3 Things to Do Before You Run Paid Ads for Your Subscription Box

Good morning, happy Monday. It's time for Monday Momentum. I put the text reminder, um, number in the chat. If you would like to get the text on Monday mornings before I go live, just the reminder to jump on and join me on Facebook, all you have to do is text me, text me the word Monday to this number right here, and I will shoot you a text in the mornings on Monday mornings before I go live to remind you. If you're watching, let me know that you're here. If you're watching live, if you're watching on the replay, I would love for you to pop in replay as you're watching. Today we're going to talk about 3 things that you can do before you start to run paid ads. I just got back from my mastermind trip out in California and y'all, it was so good. It was so good. I had two— Monday and Tuesday, I had two days where my mastermind members came out to California. We sat around these big tables and we just learned together for two full days. I brought some of my team out to help facilitate the meetings, to help with training, to help with hospitality, and there was so much goodness that we got out of those two full days together. And then also I brought my team in on Wednesday and Thursday so that we could sit down and plan out our entire year together. And so I had just a jam-packed 4 days. I told my team it feels like I just ran coaching week because I literally just talked for 4 days straight. But it was so good to not only get a deeper dive with my mastermind members, the way that they connected, the things that we are working on is really, really great. But it was also great for me as the business owner to have everyone in my remote team together working on the same thing. It's like we are working on this and then we hand it to this person and then it goes to this person and it comes back. But when we were all in that room working on the same thing together, it was really, really great. So we got— we have a lot of amazing things planned for our launch box. Members for our Scale Your Box crew, for the masterminds, for launches. Like, we got so much accomplished. I'm really, really energized coming back to work on this Monday. And also I'm super energized because today we start Scale Your Box. And so for the next 9 weeks, I'll be working with all the Scale Your Box students, going through the course materials and we get to start today. So I'm just, I'm energized and feeling great about the year to come and want to chat with you about this one topic. So when we were in the mastermind, we were, we talked a little bit about, we talked a lot about our paid traffic goals and what we need to be doing all year long for paid traffic. And for some of them, they had not dabbled in paid traffic at all. For some of them, they've been using a lot of paid traffic to drive sales and traffic to their websites. And so as I was thinking about this, you know, I'm super big on organic traffic, but I also use paid traffic in my business every single month. And so I wanted to talk to you today about 3 things that you need to have nailed before we start investing in ads. You can't just say ads are going to fix my problem, ads are going to bring me subscribers, ads are the answer to my struggle bus that I got going on. Okay, like that's just not the answer. What ads are for is to put fuel on what's already working. Okay, so I explained this to them last week about having like logs on a fire. So the logs is your content, okay? The logs are your website, and then you, you light the fire, and that's by having product to sell, having your subscription box. But what ads do is they just throw gas on that fire. So we need to make sure that our structure, our logs are set. We need to make sure our flame is good because before we put the fuel on it. So I want to just talk about 3 simple things that, um, you can do before you start going down the paid traffic road. Okay, so let me jump in the chat. There's so many of you here with me this morning. I'm so grateful. Let me come over and say hi and then I'm going to give you these 3 things. Okay, let me come over to the chat. Good morning. I see Von Tina's here. Von Tina, I'm excited to start Scale Your Box with you this morning. I see Joanne is here. Hi, Joanne. I'm still going to get you on the podcast. I'm going to message you today. You're not getting out of this. I need everybody in the chat to tell Joanne she needs to get over her fear of being on the podcast with me and just do it, because I want to share with all of you some of the great things that Joanne is doing. So we're going to give you this little boost. You're going to get on the podcast with me. I promise it's easy. Good morning, Stephanie. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Lisa. I see more Lisas. Hi, Suzanne. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this. Is it Jayshante? Jayshante? Hopefully. Let me know if that's how you say it or help me say it because I want to make sure I get that right. Good morning. Hi, Carla. Good morning, Tara. Good morning, Angel. Good morning, Denise. Good to see you here. All right. Good morning. Yes, Jayshante. I got it. Okay, so Joanne, you can't get out of this anymore because they're going to hold you accountable. This is one thing that I love about our group is that we hold each other accountable. You have so much to share and we need to hear from you. So I'm— when I get done with this live, I'm going to send you a message and we're going to get it on the schedule to do this week so that we can talk about— with Joanne, we talked— what I saw her post in the group last week was that she had started with one type of subscription and she'd been working on that for a while and wasn't gaining a ton of traction. She quickly pivoted to a new subscription and that one has been growing faster than her first one, like quicker, faster, better. And so I want to talk about it. I want to talk about what she did and I want to share that with all of you so that maybe you'll get inspired by some things that Joanne did. And help you move forward faster. So that's why I want to talk to Joanne. All right. Okay, let's get into today's topic of conversation. 3 things that you need to be doing that you need to get nailed before you start to invest in ad spend. Okay. And the first one that I want to talk about, and I know it seems simple, but it's not that simple. Okay. Number 1, I need you to clearly define your niche. Okay, let me take this little banner off because I feel like it's distracting me. Clearly define your niche. And what I mean is that you've got to know who you're for. And I talk about this a lot. This is not the first time that you've heard this from me, but there are just countless examples inside Launch Your Box that have found long-term success by by being very specific. In our brains, we think if we can be more broad, we will attract more people because there's a bigger pool of people to find. But when we can niche down, we're able to find our person easier. We will spend less money on paid traffic if we have niched down and are clearly defined who we're for. I'm going to give you a couple examples. I want to talk about Julie with the Pilot Wives Club. I did a podcast with Julie. It is episode 96. Write that down. Episode 96 on the Launch Your Box podcast. I want you to listen to that today just while you're working. Throw your AirPods, AirPods in and just listen. She changed direction and this might be exactly what Joanne did. I haven't talked to her yet. And niched down, and she went to 400 subscribers in 9 months, surpassing what she tried to do the first time, surpassing everything. She niched down and she was able to grow to 400 subscribers like this. Okay, I need you to niche down. I need you to stop trying to be for everyone. If you're for moms, What kind of moms? Moms of littles, moms of teenagers, moms that work, moms that stay at home. What kind of moms are you for? If you're self-care, this is one I see a lot. I have a self-care box. Okay, a self-care for who? We have to talk to one person. Self-care for women over 40, self-care for women with stressful careers. Self-care for entrepreneurs, self-care for— who is it for? Because we have to be able to speak to that person. And if we're self-care for all women, we don't know how to talk to that person. So attracting the right person is going to be very, very important. Okay, so I want you to go listen to episode 96 with Julie, how she niched down and went deeper, further, faster. Okay. The other, the other podcast, if you love listening to podcasts, I'm trying to think and maybe my team can look for me. I can't remember what episode it's on, but I'm interviewing Tracy Pounds and it might have been a live and not an interview, but Tracy Pounds, who's also in my mastermind, got to 1,000 subscribers in in less than a year by knowing exactly who she was for. And she does this napkinizing where she does projects and puts napkins. And when she got super specific, it's not all projects, it's not always to create a project, it's with napkins. And she got super specific about who she was for and what kind of person that she goes for, she was able to draw that. And here's the other thing, I see Michelle says I'm multi-passionate. So is Tracy. She also has a fabric club. Okay, so she does multiple things, but she's very specific about who these are for and speaks to that person. Okay, so when you have niched down and it's a clear person that you're talking to, your ads are going to cost less They're going to drive traffic further and you're going to be able to put more money in there and see the results. When we're for everyone, it takes a lot of money on Facebook ads to really, to really come down in cost. So I want to make sure that we know who we're for and we've niched down so that we can speak to that person. Thank you, Marilyn. She said episode 11 has Tracy's story in it. Okay, so Jot those two down. Episode 11, Episode 96. I want you to be inspired by these ladies. I want you to think about it in your industry, in your category, and figure out, are you niched down? It's a box check, yes or no. And could you niche down? Are— sometimes we can be too niche. So I don't want you to go so deep into the niche that we have such a small pool of people. I want you to find the middle of that. The middle of that funnel. The funnel is big on the top side, that's really broad. The funnel is really narrow on the bottom side, that might be too specific. We want to find the sweet spot in the middle of that funnel. Okay, so who am I for? That's what I want you to think about, and I want you to niche down. If you're not niched down, I don't even want you worrying about running ads because we've got to figure that out so our ads can be the most effective. Okay. Number 2, your copy needs to be clear and conversational. Okay. And your copy, it means all the words, all the words that you put out there. Here's what I see that people struggle with. If you have to explain and maybe overexplain what your box is and who it's for all the time, it's not clear. We're not clear about it. If I have to read every single word on your sales page or every single word in your post or your ad to understand what your box is and who it's for, it's not clear enough. If I can't look at an image of your box and know what it is and if it's right for me, you've probably lost me in your ad. Okay, so I need you to get super clear on the words, on the images of who you're for. So when you think about your copy that you have on your website, if we're going to send people over to your website, we need to be super clear about what it is and who it's for. If I, if I asked you, anybody watching, If I asked you, Antoinette, who is your box? What is your box and who is it for? If you stumble and give me a long explanation, then it's not clear enough. If you can say, Sarah, my box is for women, it has one personalized monogram item in it every single month. People that love monograms love my subscription box. You can give me a clear, concise answer to that. Good. If you're going to have to overexplain it to me and, and spin around, it's not clear enough. We got to get clear. And what happens when we're not super clear? Our messaging is not clear. Our words, our copy is not clear in our ads. It's not clear on our website. And so people struggle to figure out what is actually in our box and who it's for. And so they'll bounce. You're going to spend all this money to put out ads out there to your perfect person. But if it's not clear by just their scroll, it does no good. We're wasting our money. So we got to be clear. My new friend, Jay Shantay, says, should we— should most of the photo content be the box or of the people with the products inside? I definitely think if you have a subscription box, a box needs to be in your images. I love to do a complete image of all the items in my box. Sometimes that's me holding it with a monogrammed item on because I'm showing them the kind of person that this is for with my box. I want to make sure that you've got some gallery images on your sales page when people go click from an ad to your page, is it clear what they're gonna get? You have to realize that people that would see an ad from you might not have ever seen anything from you before. So how can you explain to them who you are and what you do in both your copy and your image if they saw you for the very first time? Would they know what you do? It's not someone that follows you, that watches everything you do. It's clear to them what you do. Think about it from blind— a blind view. Can someone outside your circle, outside your customer base, look at your ad, look at your website, and know exactly what you do and who it's for? And if not, we got work to do. We got to make it crystal clear. Everything that we do on our social media, on our website, needs to be— not, not necessarily social media because you want to talk as if your subscribers were there. But if we're going to run an ad to it, we got to make sure that someone that would see that ad for the first time understands who you are and what you do. And, and that's— it's simple. It needs to be conversational. It needs to be clear. It needs to reflect who you are as a business and a brand. and it needs to be who you're for in a clear and concise way. And I think that goes back to number 1. If we're for all people, we tend to explain, oh, I'm for this person and I'm for this person and I'm for this person and I'm for this person. I think it was, and I don't remember where this was, but I think it was during a box opening inside the membership last month. And I've used this example before because it's a great example, but it was a journaling box. And I love the box. I love the box. But when she told me who she's for, she was for teenagers and women. And I think when you're for— yes, you can do journaling as a teenager, and yes, you can do journaling as an adult. But the problem was, if I'm an adult and I see that this would also— this would be great for teenagers, I might not think that this is exactly for me. I'm over 40. I don't know that it would relate to me the same thing as it would my 14-year-old. And so if we can have messaging that would be for the women and for the teenagers, that looks different, and we need to speak that way to people. Okay. And that was the feedback that I gave her, is that we could probably do better if we focused either on the teens or the women, because then our messaging would be super clear. All right, so number 1, we got to clearly define our niche. And number 2, we have to be clear about what we do and who we're for in a way that we don't have to explain it to people. Okay, if you've got those 2, you're, you're check, check, check. Okay, number 3, if we're going to send traffic from paid ads over to our site, we have to have an effective way to capture people once they get to our site. Okay. So I don't want to just, you know, not everybody that clicks your ad to go to your site is going to sign up to be a subscriber or they're going to buy a thing or whatever it is. We know we have to nurture them. So how do we get them on a list so they can hear from us more often and then we can convert them to being a subscriber? If this is our first, if that's their first introduction to us, We're probably not going to convert them right away, and that's okay. That's why we run ads for traffic versus conversions, because we just need to get in front of more people, but we have to have a way to capture them. One of the best ways that we can do that is with a pop-up on our site, an effective pop-up, and that is something that we are going to talk about in Launch Your Box this week for our training. It's called Perfecting Your Pop-up. And we're going to go through different pop-up offers. We're going to go through the setup of the pop-up. We're going to talk about where it should come up, how long it should be there, what pages it should be on, how many seconds before we put it in front of their face. So that's our training this month inside Launch Your Box. But it tied very heavily to this conversation. So I wanted to bring this up. It does us no good to pay money to get people to go to our site if we can't capture them on an email list to nurture them. You know, we talk about people making a commitment to us, and I think somebody in the mastermind said this the other day. It might have been Heather while we were in the mastermind, but she said it's like going out on a date. Someone coming to your website is your first date. So we need to make sure that we make a good first impression. That's with our understanding our niche and being clear about who we are. And then we can't automatically just ask them to marry us on that first date. And that would be making a commitment to us by giving us their credit card for a subscription every single month. So we can't just on our first date— some people might say yes and be a subscriber if they like what they see, if we're clear and concise about what we are and who we're for. But some people need to get to know us. They need a second date, a third date. A lot of times people need 7 dates before they're going to convert with us. So if they go to our site through a paid ad and they bounce off and we, we might not ever see them again. Okay, how can we get their phone number, get their digits? You know, back when I dated, you kind of have your digits. Okay, how do we get their digits so that we can follow up with them, so that we can nurture them, so they can get to know us, so they can start to trust us? So that they then want to make a commitment to us by giving us their credit card every single month. And that's by having, um, some opt-ins on our website. A pop-up is an easy one that everybody can use. And so we're going to dig in deeper with some pop-up training this month inside, um, Launch Your Box. So those are the 3 things: clearly define your niche, be clear and concise, about your copy, and if you have to explain and over-explain, you're not clear enough. And then how do we capture them? How do we get their digits so that we can follow up with them and, and they can get to know, like, and trust us? That's what we're talking about. And if you don't have these 3 things in place, don't even think about doing paid ads. Our work is in these 3 things because you're just going to be throwing money away. You're going to get them to their— your site. They're not going to understand what this box is and who it's for, and they're going to bounce. And if there's no way that we can capture them with anything else, we may never see them again. So stop throwing money away by doing that. Let's streamline our efforts so that our money is worth it. We're paying for good solid leads because we're clear and concise. We're paying so that we can follow up and eventually convert somebody. We're not just paying money to pay money. Ads are the gas to our fire. So let's build a solid wood stack. Let's get a nice flame burning and then let's throw gas on it with our paid traffic. Okay, so that's, that's the goal for this week. This is your Monday Momentum. If you're not a member of Launch Your Box, you can join us. Just go over to launchyourbox.com, sign up. Our training starts Wednesday and we're going to go through pop-ups really, really specifically this month. Tech Talks is all about setting up your pop-up, how to do it, and also where, where your page should be popping up and what pages you shouldn't have a pop-up on. We're going to learn if you already have a pop-up, is it effective? What do your numbers look like? We're going to check your data. I'm going to show you how to check it. What is a good number so that you could consistently check it and know if your pop-up is converting the way it should be or if we need to change it out and do a new pop-up. All right. That's what I got for you this morning. Have a great week. And members, I'll see you on Wednesday. Scale Your Box. I'll see you in a few hours. Have a good day.