Why the “J Months” Don’t Have to Be Slow for Your Subscription Box Business

I was speaking at a conference a few months ago when one of the other speakers said, the J months are just bad for business. And I thought, that's the problem right there. In this episode, I'm sharing what smart subscription box owners do when everyone else pulls back, because these months, they're not the problem, but how you show up during them might be. So grab your notebook and come join me.

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 going to have a discussion about the J months, and this really was sparked from an event that I was at a few months ago. So I was speaking at an event a few months ago, and there was a speaker that came on stage before me, and I was, I was listening and I was engaged, and she instantly just started talking about how the J months are horrible for business. And I thought, well, they're not that horrible. And the reason they're horrible is because you're expecting them to be horrible. And so let me help you understand what the J months are. So there's this kind of myth in retail, in e-commerce, that the J months are the slowest months and the J months are the ones that start with J. So we're talking about January, we're talking about June, we're talking about July. Now I'm going to just kind of myth bust this for a little bit for you. January is typically one of my highest months all year, like it's in the top 3. It's probably as close as November and December in as far as sales go. And, um, when I see people talk about the J months, when I hear people talk about the J months and how they are bad for business, it's because people stop, people quit, people rest, people— and understandably so. We're coming out of the fourth quarter. People typically pull back in January, and because of that, you have the dreaded J month. Um, and so The same thing happens after the spring, like we go through April and May and they're typically really great months for us because of all the holidays that are in the spring. So we've got Mother's Day, we've got graduations, we've got Teacher Appreciation, Nurse Appreciation, you got Easter, like all those things are happening in April and May. And so they're typically really good for retail. They're gift-giving months. They're very seasonally driven. And then here comes another J month after that. The month of June. And what we do is we work really, really hard and then we start pulling back in the J months. And there's a lot of reasons that we're, we're pulling back. We're on— we want to be on vacation. We— it's the summer. A lot of us are moms and we want to slow down a little bit. And that's okay. Let me grab a drink real quick. That's okay. It's okay to slow down, but— excuse me— it's okay to slow down if that's what you want to do. But if you're dreading these months or you're pulling back because you think that they're slow, so this is my time to rest, this is my time to pull back, that's not actually true. That's kind of a lie that you're telling yourself, that these months are slower. They become comes slower because we give less marketing effort, we send fewer emails, we have zero urgency. And so if you think that the J months are dead, they are. If you think that you're going to have sales, you are. They're just different. And so what I want to talk about today is, number one, shifting your mindset from feeling like these months are completely dead and that they're detrimental to my business to using these months as momentum going into the The fall months are some of our biggest months, and we don't want to completely shut our business down over the summer going into fall. Also, if you want sales, if you want the revenue, if you— all we have to do is go out and get it. And so we're going to talk about shifting our mindset today on that. We're going to talk about some things we can do to build momentum going into the fall. And then I've got 5 ways to generate sales through the summer months. And so we're going to talk about all of that today. If you're a note taker, if you're like, oh, I need this, I need a plan for the next few months, then I want you to grab your notebook and let's talk about it because I don't want you to disappear in these months unless you just want to. If you're disappearing because there's this scarcity mindset, if you're disappearing because you think, well, all my efforts are for nothing, so I might as well relax, I just want you to show up differently. Okay, I want you to show up differently over these summer months than maybe you have in the past. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about what we need to be doing now to set ourselves up for a really great fall. Okay, I want you to build now. So what that means is I want you to keep building your following. I want you to keep building your list because what's going to happen in our industry is that a lot of people kind of go silent, they go quiet. This is our time to shine. When people pull back, we push forward. And a lot of people pull back in the summer months, and, um, it's time for us to push forward. Like, we can talk about this as far as a launch perspective too. People think, I can't launch in the summer. Let me tell you, let me just myth bust that as well. But I launched, uh, LauncherBox last June and I got 809 new members in a J month when everybody says it's slow and you shouldn't launch. Here I was showing up, giving value, and I was converting a lot of people. I converted at 43% from coaching week into membership last summer. This is time to nurture and attract and show up because so many people pull back in these months. And it's time for us to push forward. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about now that you've got— okay, I'm with you, Sarah. I'm going to shift my mindset. We can do stuff in June and July. We can do stuff to build our audience. We can do stuff to make sales. Let's talk about building our audience because this is really time for us to nurture and attract new people. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to show up and do your behind the scenes stuff. People are consuming things more because it's a slower time for everyone. They're on their phones more. They're They're on vacations, they're scrolling, they're not working as much. So this is your opportunity to attract new people and nurture the ones you have. So let's show them behind the scenes. Let's get more dialed in to what we are doing every single day and how we can show that on the front end. I want you to share sneak peeks. I want you to keep the excitement of your subscription boxes over the summer. Like we're building summer months here, we're building summer subscription boxes. Let's get excited about that. I want you to reconnect with your why over these months. Remind people why you do this. Remind people why you started this. Let's create that connection point for them. And then I don't want your email strategies to just fall off the wayside because it's summer. Okay. Like, that's like, oh, it's summer. I'm going to— I'll wait and do that in the fall. Oh, it's summer. I'll wait and do that later. Let's create a summer opt-in. Okay, we can do this with really anything that works well for your opt-in. If you're in the crafting and art space, let's give them a summer tutorial that would be great for them to consume. Maybe you're— you could give a summer packing or vacation checklist. We're doing a summer wallpaper right now for my business that's working really well. You could do a summer giveaway. You could start growing your waitlist if you're launching in the fall. But let's just keep building that email list. And then here's the other thing with that email list. We can't be radio silent over the summer. We need to nurture that list over the summer. We can't just take the summer off and then show up in August and be like, okay, I'm back, let's go. They won't be with you. So I want you to send at least one email a week over the summer. And we are talking about some sales ideas next that you can use. But if you're not heavy in sales, this is where you can start to get personal. Let's start sharing what you're doing this summer. Let's start talking about what the business is doing this summer. Let's get personal and really nurture. Maybe there's some hack to a beach floatie that you just are using. Maybe there's some idea for summer, you know, snacks, whatever that is. Like, let's just get more personal and let's build that connection now so that we can have higher conversions later because your future launch success depends on what you do today. And we don't want to take all of that off. We will have better conversions. We will have higher launches. We will just be set up that much better in the fall if we continue to nurture and grow our audiences through the summer months. Okay. Now, now that we've talked about mindset, we've talked a little bit about building our following, building our list. We've got to keep doing that. This is a year-round activity. Let's talk about making sales, because when I was sitting in that conference, this was the thing, like, there was just this expectation that our sales were going to be down over the summer, and I was just like, wow, like, I always have really great sales in the J months— January, June, and July. So let's talk about that, because mindset is great, but action is what really brings the results that you want. So if you want to generate revenue during during the J months. I don't know about you, but I do. I still have bills to pay. I still have employees to pay. I still have rent that's due at my warehouse. I need to make sales in the J months. So let's talk about 5 real action doable steps that you can take to make some sales. And this is where, you know, I want you to pull out a calendar and let's map out what our summer months look like. Because if you go into the summer months without a plan, you won't do anything. You'll be like, I'm going to sit by the pool today. I'm going to take the kids to the water park. Oh, I'm going to head off to the beach this weekend. And you just won't because your expectation is that I'm just going to sit by, relax this summer, and I'll pick things back up in the fall. And if that's what you want to do, that's great. But if that's not what you want to do, here's some actionable ways that we can make sales right now. So number 1, let's put together a summer or vacation-themed box, or you can even do a bundle. I do a do a lot of bundles, um, but we could do a special summer box. Um, this could be positioned as, hey, you want a vacation box? You could call it Vacation in a Box. You could call it your summer exclusive box, your limited edition. I mean, your subscribers are headed off to the beach, the pool, the lake. Let's give something that fits their needs right now. You could do some like travel size products So what things do they need to travel with? You could do some self, self-care things, road trip ideas, summer apparel. Like there's so many ideas that you could do. We've taken some of the products from last summer that I'm still sitting on and we've bundled them together into some summer bundles. We've done like a beach babe bundle. It's like leftover beach towels, spike coolers, sunglasses. We've done some other things as well, but you really can put together some summer-themed boxes or summer-themed bundles and put a promotion around it. Okay, so let's sell it. Let's show up and go live. Let's send an email campaign. Like, let's really use this as a marketing opportunity because that's what people are wanting. I don't know about you guys, but every time I go on a trip, I need a new bag, I need a new outfit, I need some new gear, and I have plenty. But I always feel like when I'm going on vacation, I need new things. And so this is a way for you to provide some new things for people that are enjoying their summer months. Promotion number 2 that you could do, you could do a subscription box flash sales. We tend to see a higher churn rate over the summer as people are spending their money on vacations and trips and things like that, and they're cutting some of their other expenses. But let's use this opportunity to fill some of those spots from our cancellations. So let's create a subscription box flash sale. I like to do this with an email campaign. It's not a full-on forward-facing, I gotta go live, I gotta run ads, I gotta do all the things. This is the email list. This is the email list that I have been building all year long, and so I'm gonna use it. So I'm gonna pick a couple— I'm gonna pick a spot on my summer calendar, okay? So if I was going to pick a June date, I like to run my flash sales on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning, just so I can catch anybody that maybe is working and they don't check their email, or I can catch somebody that only checks their work email. I kind of do a week— weekend day and a weekday together. So what I do is I will put together a promotion for a flash sale. This could be like a bonus item that's going to go in this box. This could be a discount. This could be like a gift card to your shop. With it. You could do lots of different things, but I do a 5-email sequence for a flash sale. So day 1, I send an email first thing in the morning, and then I send one in the evening. Day 2, I send one in the morning, one in the evening. Day 3, I send one in the morning and says that it, you know, it closes by noon. So I basically do like 2 and a half days. You could do 3 days if you wanted to, but we've got to create some urgency. We need to give them a reason to buy, a reason to subscribe right now. That could be some teasers of what's coming up next. The reason to buy could be the bonus item. I typically will use the bonus item that was in the last box or two so that my subscribers already have it in case they see this flash sale. But the urgency is they have 48 hours or 72 hours to join to get the bonus, and that's why it works. And so you're going to email everybody on your list that's not currently a subscriber, and you're going to set up a 5-email campaign. So I would say email number 1 is that, hey, you can join now. Here's the bonus item. You've got to get in in 48 hours only. I would do the same thing. And that night I would talk a little bit about your why in the second email. The third email is urgency. You only have 24 hours left. Talk about the bonus. Talk about what's going in that next box. Email number 4, I would get some social proof. Pulled off of my social media of how much my subscribers are really loving their subscription. And this is your time to join right now. It ends tomorrow at noon. And then that email number 5 is your last chance. It's kind of short and sweet. Last chance to join. The, you know, the bonus item goes away at noon. Something like that will work really easily. But this is something that you can do. You can plan it in June. You can plan it in July to give your subscription box a little lift from cancellations. And you'll be shocked at how well a strategic email sequence converts. You don't have to show up live. You can sit by the pool and type these emails. You don't have to run a bunch of ads. This is just to our email list. Like, think about how many people are on your email list that are not subscribers. We have the opportunity to convert some of them and give them a reason to buy right now. So that is Promotion number 2 that you can run this summer. Now, promotion number 3, you could run a refer a friend campaign. And I like to do this with some bonuses. And so you basically will take your current subscribers and you just turn them into your, your affiliates or your sales team, and you can give them a reward. You don't have to set up everybody on an affiliate account. What I like to do when we do a refer a friend is we just add a line at checkout that says, who referred you? And then what we do is we give a freebie to the person that referred and the person that is the new customer. So this could be like a special item you have in your shop or something that you want to purchase, but you could just send this out to all your subscribers. Hey, we're running a refer a friend campaign this week or over the next 2 weeks. And you're— if you refer a friend, you're going to get this item. It could be a t-shirt, it could be a bag, it could be, you know, whatever your box is. If you have like dog toys, it could be an extra bag of treats or whatever that is. And so you can really, you can really use this as a way to help let your best customer tell their friends to join. And you could even do like some stackable bonuses. So if you have some things that go together, like this is bonus number 1 if you refer 1 friend, this is bonus number 2 if you refer 2 friends, and this is bonus number 3 if you refer 3 friends. And so you could kind of make make those rewards stackable and kind of increase their value. And so you can do this really easily. This is an, again, an email campaign sent out to your existing subscribers, and then you're going to give them a shareable template or a shareable email. They can send it to theirs. You can give them a graphic that you made in Canva so that they can share it on their social media and say, You know, make sure that you put my name in the who referred you box and we both get a bonus item or something like that. But let your best customers help you convert new, new subscribers. You can run that any time of year, but it's a great way to run it when you're not launching, when you have a little bit of lull in your business. It's the perfect way to help you refill some of those canceled spots over the summer. All right, you still with me? Let's talk about number 4. Number 4 is summer mystery boxes. Let's clear out old inventory. Let's generate some excitement and buzz. Um, we do these typically at the end of the year, like in December we'll do, um, an end-of-year mystery box, but we also do a summer mystery box. Last year I did these in July and I kind of put end of summer mystery box, cleaned out a lot of my summer stuff because what's going to happen over the next, the fall months is that inventory, that summer style inventory is going to sit on my shelves and I'm not going to have a good opportunity to sell it again until the next year. And so this was a great way for me at the end of July to kind of clear out some things that I had left over from summer that are very specific summer stuff. You can really position this as limited mystery boxes, curated surprises from past subscription boxes. And really, I want you to think about your subscription box price. Like, what is the price of that? That's really the price you want to price these mystery boxes, but you want to pack them full of, full of stuff. Like, there's so much value in them. There's limited— maybe you have 10, maybe you have 50, maybe you have 20, whatever that is. This is a great way for you to generate some sales, clear out some old inventory before we go into the fall. And then another, another really fun thing to do is like to do a couple price points. So we've done like a t-shirt mystery bag where they got 2 or 3 t-shirts and a pair of earrings. And then we've done the full-on boxes where they're just jam-packed full of stuff at a different, at a higher price point. Or, you know, you've got some boxes laying around that are maybe different sizes left over from a couple of different boxes. The bigger ones can be $75, the smaller ones could be $45, like whatever that is. but let's use it as an opportunity to 1, generate sales, 2, liquidate some inventory, and 3, really engage with your audience and show up for something for them. And so this really creates a lot of fun and excitement and urgency kind of all wrapped in one. Now let's talk about sales opportunity number 5. This one's really fun, and I am actually surprised at how well it does. But let's do a Christmas in July promotion. We can do this in a couple of different ways. So I partnered with some of the ladies in my mastermind to do a Christmas in July event last year. And I— it was the first time I'd ever done anything like this, and it was so successful. And this is really what I did. I took all the leftover t-shirts from the previous Christmas, so I might have had like 3 smalls, 2 larges, and an extra large left or whatever. But I took all of what I had left. I marked them half off, so they were 50% off all, you know, of last year's tees so they could get them ahead of time. And then I designed a brand new Christmas tee and it was full price. And so I was able to liquidate a ton of my leftover Christmas inventory from the Christmas before, and I sold a lot of this this brand new tee. And I, I positioned this new tee as you can only buy this. This is a limited edition. It's only available for one week. You will not see it again this Christmas. So there I created kind of this urgency of, if you like this design, I'm not going to have this again at Christmas time. This is the only time you can get it. It's exclusive. It's limited. And so I was able to kind of work through some of my older inventory. I was able to sell something at full price. It really generated a lot of revenue for me. I mean, you could take some things here just if they're in the color palette, right? Like if they're red or green or gold and kind of promote them, like do a sale on those items. You could create a mini holiday bundle, Christmas in July style. You could do a lot of different things with this. Christmas, and I think it's an opportunity for us to sell some of those things that we might still have or kind of get ahead. It's kind of this exciting feeling if you're in the craft space. I mean, a lot of people like to get ahead. They're making Christmas gifts or they're making something for the holiday. So this would be a great way to get ahead of that kind of thing and really engage with them over this Christmas in July promo. So think about that. Think about what you could do for a Christmas in July promotion in the, in the J months, because I think it could be— if you've never done it before, I think you could— you'll be surprised at how much revenue you could really generate. And you know what I found? A lot of people last year, I put together also— I have the Christmas shirts, but I also put together some gift bundles, and you could start your Christmas shopping early. And so And I sold a lot of those, and you'd be surprised how many people actually buy Christmas gifts really early to get ahead of things, especially if it's a really great deal. So, all right, let's wrap up these 5 promos one more time. I'm just going to give them to you really quickly. If you want to generate sales in the summer, I got 5 ways that you can do that. You can do number 1, a summer vacation themed box or bundle. Number 2, you could run a subscription box flash sale. Number 3, let's get our best customers to refer a friend with a campaign with some bonuses. We can do summer mystery boxes. We can have a Christmas in July promo. And if these things make you excited, there's 5 things that we can do over 2 months. You could do all of them. Get your calendar out right now and let's write them in. Okay, next week I'm going to do a summer box. I've got this, this, and this. I'm going to order one new thing for it, right? Okay. And then the next week I'm going to run a subscription box flash sale. And then for the month of July, I'm going to do a whole refer a friend campaign. And then we'll have Christmas in July too. And maybe even August, the first week of August, I'll sell summer mystery boxes. Whatever you want, wherever these line up, it's important for us to keep the momentum going as we go through the summer without a lot of heavy lifting. Did you notice that I didn't say you have to go live? I didn't say you have to run ads. I really want you to take these promotions and use your email list mostly. Post them on social media, but we don't have to jump through a lot of hoops. We can really curate these things and do these things with our email list. If you've been diligent about building your list, and if you haven't, let's work on that this summer. Let's work on building our following. Let's give them some behind the scenes. Let's get an opt-in going so that we can build a list so that we're set up for fall. But a lot of these things are low effort on your part as far as showing up. All you have to do is put the marketing plan together, sit down and write your emails, get them scheduled, and then go, go ahead, head out to the water park with the kids, go spend the afternoon at the the pool. But if we have a plan in place, we're more likely to execute it, okay? And so I want you to use these strategies to drive revenue for you without burning out, without you not enjoying your, your J months, okay? You don't have to just sit back and say, okay, we're in summer, sales are going to be slow, and I'm gonna be biting my nails when all the bills are due. You don't have to do that. This is kind of your prep season. We can generate revenue and we can set ourselves up for a really great fall. Now, if this resonated with you, maybe you have a, a biz bestie that is kind of feeling this. Go ahead and share this episode with someone that needs to hear it and sit down and plan this together with them, because I know when we do things together, we're more likely to execute because we have that accountability. So who do you want to be your summer accountability buddy? Go ahead and message them now. Say, Listen to this episode, and then let's jump on a Zoom call tomorrow and plan out our summer. All right, y'all have a great day, and I'll see you on the next episode.