108: 5 Emails Subscription Box Owners Can Send Every Month

Email marketing is a huge part of our subscription box business. Take the guesswork out of what to write and join me for this episode. 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 Your Box. Podcast. Today we're talking about 5 different things that you could email your list about your subscription box business each and every single month. One of the biggest questions that we have inside Launch Your Box is, okay, Sarah, you're telling me to build my email list, but I don't know what to email them. I don't know what to send them. And I know if you're not used to writing copy, if you're not used to sending emails, it feels like such a daunting task. Do you ever just sit at the computer and stare at your blank screen and be like, I don't even know where to start? Starting's the hardest part. The best thing that I know how to do is I kind of brainstorm my marketing plan every single quarter. And so I have particular topics. And so when I have kind of a theme, it's like putting your subscription box together each month. When I have a theme about what I wanna talk about for the month, it's easy for me to put the content together. And so for us, it's different with our email list. We wanna figure out what we need to talk about. And if you're having to sit down at the computer every week and, and you're like, I don't even know what I'm gonna say this week to my email list, then I've got you. I've got you. I'm glad you're listening. If you are on your phone listening right now, grab your notes app and just make a couple notes as I'm talking. If you're listening while you're working or you're at your office or you're, you're at home, grab a notebook. I'm gonna give you some things that you can write down. But also, if you stay till the end of this podcast, I'm gonna tell you how you can get a little bonus from me regarding this podcast. So let's dig into it because when we get people on an email list, and I see this over and over again, we're just collecting people. We're just collecting people and we're not doing anything with them. We're not nurturing them. We're not loving on them. We're not building a connection with them. Like they have given us their email list and that's powerful. Like they've given us their email address and that is worth its weight in gold in our industry. And so we wanna make sure that we start building a relationship with them and whether they're giving you, you know, their email pre-launch, we need to make sure we're emailing them before we launch. So we don't wanna get their email like 60 days out and then they haven't heard from us and they're like, oh hey, here comes a whole bunch of launch emails. We don't wanna do that. But we also don't want to get people on our list throughout having our subscription box and never send them an email. And the one thing that I know about subscription box owners, especially all the people in my membership, um, is that we don't talk about our subscription box enough. And we just think that we over-talk about it. And we just think that everybody knows and everybody's seen everything that we put out there, but that's not actually the case. And so today I want to talk specifically to subscription box owners and how they can email their list every single week with something about their box. It doesn't have to be salesy. You might have a closed cart and that's okay. We still wanna talk about it. We still wanna talk about our subscription box regularly so that our audience knows it's the main thing in our business. And so I've got 5 different emails that you could send about your subscription box. And the great thing is, is like there's 5, there's only 4 weeks a month. You don't even have to talk about your subscription box in every week of the month, but I'm going to give you 5 different options. You can rotate them out from month to month. You can rinse and repeat because you're going to see that they'll have different ways that you can rinse and repeat them every single month. So let's, let's dig in and let me help you unlock the power of email. Email is still one of the best ways that we can sell products. I know that there are people running around the internet Talking about how email is dead. It's not dead. I'm still getting 40% of my revenue every single month from email marketing, and it is one of the cheapest ways that we can advertise our business is through email. So I want you to understand that. And if you're sitting here right now listening to me and you're like, crap, I haven't emailed my list in a long time, it's okay. We just need to start. We need to create a habit in our business, in our marketing plan, that we send out an email every single week, at least one. And if we're doing that consistently, you're gonna have better open rates, you're gonna have better delivery, you're gonna have better sales. So let's start now. There's no judgments if you're not sending emails. If you are sending emails and you find that they're kind of hit and miss, they're like, one day I have a great idea and I'll send an email and that's great. And then I'll go 2 or 3 weeks and then I'll send an email again. Let's get on a plan. And let me help you take some of the, um, figuring out what to send out, out of your brain and just make it easy for you. Okay, so let's start with number 1. The number 1 is a monthly unboxing, and you can literally do this every single month, and I want you to do this every single month. I want you to build it into your email marketing plan every single month to do a monthly unboxing via email. There's lots of different ways we can do unboxings. We can go live and do an unboxing. We can write a blog and do an unboxing. There are so many ways we can do a story in our, you know, a video story of unboxing the box. Lots of different ways. I also want you to put that unboxing in an email format, and you can literally do this every single month if you have a monthly subscription. You could do this once a quarter when you have a quarterly subscription. It goes to everybody on our list. So our subscribers are gonna get this, our non-subscribers are gonna get this. And, and let's talk through that. So let's talk through what that would look like. So when I do a video unboxing, I'm going live and I'm showing the box. I want you to basically do the same thing, but you're gonna put it in text form. I do like a big picture of the whole box, so everything's in that box. And then I'll do maybe like the main item or the main 2 items. So I'll do a couple different pictures of them in a different setting. So I call it a lifestyle image. So for example, in my January box last month, I had a— the main star of my box was this black and white heart cardigan. And so it doesn't make the greatest picture when it's rolled up and stuffed in a box, or it's folded up and put in the box. So I did the box where you could see the cardigan, the t-shirt, the earrings, the necklace, the bag, everything that was in the box. And then I did a separate picture of the shirt and a cardigan together. With the earrings like a flat lay, and I put a bag with it and some shoes and some jeans so that it's a lifestyle. Like, this is how you would use this item in your lifestyle. So think about your own subscription. Maybe it's a pet subscription and you have treats or toys. Maybe you're— the, the lifestyle picture is the dog chewing on the toy and it's in your hand, or they're laying next to their favorite toy. That would be a lifestyle image. If you have maybe a self-care box, this could be— it could be in the bathroom, maybe the products on the counter and, you know, really clean. My, my bathroom counter isn't clean, by the way. A clean picture of the counter in the bathroom next to like the sink or something. So think about a lifestyle image, like where would you use your product? That's a lifestyle image. So I have a box image and a lifestyle image, and I'm talking through What's in the box. So I'm doing the reveal one by one and I'm putting the products in bold. So when I'm writing through the products, they're in bold print. So if I'm writing a little paragraph about the cardigan, I'll, I'll put black and white cardigan in bold print and then, and then I'll describe it. It's super soft. It has button up, it has pockets, it's, you know, a waist length or whatever. But I put the actual product name in bold. So if someone's skimming your email, They're checking the things that were in the box and they may not read everything, and that's okay. The other thing that I want you to do, and I do this every single month after I do the box opening on the email, then I'm gonna do a sneak peek for the next box. And so I'll, I'll put at the bottom, here's the sneak peek for the February box. And you can either do a call to action to sign up on your waitlist if you're a closed cart, or join now to get the next box. I also like to link the live. So typically I'll do the live unboxing first on my social media pages, and then I'll write the email after that, and I'll link the live in, and I'll just put, wanna, wanna watch me unbox it live? Click here. That'll get them over to my page. That'll get them connecting with me on video, because that's better connection than an email. They'll get to see my face. I'll get to talk about my inspiration. It's a little more in-depth. Than just writing the email. I could— we could send them there, or they could sign up on our waitlist. If we send them to the live, I'm telling them to sign up on the waitlist or to get a box anyway. So it's just gonna be the same thing. So that's what I would put in a monthly box opening. And I want you to do this every month, or if you're bimonthly, do it every other month. If you are quarterly, I would find a way to do this twice. In the quarter. So we do it once as the box reveal, and then I would— I might do it again like the month before, throw back to our January box and just remind them what was in it. Maybe use a couple of different pictures than the, than the first email, and then give them the sneak peek again. Don't forget our April box is coming. Make sure you get signed up so that you can get one of these. So If you're quarterly, I would do this email twice in the quarter. If you're monthly or bimonthly, I would do the unboxing email one time. And that's just a weekly email that you send out. And the other thing is like, I had some extra cardigans left. I linked the cardigan. So if they weren't a subscriber and they just wanted the cardigan, I want you to go ahead and take those off my hands, right? Go ahead and buy those. So I'm selling some product. I'm also selling subscriptions and I'm walking everybody on my list through the unboxing of the monogram box, whether they're a subscriber or not. And then what you could also do at the bottom, you could put, PS, if you're a subscriber, hit reply and let me know your favorite item in this box. Then your subscribers are going to— they already have these things, so they don't need to go sign up on a waitlist and they don't need to go purchase your subscription. So those call to actions won't apply to them. So you could give them a different call to action. That said, hit reply and let me know your favorite item from this box. And then what you're gonna get in your inbox is some more social proof. So you're gonna get comments, you're going to get things that you can use in your social media, and we're actually gonna use those in another email in my 5 email list. So we wanna get those, we wanna capture those every single month. So number 1, do a monthly unboxing. Everybody can do this. If you're not sending emails, I want you to start there. Let's start unboxing in our, in our inbox. Okay, email number 2. I just told you to have them hit reply and share. This is their next week's email. Okay, so first week of the month I can send the unboxing, or whenever that falls with where you want, when you send out your shipment and when you unbox it. And then the very next email I can share subscriber shares, because a lot of people have emailed me back. Usually when the boxes go out, I'll get a DM, I'll get a text, I'll get comments on my posts, on my social media. So I have lots of social proof to, to use. I love sharing pictures and messages and comments from my subscribers. In my text, I have two-way text for my business, and a lot of times they'll send me a picture wearing their items or holding their box, and I'll text back when they send it to me. I'll say, can I use this? Can I share this? And everyone has said, of course. No one has told me not And so I will take those and I'll create an email that is called a subscriber share. So I'll make a Canva graphic or I'll use a picture that they sent, and then I'll use quotes for their words. And I'll just talk about how much my subscribers are loving their boxes. And I mean, this, the goal really with a subscriber share email is just to create excitement and FOMO. The fear of missing out. All the people that are not subscribers that you send this to are going to want to be a subscriber. So we want to, we want to evoke emotion in this email. We want to give them a feeling like what it's like to be a subscriber. It's not about the stuff in this email. It's about the feeling that our subscribers get when they open our box. So that's what I want you to use email number 2 for is subscriber shares. And so you can pull these comments from your messages. If you get— if they're private messages, just ask for permission. If you have public comments on your page, you can use those without permission. So just grab them. It's a public setting anyway. But if you have just words, put it onto a Canva graphic. What I like to do is put a picture of like the full box in the background and kind of fade it out, make the transparency low. And put like a turquoise filter over the top, and then put the words on the top so you can see the words better. But use a couple templates. If you've got the picture of them holding the box, use their picture if it's a good one. But do a subscriber share and share the love in your email. And this is an email you can send every month as well. You're just reminding people about your subscription. Okay, so hey, check out what our subscribers are loving about this month's box. Something like that. You can send that literally every single month. So week 1, I can do an unboxing. Week 2, I can show some subscriber shares, some social proof that people love my subscription. And people that are not subscribers are going to see that and be like, I want to be a part of that. I really want to be a part of that. So, and you can send this out, you could send it 2 ways. You could send it to your entire list because subscribers might then hit reply to and send you some more social proof. So you could send it to them too if you want. You can send it, but I would definitely send it to anyone that's not a subscriber to continue reinforcing what it's like to be a subscriber of your subscription. Okay, let's go to email number 3. So this is another email that you could very easily send out every single month. Okay. And I call it 5 Ways to Use Your Box, and I do this in lots of different ways. We also create a blog around 5 Ways to Use Your Box. You can also create social media, 5 Ways to Use Your Box, and you've got 5 different posts that you can post throughout the month. So I want you to think about all of these. You can do the same thing with the subscriber share email. You're making that graphic for the email. Also post it. On your page. Everything that we're doing here, we can do in multiple places. We want to repurpose this content that we're creating in lots of different ways. So email number 3, 5 ways to use your box. One of the biggest hurdles that we face as subscription box owners is getting our subscribers to consume the contents of the box. They have to consume it, right? They have to use it. Or it's going to sit there and then the next box is going to come and it's going to stack on top, and then they're going to say, I'm not using my subscription, I should probably cancel, I'm wasting my money. So we want to get them to consume the contents of their box on a monthly basis. If they consume the contents, if they use what's in your box, they feel good about their purchases and they continue, and it helps your retention. So to help solve this consumable problem, especially if your product is not consumable, right? And what I'm talking about is like, if your product is like, you use it and throw it away, like the package is done, like something that you eat or some type of like lotion or soap or those kinds of— those are easily consumable because we use them and we need more. Products like my box, the Monogram Box, they're, they're hanging around for a while. We don't use them, we don't use them up. You're not going to use up a bag, you're not going to use up a sweatshirt, you're not going to use up a pair of earrings. But what I need to do is I need to make them pull them out of their box, put them on, find different ways to use their items so that they consume them and they feel good about their purchases. So let's figure out a way that we can do this. So things that I like to do, I like to do a 5 ways to style your t-shirt. That way, if they've got their t-shirt sitting in the bag and they think, oh, my t-shirts are just stacking up on me, let me show you 5 different ways that you can wear it. You're going to get so much use out of it. I'll style it with the cardigan. I'll style it with a jacket. I'll style it with a pair of shorts, different ways. So they know that they're going to get lots of use out of this one t-shirt. It's not just good in the winter. We can use that t-shirt in the summer. We can use that t-shirt with lots of different things that we already have in our closet. And I love to style things with past subscriptions. Okay. So like if I had the cardigan that's in the box this month, it also goes with my December shirt. So I'm gonna pull that December shirt back out and I'm gonna start showing like, hey, this one thing goes with all these other things that you've already gotten. Let's use it, pull it out and use it. Pull out December shirt. Let's wear it with the January cardigan. Anywhere that you can cross-reference using it with another item they've already gotten is a great way to help them consume all the pieces of your box. You can also— I did a great blog. I kind of do like these throwback posts sometimes. I have a lot of the items in my, in my subscriptions, like probably many of you. Do. So I had an old bag one day that was in— not an old bag, but it was a bag probably about 8 months that we had gotten 8 months prior. And at Christmas time, I'd stuck all my, like, food that I was taking over for Christmas dinner to my parents' house in it. I'm like, remember this bag from whatever month it was in? Get it out, put your Christmas gifts, put your food, and use it to haul your stuff over to your Christmas activities, and people are like, oh yeah, I have that bag. Let me go get it. And so it reminds them that they have the things, but it also gets them to get it out of their subscription box. So you can do this on past things. You can also do it on current things. When I think about, say, like a home decor box, 3 ways to decorate your mantle with your January home decor box, 3 different uses for the 12 by 12 picture frame that you got in your January box, and then you can show it on a mantel, you can show it on a table in the, in the entryway of your home, you can show it in a bedroom nightstand. But get them to take that picture frame out of the box and use it. And especially if it's a DIY box, you know, say you have a DIY craft box. The biggest hurdle that we have with DIY boxes is getting people to take time to actually make the things that we send them. If it was a picture frame in a DIY box that they had to paint and put together, you can show them uses around the house. They're gonna be like, oh, I have the perfect spot for that. I can put it in my bedroom. Let me get that out and make that. If they feel like they don't have a use for it or they can't put it somewhere, they're gonna leave it in the box because they're, they're gonna say, I don't have time for that because I don't even know where I would put it. And so you're gonna help them consume it by getting it out and painting it and putting it where they can see it. To see it. So no matter what your box is, find ways to help them use their box. I called this 5 ways to use your box. It could be 3 ways, it could be 4 ways, it could be 3 uses for the new bag that you got in your January subscription box. Whatever it is, show them different ways that they can use the items in their box so that they will consume that. And again, this is something that we can send every single month, because if you have a monthly box, you have different things in that box every month. So we're gonna use it differently, and it doesn't have to be all the pieces. It could just be one thing like, let me show you the one bag and how you can use it. I had a sling bag in one of my boxes a few months ago, and I showed them like 4 different ways to wear this sling bag, and I just did it in an email, and then I also wrote it in a blog, and then I also had 4 social media posts, and it got them looking at that bag and being, oh, well, I can wear this when I go on vacation. I can wear this when I go to the amusement park. I can wear this when I'm going to a soccer game. So I show them the different ways they could use that. That helped them pull it out of that box or out of the closet if they've shoved it in the closet and get some use out of it so that they feel good about the money that they spend with us. So the call to action is not to join any waitlist or not to do anything. We're not selling anything, but the call to action would be to consume the items in the box. Show me how you're using this. And you're going to send this to everybody, even though everybody doesn't have this, because again, you're creating FOMO. You're creating awareness about how good the things are in your subscription box. And you want everybody to see what they're missing out on. And then if you have a couple extras of that sling bag, you throw the link in there. If you, if you want a subscriber and you want to grab a bag, here it is. Make sure the value is in the subscription box. So make sure when you put that product in your shop to sell one-off that it has a higher value, like it has a higher price point, so that our subscribers know that they're getting the best deal. Okay, number 3, 5 ways to use your box. Simple. These are 3 emails. Like, I'm just creating your whole subscription box email marketing plan right here for the month. This is going to be easy for you to, to do. Let's go to number 4. Number 4 is the sneak peek. And yes, you put it in the other email with the unboxing, but I also want to remind them that this is about to come. So I'm going to do an email just with the sneak peek. Okay. And the goal for this is to get your email list excited about the next box or the next several boxes if you have more than one sneak peek that you can show. But I love to get my subscribers excited about what's about to hit their doorstep. And I also love to get my non-subscribers excited and wanting to join. So I'm gonna tease them with the sneak peek, which is usually a pretty good colorful graphic for me. So they're like, ooh, what is that? And then I might also put in that copy what the next 3 months themes are. So I can say, here's our February sneak peek. In March, it's all about this. April, our theme is la la ooh la la leopard, like whatever I want to put, you know, what fun cheesy names I want to put on it. But I could see, I can give them a little taste of what's coming without revealing anything. And they're like, oh, okay, I need to join. And so the call to action to this email is one sneak peek picture, a little bit of the text, join the waitlist or subscribe. If you have an open model, go ahead and get them to subscribe. If you're a closed model, get them to join that waitlist. We need to keep growing that waitlist in between our launches. Okay? So even if your subscription is full, I want you to keep talking about it because if you keep building the anticipation, you keep showing them what's coming, you keep showing them what they're missing out on, when your waitlist opens, you're gonna have no problem filling your spots. So the call to action when you're closed is always to drive them to that waitlist. Keep filling that waitlist funnel full of people ready to subscribe. Okay, email number 5 is behind the scenes, and I love this email. Um, and yes, I gave you 5, there's only 4 weeks in the month, but you switch some of these out if you wanted to, so that it's a little bit different each month. But very easily I can do a behind-the-scenes email every single month of us prepping and packing the subscription boxes. Our audiences love getting sneak peeks and behind the scenes of our businesses. And once a month, all you have to do is just take them along on the journey. Maybe it's you designing the products. Making the products, packaging the products for your box, packaging the box, putting them on the, you know, FedEx truck out the door, stacking them up, printing the shipping labels, all these little behind-the-scenes things people love. And it's also a great way to really let them know a little bit more about what it takes to pack and fulfill these boxes, that there are real people behind the scenes doing this for them. And it's a connection point. And I love doing a behind the scenes email. They're gonna get excited about it. They're gonna be more interested. They're gonna have more buy-in to getting this box cuz it's not just a box that shows up at their door. There's a connection. You've seen, they've seen your processes behind what's, what it takes, and they wanna be a part of that. I don't know if you've ever, when I go on vacation, I like to shop the little local artisan shops, and typically I'll buy things that I can see people making. And here's an example. A couple months ago, I was in Florida, and there was like this little— I don't know if it was like a farmer's market or a little, you know, it was a little pop-up tents all over the area where I was staying at. And so I walked over there and walked through the market and I wasn't really super interested in buying anything. I just was walking out there and checking out, and what I saw was this little earring stand. Y'all know, if y'all know me, I got a ton of earrings. I don't need one more pair of earrings. I sell earrings every day. But there was an earring stand, and she was sitting there making these beaded earrings, and I was so intrigued by the fact that I was gonna buy an earring that she made, and I saw her make them. And so I got 3 pairs of earrings. I don't need another pair of earrings, y'all, but I loved the process. I loved that she handmade this. I loved that I could see her putting this together, and so it made me buy the earrings when I didn't even need the earrings. That's what your subscribers will do if they can see how the process works, even if you don't make your items in the box. Just seeing the process of it coming in and it getting packaged and it shipping out. They're going to want to be a part of that. And so you can do a behind-the-scenes email. You could do it once a month if you wanted to. If you're quarterly, this is a great thing that you could do every month because there's different behind the scenes that you could show them leading up to their next box. And again, your call to action here is to join the waitlist or to get them to be a subscriber. So these are 5 ways. Let's go back through them, go back through them. 1 through 5 really quickly, and then I've got a bonus for you. So number 1, a monthly unboxing. Number 2, a subscriber shares, and it could be multiple shares in one email. Number 3, different ways to use their box. So 5 ways, 3 uses, things like that. Number 4, the sneak peek. So it's a super simple, short email. It's a sneak peek. And number 5 is a behind-the-scenes look at making the subscription box. And these are so easy. Just make a plan, put them on your calendar. You can even write these all out, like literally at once and just schedule them for the month. But here's something even better. Um, I have written swipe files for all 5 of these emails and I would love to give them to you for listening to the podcast today. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a link in the show notes. But also I want you to text me the word email. And if you do that, I will— you all you have to do is give me your email. I'll send them over to you and then you'll have all the swipe files. And I want you to put your words on the swipe files. So definitely use them as a starting point, but make them a little bit more personal to you and your business. But the best thing I know about writing an email, if you have a starting point, your email is— it's better, it's easier to do. So not only have I given you the plan about what to write about, I'm going to give you a swipe file that has an email template for you so you can get started super easy. You can make your email marketing plan super easy, and you can start talking about your subscription box a lot more. I want you to text me at 940-204- (0023), just text me the word email, and I'm gonna send you right over to the page to get that swipe files, and they'll come to your email box. Alright. So if you missed that, if you're out for a walk or a run, just hit the back button on your podcast and listen to that phone number again. Go ahead and text me right now before you forget, and they'll be delivered to your inbox. So let's start talking about our subscription box more, and let's do it in email. All right, I'll see you back here next week. 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.