169: How a One Time Holiday Box Can Validate Your Subscription Box Idea

What if you could launch a one-time product to help you validate your subscription box idea? Well, it's the perfect time of year to do that. Let's talk about curating a one-time holiday box and getting your subscription box dreams off the ground. Come 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 a topic that is near and dear to me, and maybe you've been sitting on the sidelines listening, watching, and waiting to launch your subscription box. But now is actually the time to pull together a carefully created one-time box to help you solidify your subscription box concept. And I want to talk about that in depth today on the podcast because this is something that I have done since the beginning of my subscription box as an add-on. But as I have taught this inside our community, I'm seeing so many subscription box hopefuls start with a one-time holiday box. It validates what they want to do for their subscription box. They learn a lot along the way. And they're able to launch their subscription box with a lot more knowledge than they started with. So why now is the first question I want to answer. We're going into really the next 4 months of the year is the highest consumer spending of the entire year. And in fact, most retail and e-commerce businesses will do 50% of their entire year's revenue over these next 4 months. So this is really the best time to test out your ideas and with a one-time box. So all you have to do is curate this one-time box, launch it, and see if that's going to give you the feedback that you need to go full force into your subscription box. Now, during this holiday period that we're about to step into, people are really at a point where they're more likely to spend spend more money on items for others, and they're really looking for something fun, something unique, something special, and really something that stands out. And your holiday box can be the perfect, most thoughtful gift for them to figure this out. Selling this one-time box versus a subscription in this time, it does a couple things. It has a lower commitment for our customers. So when someone signs up for a subscription, they're making a commitment to us. They're saying, here's my credit card. I want you to charge it every single month. I know, like, and trust you, and I want this every single month. That's challenging as a brand new business. So selling this one-time box first really has a lower commitment for your customers, for your audience. This also helps you get your foot in the door. If you can sell them a one-time box, which has a lower barrier, a lower acquisition cost, than selling a subscription, you can get your foot in the door and then all you have to do is nurture them into being a subscriber. So it's really the perfect combination to get started. And we're in this perfect time period to do that because people are spending, they're spending a lot on gifts and a one-time holiday box is the perfect gift inside your niche. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how we're going to curate the perfect holiday box. So hopefully you've gone through my 6 in 60 workshop where we lay out what the first 6 months or the next 6 months of your subscription can look like. So I want you to think about this curated holiday box as the same type of box. It's going to be very similar to your subscription. It's going to have the same types of products in there. Because it's for the same customer. We don't want to make it completely different or different in too many ways because the goal is to sell this box that is so similar to your subscription. They're going to want it every single month. So we've got to keep that in mind. The other thing I want you to think about when we're curating this box is will they receive it before the holiday or is this something that will be gifted at the holiday? So I know a lot of people in the crafting space put together a holiday box that is holiday themed and they ship it out, say, in October, early November, so that someone has time to craft or make whatever is inside the box. So I want you to think about that. But I also want you to think about this one-time box as being given at Christmas. So if someone's going to buy a one-time box for me, they're going to gift it on Christmas Day. They're going to wrap it, put it under the tree. And so it needs to not be holiday themed. I don't want to have a bunch of Christmas-themed items, a bunch of red and green items in there because they're gifting it on Christmas Day. So this needs to be more of an everyday theme for me. So I want you to think about both. Will you create a box that's a holiday Christmas theme that will go out before the holiday, or will you create a box that is gifted on the holiday and needs to be more of an everyday theme? So for my boxes, I'm going to give you an example. I do a holiday box every year, and I have done it probably since the first or maybe the second year of having my subscription. So really, you can do this. I'm talking about doing this before you start your subscription, but you can really do this each year to grab additional revenue from your subscriber base, from your audience base every year like I do. But I want to talk to you about what I put in this box so you have a really good understanding of how to curate this box for you. Subscription, if you're familiar with it, is called the Monogram Box. We do graphic tees, we do apparel like t-shirts, cardigans, kimonos, sweatshirts, any— lots of different apparel. We sometimes have pajamas and slippers and things like that. We do a lot of totes, so we do totes of all kinds. This could be like a big beach tote. It could be more of a purse tote. It could be crossbody bags. We do all kinds of different bags. I do a lot of drinkware, so mugs, tumblers, water bottles, things like that, and lots of accessories, meaning earrings, bracelets, necklaces, keychains, things like that in our accessory line. So that's really the gist of my subscription box, and I'm going to treat this holiday box exactly the same. So this box, knowing they're going to get it in December, I curate a box that would be perfect for my ideal customer in December going into January. So that's probably going to be something for cold weather, some apparel for cold weather. It could be a long sleeve tee, a sweatshirt, a hoodie, a cardigan, something like that. Then I'm going to match things with it. What kind of bag will they be carrying in the winter? Usually it's a bigger bag than a smaller bag because we're taking more stuff with us. We might have our gloves or our scarf or our beanie that we have to throw in our bag. So I think about that, and what other things do I want to accessorize this sweatshirt, cardigan, hoodie, whatever with this. Could be earrings, bracelet, it could be any of those. So I'm creating a subscription box that will be a gift for someone on Christmas Day. It has no Christmas theme to that. I leave my Christmas theme box to my November box every year because they'll get it in November and they have a good full month to wear it and use all the Christmas themes. This box for me is the same as my subscription as far as product-wise, but a different theme, a different color palette, and different products. So it's not exact— it's not my December box, but it's an additional box exactly, exactly like I would curate every single month. So I just think of this as my 13th box of the year. So I'm just creating a 13th box because my subscribers will buy it. And for all you new people that don't have subscribers where you want to create a holiday box to validate this idea, this is a way to get the products in there that you want to put in your subscription box eventually and really validate your idea. So you want it to be similar to your subscription box idea. Okay, now this is really your opportunity to get it right. Okay, we need to get it right with the products, so you need to really think about making this the best box that you can. We need to get it right with the quality. If people get this one-time box and has really low quality products in there, they're never going to subscribe. We need to get it right with the packaging. It doesn't mean you need a fully customizable box, custom box for this, but we need to get it right with the packaging for this box. And we need to get it right with creating an experience. We talk about this a lot in Launch Your Box, but everything needs to go together. It doesn't— it can't be random. It can't just be a box of stuff. There has to be a purpose behind the items that you're putting in your box. So your curation has to It has to be right. We have one opportunity to make a good first impression, and your first impression will be with this box, all right? So we're gonna sit down and really spend some time curating it. Now, after we've decided we're going to, we've curated the perfect idea, we've got it together, we've priced it, we know all the things, we need to talk about selling this holiday box, because at this point, you're not selling a subscription box. Or, and you might not even be selling any products. If you're selling products right now, you have a, have a leg up because you're selling some products. You have an idea of how that works. You might be selling a ton of products, but hopefully you've been audience building through this stage because you've got to have someone to sell to. You hopefully have been growing your following, and hopefully you've been growing your email list. If you haven't been doing any of that, You have to do that before you can sell anything. That's why we talk about it so much. You have to have somebody to sell to. You can't just make this one-time box and think because you made it, people are going to show up and buy it. You have to have been building an audience. So if you haven't been doing it, today is the day we need to start. Okay, here's what I want you to do in preparation for selling this holiday box. I want you to build anticipation for it. Okay, and that could be in many different forms. You could do save the date, our holiday box is coming. You could do get on the waitlist and build a list around the holiday box coming out. You could do some countdowns, coming soon posts. You could do some sneak peeks, but I really want you to build some anticipation. Don't just lob it out there on the day you launch it. We need to be talking about it ahead of time. Another way that you can really build some buy-in for this upcoming launch you're going to do is really engage your audience in the whole process. You can do that with like polls, or would you rather see this or that, maybe some behind the scenes of prepping for this box. Really any interactive content for your audience is going to be great with this because you want them to be bought into what you're doing. Just lobbing something out there the day you're going to sell it, it really, it can fall flat. And so I really want you to talk about it, I want you to build anticipation, and I really want you to engage in the whole process with your audience. Now when it comes down to selling, if you sell products regularly, you know how to do this, but I really want you to plan a full-blown launch for selling your holiday box. And you can do this much like the launch strategy that I lay out for you inside Launch Your Box. I lay out the social media, doing some lives, all the emails and potentially running some ads for that. There's a plan for all of that inside the training library in the Launch Your Box membership. So I really want you to plan a launch around this, and I want you to do it in a short window like we do launches, so that you don't have to feel like you're selling all the time and you're able to create some urgency, some scarcity, and some exclusivity with launching this one-time holiday box. And you've got to go all in on this. You can do anything for a week. I'm laying out the plan for you if you're a member of Launch Your Box. I'm helping you with the whole process. You've got to go all in and selling this. You got to give it your all. You can't halfway do this because you want to have results from this, because that's going to propel you into the new year to actually start your subscription. Let's talk about preorders next. Because especially at your stage, being brand new to this, a preorder is going to be great for you. It's going to help you solidify your numbers. I also do preorders when I go to sell my holiday box because it helps me understand how much product I'm actually going to need for this. It's not like my subscription that I know the numbers month after month. I plan that a year in advance. We're good to go. We're rocking and rolling. It's not like that. This is different. And sometimes I have data to go off of. I know what I've sold last year and the year before and the year before. So I have some data, but you don't. Preorders are really great, especially when you're at this new stage. But I don't want you to get discouraged if you don't have a lot of preorders because people have to trust you taking their money up front and then delivering a box at a later date. And if they've never purchased from you, there's a trust factor you're going to have to build with them. But let's talk about how, let's talk about how my preorders work. Okay, so I put together my box theme, my curation, I go through the products I want and I build a campaign out for the preorder. I do the preorder for 1 week. This is the launch. Okay. And this is why a shorter period of launching this is going to be better because you can go all in. You can create the urgency and the scarcity, and you can give people a reason to buy in a short window. I do the preorder in October, okay? And I'm very transparent about it's not going to ship until the first week of December. So you have to be very clear and transparent about what this is and when they're going to receive it. I do the launch for the preorder in October, and I get— I treat it just like a subscription box launch. I do all the launch activities for it. And I take all the preorders. Then when the preorders close, I, I assess how many orders I have and I typically, depending on what the product is, I will order 30 to 50% more than the orders I took on the preorder. Because here's the thing. I know people wait till the last minute. I know that not everyone's prepared to buy Christmas gifts in October. But I also can get a really good idea of if they're excited about it and how much product I'm going to need. So don't just order what preorders have come in. I want you to increase that because we're going to sell those boxes later. But this is going to give you an idea of products and then you can place your order for those products. So you don't have to figure out all those numbers up front. I do the preorders, I order the product. The product is coming in usually mid-November. We're getting everything personalized because again, mine's the monogram box. We're getting everything personalized and prepped. And then what we have left, we show up and sell at the end of November and early December. And we always sell out of these boxes that we have left. So that's the plan I want you to do. Take the preorders, order 30 to 50% more than your preorders. Order your product, get everything ready to ship, and then what you have left, I want you to continue to sell at a later date. But that preorder 1-week launch period is very important for your marketing strategy. We can't just say preorders are open in October and let the whole month of October you take preorders. There's no urgency, there's no reason to buy, there's no scarcity, and you can't physically sell something all month long every single day. That's just— you're going to be burnt out, your audience is going to be burnt out. And that's why the launch period is very important in here. Now you've got your orders out, and here's what I love about this. This process of selling a one-time box is great for new subscription box owners because you get to go through a launch like I just described on a smaller scale. You get to curate this very first box, order the products, order the products, and go through the marketing of the box. And then you also get to fulfill and ship the box. So this is a one-time level before you actually start your subscription. You're going to learn a ton about this process just by launching this one-time box. The boxes go out, and I want you to gather feedback from those purchasers after the holidays. So after they— the boxes are out after the holidays when they are gifted, I want you to send an email Tell me how we did. Tell us how we did. Send an email. This was our very first box. We are thinking about starting a subscription box in the new year. Tell us how we did. Create a little poll, make it interactive, give them a 20% off coupon for filling out the form, whatever the survey that you send. But we need their feedback. Gathering their feedback is so important for the future of your subscription box. You could even then offer a special deal for all those one-time box purchasers who sign up for the subscription box in the new year. So I want you to think about that, but we need to analyze what we just did. We need to analyze our systems and processes. We need to get feedback from the experience that our subscribers received, and then we need to find out if they would want a box like that on a monthly basis. And you get to do that because you created a whole experience with your one-time box. Now, many of my students have shifted their entire businesses from successful one-time box offers to subscriptions and recurring revenue because they had proof of concept before turning in— turning it into a subscription box. Let's talk about Christy from Christy's Craft Room. She started her business selling one-off kits month after month, hundreds and hundreds of kits every single month she would sell. But the problem is she never knew how much product she needed and how many boxes would sell from month to month. Some months she would sell 500, some months she would sell 300. Now she has over 1,000 monthly subscribers because she turned that one-time product concept into a subscription box. She knows what she needs every single month. Let's talk about Nicole from the G-Pig Box. Nicole joined Launch Your Box in, I think it was in October of the year she joined. She launched her one-time holiday box like right away, and she sold hundreds of that guinea pig box, that one-time box. And that propelled her to start her subscription right away in the new year with hundreds of subscribers. And within that first year, she hit over 1,000 Guinea Pig Box subscribers. Let me give you an example of Stacy. So Stacy from Wilshire Collections, she has multiple subscriptions at this point, but she just launched a brand new throw blanket offer as a one-time offer, one-time blanket, and she really wanted to test and see if it was a viable option for a quarterly subscription. She sold out of, I want to say, 400 or 500 throw blankets within hours, and now she's offering that as a quarterly subscription. So testing your offer with a one-time purchase is a great way to do that. Business is all about testing and trying, and this right now is a golden opportunity for you to do that at the perfect time of year where people are buying and gifting, and your one-time box could be the perfect solution to their gift-giving problems. I've got this great new free resource to help you curate a box experience for your subscribers, so I put it in the show notes today so you can grab a link. It's free. We'll send it right over to your inbox. But I want you to think about this. If you've been sitting on the sidelines waiting and trying to get the perfect opportunity to start your subscription box, I'm telling you, this is your perfect opportunity right now to launch a one-time box and learn so much about your future subscription box business. Business. So thank you for listening, and go get your holiday box ready. It's your time now. Thanks for joining us on the Launch Your Box podcast. If you're looking to grow your audience, head over to launchyourbox.com and grab the 10 steps to help you start building your audience guide. It's packed with practical tips to help you connect with your future subscribers. Until next time, keep launching and growing on subscription box journey.