launch day. I did start running Facebook and Instagram ads that morning, but the fact is I probably didn't even need them because by the time the ads got out of review, I had already sold half of the boxes that I had. I'd already sold them. I started the ads thinking I would run them for about 7 days during the presale, but you're gonna find out what happens next. So on launch day after my live, I sent out an email and a text that, hey, pre-sale boxes are live, go grab them. You're gonna need to know this person's size and monogram. And just really created, generated some buzz that day. I only did 2 more posts on my social media that day, and both of them were about these boxes. So we created a whole set of images inside Canva with a template and color palette. So everything looked the same. So I just pulled those images and posted the excitement, what they were gonna get, when it was gonna come, what to expect, who they should buy them from. So if they saw my image in their feed and I said, you need this for your sister, they're like, oh yeah, my sister does need this. So I just reminded them that, you know, who the gifts were perfect for and that they had those people on their lists. I also changed my Facebook header. That day. So the top of my Facebook header was all about the boxes. It just gave my whole page the feel that we were doing something special and different. And that's what you wanna create when you're launching anything. Do you wanna create a feeling that this is special and different? And so let's recap day 1 activities real quick. I did a Facebook Live, I sent an email to my entire list, I sent a text to my entire list. I did 2 more static posts on my feed all about the boxes, and I changed my Facebook header. So those were 5 things that I did on launch day to promote this box. Now I'm rolling into day 2. Over half of my boxes have sold. I've passed my goal for day 1 of launch. I'm feeling excited. I want to keep the momentum going. So just because I've already— I'm beating my goal that I set for myself doesn't mean I need to pull back. We need to push There's momentum here, so I'm going to lean into that momentum. And day 2, I resent the launch day email to anyone that had not opened it. So I changed the subject line, I changed the preview line, but the entire content of that email was the same because they haven't read it anyway. They didn't open it. So I resent that email and I scheduled 2 more posts about the boxes boxes that day, and I sold quite a bit more on day 2. I only had about 100 boxes left going into day 3, and so I knew that I needed to keep going strong because my most loyal customers, my biggest raving fans, have probably already purchased at this point because I'm in their face. I'm in their face on live, I'm in their face in email, I'm in their face on text. My ads are now running, so I'm in feed. So I knew that I probably hit the bulk of my list already, but I needed to keep driving momentum on day 3. So I sent a last chance email to anyone that had opened my emails but had not purchased. So that was just a setting that I set up in Klaviyo as a segment. They had opened one of my emails from the last 2 days but had not purchased one of our holiday boxes. And I said, hey, these are selling really quickly. I want to make sure you've seen this and that you get a chance to grab one before they're gone. And then I did a post that day. I kind of mixed in a few other things that day because I've been posting 2 days solid of just about the box. So I posted in some regular product, and then I put one big post in the evening that we were getting close to selling out. Day 4, I'm doing a live box opening for my subscription box. And I talked about it while I was doing that opening. I added a link into that live so they could go buy one, and at the end of day 4, we had sold out. I was gonna send another text and email, but by the time I got to looking at that, we were down to only a couple, and by the end of the day, we had sold out. So I didn't have to send another email, but I probably would have had I not sold out already. So that's how I sold all of my holiday boxes and generated $20,000 in just 4 days. It's possible. It's possible for all of you. But if you're making notes right now, I can walk you through the rest of my strategy. Had I not sold out in 4 days, I didn't sell out during presale last, last year or the year before. This was actually the first time I'd ever sold out during presale, which surprised me because of that sales roller coaster I've been on. But if I hadn't sold out, I would continue the presale. I had the presale set up for 7 full days, and so I would email them a couple more times through that 7 days. It would post— I'd probably do one more live on like the last 24 hours, like you have 24 hours left. And then once the presale closed, I would turn off the products and make the product inactive so nobody could buy it anymore. And then I would then in turn, I would go order the products. So this is what I have done in previous years. Once I do the presale, I figure out how much I need. I estimate about 20% more product than what I sell on the presale, and then I go order the product, and then we get it in and we start monogramming and, um, sorting through the product for the presale orders. Then once we have all the product here, we start monogramming. Everything's in line. We say, okay, we have this number of boxes left, and then we do yet another promotion. So this is typically about 3 weeks later is when all of this happens, sometimes a little bit later depending on how long it takes for that product to come in. So then you're able to take some sneak peeks because now the product is in. So you can do some sneak peek shots. I could do a picture of something being monogrammed up close. You can't really see what it is. And then I come back and go live with a whole new box campaign with my sneak peek pictures. And here's what I have left. And I would sell the remaining number of boxes and I would just leave them up for sale until they're gone. And so that's how I typically run this promotion. But I got fortunate enough this year that I sold out on the presale. But also it's, it's created some negative feelings because people that have bought from me year after year, we've never sold out on a presale. So they've always had time to get their orders in before the presale date, but they didn't have that opportunity. So it's kind of created some negative feelings, and I don't like that. But it just shows me that I can increase my number for next year and, and feel comfortable with it. And I can feel comfortable with it because this is something that I do every single year. And if you can create this habit, this ritual for your business the people will show up year after year to buy the boxes because they love them and they know you're going to do it. So they're waiting for that moment. So I— it's just something that you should get going and that you should continue to do at the same time in the same way year after year. And I don't know, but I have thoughts that it's contributed to the success by me not offering multiple options, it helped people make decision and check out. All of the previous years except one, I have offered options. I've offered some different price point options. I have offered some color palette options. I've offered some upgrade options. But this year I said no options, one box only. It's better for us at the warehouse. We can streamline this. So much better. And actually, I think it was better for my customer. They didn't have to think and overthink their decision, which allowed them to click add to cart and check out so much easier than in the years past. So that's my mental note for this launch and why I think it was so successful. I also think it's been— it was so successful because it's something that I do over and over again. So anytime you can implement something like that in your business, it's gonna be a win that you can continue to do year after year. So I wanna know if you go over and get a holiday box started. It is not too late. It is not too late. There is still time. You don't have a long runway for a waitlist, but it doesn't mean that you can't show up and sell a holiday box this season. 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.