From 18 Subscribers to Debt-Free College - How She Used Ads and Data to Grow Her Subscription Box

What if one decision could completely change how you grow your subscription box without launching, without hustling harder, or without guessing your way through it? In today's episode, I'm sitting down with Lauren Jacobs from The Cheerful Baker, and she's sharing the exact shift that helped her stop relying on gut feelings and start growing with confidence. She shares what happened when she stopped guessing, trusted the process, and made one small shift that led to a huge breakthrough with her subscription growth. If you've ever felt stuck, unsure, or hesitant to spend money to grow, this episode might completely change how you see your business.

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 I have a returning guest, and once you hear her voice, you're going to know who I'm talking to if you've listened to The Laundry Box Podcast before. But I have Lauren Jacobs here from The Cheerful Baker, and we're— I asked her to come back because there's been this huge kind of epiphany with her and her business in a couple different ways. And so I asked her to come back. One, we need an update on what's going on, and two, I want her to share what she's been doing with you because because it's made a big difference in her business. It's made a big difference in her personal life. And I want you to hear that from her. So Lauren, welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. Me too. Thank you. Why don't we start for anyone that maybe hasn't heard your previous episode? Why don't we give them a little background on you, how the Cheerful Baker Box started and your little stint on the Christmas Cookie Challenge on the Food Network. Okay.

Okay. So I started decorating cookies. We'll make this part short and sweet. Probably 10 years ago because I'm artistic and I thought that it would be fun. And through doing this, I was contacted by someone at the Food Network who saw me on Instagram and asked me if I would like to be a contestant on the Christmas Cookie Challenge, which is still crazy when I say that. And so I was able to do that, which was fantastic. But when I was preparing for that, I was selling cookies. I was doing classes. I was selling cookie cutters. And I thought, you know, I have one son. I have two children, one that was getting ready to go to college. And I thought maybe I could harness this national spotlight to grow my business. And I had a friend who had a subscription box who was in your program. And so I knew about that and I started thinking, you know, maybe I could do that. I know how to make cookie cutters. I know how to teach classes. I know how to make things look pretty, you know, with the box. And I thought, I kind of feel like I have all these skills to be able to do this. And I was looking for something and I thought this would enable me to get in front of you know, people everywhere, not just in Kentucky. And so she gave me this little booklet that she had because this was a while ago and I read through it in just a few days. And I think it was, it took me about 3 days after I got into your program because I got into, it was a waitlist, but I got in pretty quickly, which was good. And it didn't take me long at all to launch my first box. And I did everything wrong. The payments were terrible. They didn't come out. They double charged people. The box was way too complicated. I mean, I look back now and it's funny, but I just did it and I thought, we're just going to figure it out on the way. And what I love to share with people, because I think about how amazing this is all the time, I had a goal of a certain dollar amount that I wanted to make when my son went to college. And, you know, Sarah, it was almost, it was almost like within $10 or $20. What I made from my subscription boxes is what his tuition was. I mean, it was incredible. I never, I'll never forget that moment when those payments came through and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's going to pay for the tuition. And although I'm very blessed, my husband has a great job and we could do that, I did it.

You did.

And that was a great feeling. I did it and it took the pressure off my husband and I just felt really good about that. So it is truly the, the greatest blessing of my life.

Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to give a little like Cliff Notes version just so that everyone's with me on this. So you get selected to be on the Food Network, the Christmas Cookie Challenge. You did not have a subscription box. You were just cookie decorating locally at that time, right? And you're like, how do I take this exposure and turn it into something that I can— I can't make cookies for everybody on the planet. I can't ship cookies across the country, and I need to be able to have something that I can start selling. And so you took your exposure from the Food Network and you decided to make a cookie cutter subscription box. You weren't having to decorate everything. You could decorate one set, teach your, your subscribers how to do that using your cookie cutters. And you started with that— do I remember correctly, was that 18 subscribers that you started? Okay, I'm impressed that you remember that.

That's right, 18 subscribers. And when I got those 18, I'm like, I have made it. I love it.

Okay, so then we're going along and, um, we've got 18 subscribers, and I remember that the The road to your first 100 subscribers wasn't as easy. We thought Food Network was going to bring all these people to us and that's not really what happened. It gave you some expert authority and I encourage you to use that as you continue this journey. But then, you know, you started working the process, working the plan inside Launch Your Box. You got to your first 100 subscribers and then you continued on. Something changed for you just a few months ago, like, just— excuse me— just in the fall, you had a little baby launch, a little semi-launch. But something happened during this launch in the fall, and that's what I wanted to talk to you about today, because I think it's so important for our members and our audience to see what's working for different people, and then how can I take and implement that for my own business? So talk to me, we're back in August, you're prepping for a launch. Talk to me about what's going on.

Well, I really wasn't prepping for a launch. I really wasn't. My launch was going to be later in the fall because generally cookie decorators, it's, it's big in the fall, right? Everybody's making Christmas cookies, Halloween cookies. So I had created this set, which I thought was adorable. It was a farm set with farm animals because I'm a huge animal lover. So I loved it, but I wasn't sure it was going to be one of those mainstream things. And so I thought, you know, should I, should I do ads on this? Should I not? And the timing. And so I was leaning towards not because I thought nobody, nobody's going to niche down.

You're thinking it's not for the masses.

I thought, you know, I love I love animals, but if people don't love farm, I just didn't think it was going to be quite as popular. But you had just done a training on ads. So I thought, okay, I'll, I'll try that. Well, also during this time, I started thinking I need to figure out who my customer is because that, that is one thing that has always been tricky for me. You know, is it someone who just does it for fun? Is it someone who owns a business? And so I figured out finally a way to do that. And so what I did is I did a survey and I sent it out to my subscribers and it was really short and they were— a lot of them filled it out, which was wonderful. And then I also, because I've been doing this for almost 4 years, I had data of where my subscribers lived and how long they subscribed. And what I did is I put all that information into ChatGPT.

So you put their demographics and then you put their survey results and all that information into ChatGPT. Okay.

Yes. And I didn't just do their demographics. I just uploaded my subscriber list, which had that information in there because I need— because I am not a survey techie. In-the-weeds kind of person. So I just uploaded it all and I said, I need to know my— who my perfect customer is. And it was amazing, the results. I could not believe it. ChatGPT looked at all this information, told me the age range, where they lived, you know, whether they were— had a business. I mean, incredible information. So finally I knew who my ideal customer was.

Okay.

So I used that information with what you taught about ads.

Yep.

And I knew a little bit about ads, but not a lot. But I was kind of like you. I had someone that used to do ads for me and she was, she was fantastic. Yeah. But I thought, this is my money. I need to know how to do this. Yeah. I need to be more comfortable with with doing this. So I did your training and I paired that with the little bit of knowledge that I had. And I put, you know, I took pictures and videos of that farm set and I put it out there and it exploded. I could not, I could not believe it. But it didn't explode right away. It was incremental explosion.

Okay.

It started doing well. Well, then I knew to go in and adjust, you know, yeah, optimize. I did that. I had— I started with more money than I had ever started with. Okay. And I think the best tip, Sarah, that I, that I can remember— I mean, there were so many good tips in that training, but the one thing I remember, and I don't know if it was in that training or a previous one, was look at what your acquisition cost is, figure out how many new subscribers you want to get, and that is what your budget is. Yeah.

Let's talk about that for a minute because I want everyone listening to, to just take this little gold nugget right here and listen and really be able to apply that. So here's the problem that I see, and I saw it in myself as well as I was running ads. I wasn't able to manage my expectation of what these ads weren't going to do without understanding the data. So what Lauren just said was I told her And this was true. Like, what is it costing for you to get a subscriber? So in our mind, and I'm just going to use just a rough number, I'm like, I'm spending $100 a day and I'm getting 2 subscribers a day and it just feels like I'm failing. Okay. So if I go in and I look at my acquisition cost for those subscribers, it might say that it's costing me $44 to get a subscriber. Now you might think, well, that's a lot of money, Sarah. It is. But the data also tells me that when I get a subscriber, on average, that they stay for 17.4 months. So while it's taking all my profit in month 1, I'm going to start making profits in month 2 and 3 and on another 16 months. So now I'm not so scared to acquire a customer at $44. Now, at $44 and I'm spending $100 a day, yeah, I'm only going to get 2 subscribers a day. That's what the data tells me. And that's in my mind, I'm like, I should be getting 5 subscribers a day, right, Lauren? Like, and so that wasn't realistic. So then I felt like my ads were failing. Then I felt like I wasn't doing something right. But once I saw the truth that it was costing $44 for a new subscriber, all I had to do was say, Well, how many subscribers a day do I want? Do I want 5? Okay, let's spend $250 a day. And when that changed for me and I started seeing 4, 5, 7, 8 subscribers a day, I was like, oh, all I needed to do was to spend more money. And it was a huge trigger point for me because I was under the expectation that $100 a day was a lot of money, and it is a lot of money, but it wasn't getting me the results that I needed to grow. Because while I'm getting 2 subscribers a day, I'm probably also getting 3 cancellations a day. And so I was still at the end of the month still down, and then next month I'm still down. So I'm feeling like I'm not getting anywhere. And so now spending $200 a day, I'm taking care of the cancellations and I'm also growing on a regular basis without launching, without stressing. I know they're going to pay me for 17 months. And those numbers, that data doesn't lie to you like our feelings lie to us, right?

Yes, I am. Listen, I am the most feeling person you will ever meet in your life.

Two of us, both of us, we're number one and number two.

And the data, looking at the data is, is life-changing. It is. It is because it takes all that out. You know, there's still fear when you're— when you're spending money, but you have to look back and go, okay, you know, what has the past shown me? And if you're getting started and you don't have as much of a past to look at, you have to think about— well, that's one thing that's great about Launch Your Box is you hear the stories of everybody. And so you use the collective information from your peer group to realize, oh, you know, maybe you can get good information. Maybe this is a good place for me to start. Maybe this is a good amount for me to spend. But then the great thing about running ads too, even if you don't spend a lot in the beginning, is that Facebook begins to learn who to give your information to. And another thing that I did that I think because I got 80-some subscribers from that campaign. It was, it was incredible. But another thing that was super helpful is you talked about in that training 3 different types of ads. One was a short and sweet ad. One was a— I don't remember right now. It's, it's— I have it written down downstairs.

The medium length. And the other one was a long-form copy.

Yeah, I'm not a copywriter. I mean, I'm an artist. I don't love to write, but that was so helpful to me because you created that ChatGPT for ads where you could just— or maybe it wasn't for ads, but I just put the information that you gave us short and sweet. I said, look at this short and sweet ad that you had done. I put ChatGPT. Look at who my ideal customer is. Here's what I'm trying to sell, and I want you to come up with the ad copy for me. And that's exactly what I plugged into Facebook. And it worked. I mean, it worked great. And then I would also look at if you run ads in Facebook, you can— there's a— what's it called, Sarah, that you look at? To get all your data about how much you're spending and—

Ads Manager?

Ads Manager, yes. I would look at the Ads Manager every day and I would say, okay, what is good and what is not good? And now I didn't do that for a few days because you got to leave it alone.

You got to let it go. You got to not look at it. You got to let it just do its thing for a few days.

Yeah. So I think maybe on day 5 is when I started realizing, okay, this one ad, this this chicken ad was blowing everybody out of the water. So I turned off the ads that were not doing well, and Facebook automatically put all that money into the chicken ad, and it went just gangbusters.

Okay, so now we've almost doubled our subscription, right? And you're feeling more confident. And I think that's the biggest thing about growing businesses is that we don't actually realize how much control we have in growing our business than we actually do. And it's once you settle the numbers and the mindset around it, and you also have, you have this group of subscription box owners putting it into practice, telling you that it works, showing you, it's not just me, like the others are doing it too. And so you're like, okay, They're doing it. They're successful. This is what I need to do. This is what Sarah says to do. I feel confident now because I have someone saying it's working, others backing that up, and I have the step-by-step of what I need to do. And that allows you to be really confident in your business and it allows you to take control over your growth. And I think sometimes we get in our head, especially as women, that it's not working. I don't know if this is going to work. Like, you know, maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow, but we don't need luck. We need control of our own growth and we have the ability to do that.

Yes, absolutely. And because that was successful, I did feel a lot more confident to run ads in the fall. Now, the ad campaign that I ran, ran a few months later was not that successful, but I didn't stress out about it because I thought, you know, this is not going to be a one-time thing.

Right.

There's so many variables out there, and if I did it once, it, it can happen again.

Yeah, that chicken. And see, this is what, this is what it is, and it's for all the creatives out there, um, that do projects or art or tutorials or whatever it is. Sometimes it's just the design that takes off. That chicken is what took off.

Yeah.

And so you've got to find the next chicken in your business, right? And so, um, and it's— here's Next chicken. Oh, that's gonna take off. That frog is gonna take off. And also, I'm going to tell you, I was working on t-shirt designs yesterday. This dang goose from the '80s is—

they're big.

Where I'm gonna need these goose cookies are gonna take off for you. So I'm just gonna say that. Okay, so here's what I love. You did a survey, you really dialed in to who your ideal customer— and you've been thinking, I got ideal customer 1, 2, 3. I don't really know what the majority of my subscription is. And so you put that down, you did the survey, you put that data in, and it gave you so much clarity about your business. And it also gives you so much clarity about your messaging, which is super important.

Huge.

So now we've had some successful ad campaigns. Tell me what you did at the end of the year.

At the— oh yes. Oh, this— well, I did it in January. January. Okay. And it was fantastic. I wanted to figure out, um, well, I wanted to plan better. I'm sort of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of person, and I thought, listen, this is going to change this year. So I actually did a subscriber growth forecast. Okay. But the way that I did that is First, I did another survey. Well, I thought of things that I would be interested in creating cookie sets for, and there were way more than 12. I probably had 20, 24, and I sent another survey to my subscribers and I said, rank the themes— not rank, but just checkmark the themes that you would be interested in me doing this year with the subscription boxes. And I had a huge number of people that responded to that because I think that they like to be asked, you know, they want to be involved. So that's the first thing that I did. And then the second thing I did is I took all of my sales reports for the past 4 years and I logged those into ChatGPT. And it was really very easy because I said into ChatGPT, I would like to create a forecast based on my previous year's information. What do you need? And it told me exactly where to get the, the information because I use Shopify. It was— believe me, I'm not a techie person and it was not a difficult thing to do. So then it told me, it looked at this information and it said, okay, your greatest growth month is. Well, for instance, it says January was a reset, is a reset month for me. February is light acquisition. April is, has been major acquisition. So it told me that for every single month and on average. And then it's, I've, it told me that I have grown by 26% every year since I started, which was amazing. And it— then I could plug the information that I got from the survey about what the most popular sets were into the most popular months.

Okay.

And so that was super duper helpful. And then it gave me a goal. Okay. If you, you know, if, if you have this many, if you have an increase in this many subscribers in this month, you're going to reach your goal. And I'm a very goal-oriented person and I like seeing it broken out like that instead of thinking, what do I have to do in May? I know what I need to do in February. Yeah. And so again, I'm trying to be way more data-driven.

What I love about this, Lauren, is not only do you manage your expectations on where you're going to have cancellations and where you're going to have growth, but now you have a document that says you're going to do this set in this month, you're going to do this set in this month, and you basically can sit down and create your entire year of subscription boxes with the data that you've taken time to collect.

Yes.

And I love this for you.

It was great. And I just hired an artist because normally I spend hours searching for clip art or creating the clip art. But I thought, I can't do that. So I just hired an amazing artist and she just yesterday sent me the set and it was incredible. And so I can give this list to her now and say, can you create the set for every month from now until the end of the year. It just takes so much pressure off of me because that's the hard part.

Yeah.

You know, it's coming up with something new. And even though I'm very creative, I can't draw that well. So yeah, the— looking at the numbers has been very eye-opening for me because in the past I've made every decision based on Well, how's that going to be just based on feelings? And it's worked. So I think how much better will it work now if I have data behind it?

Yeah, I love this because what I'm seeing and what you guys can't see or hear is I knew Lauren years ago and I'm seeing this journey of her becoming a really impressive business owner. And you don't have to have it all figured out on day one. And I'm a perfect example of that. She's a perfect example of that. And so if you're listening and you're thinking, man, I'm just a hot mess and I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of person and I don't know. Yes, both Lauren and I are too. And you just have to start and then you continue to get better. You continue to learn, you continue to grow. And what happens is not only business growth, but a lot of personal growth too. And now your son's in what semester of college?

Well, I was just going to say, so my son is a senior. He'll graduate in May. And my other son is a sophomore. And through what I have earned in my subscription box, we have paid all of their tuition and all of their living expenses. And what a gift for me to be able to give that to them. I could not imagine any better use of my time than having my kids come out of college debt-free. Yeah, it's, it's unbelievable to me that I've been able to do that. And that's my goal. You know, everybody's like, some people are like, I want to make $1 million. I want to get my kids through college. And I've been able to do that through the subscription box. And I've met wonderful people, made great friends, you know, helped women be more confident in their cookie decorating, save time. It's great when you do something that helps others and it's bringing a lot of happiness.

And something that you also love, right? Yes. Yes. Lauren, this has been the best interview today. Talk to me. Tell, tell everybody where they can find you if they want to start cookie decorating, if they want to check out what you're doing, where can they find you?

It's easy. CheerfulBaker.com.

You can hear it in her voice. She is the cheerful baker.

Com. And then I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. And then if you go to the bottom of my website page or my Instagram links, and I think it's easier to just give people one link.

Yeah, yeah, just find it all. And if you're not a baker, you just love to watch people decorate cookies like me, just go find her on Instagram and engage and give her all the love in the chat on Instagram, right?

Yeah.

Thank you so much. These are great gold nuggets today. Here's the thing, when you hear stuff like this, I want you to turn around and implement it. And that's how we make progress in our business. And we'll be back next week with another great episode.

Thank you. Bye.