by I am going to cover a type of marketing that could change your entire business overnight. If you master this kind of marketing it will 100% give you the best chance of success in your Subscription Box business. I firmly believe it is the best way for a small business to drive real results through their marketing efforts. When I say real results I mean results that actually matter. E.G more leads, more sales and more subscribers.
This kind of marketing does not rely on one channel. Once you familiarize yourself with these principles and master the craft these skills can be deployed successfully across a lot of different marketing channels.
This is the kind of marketing that is directly responsible for thousands of subscribers signing up to BusterBox and nearly $2 Million in sales.
Introducing Direct Response Marketing
Direct Response Marketing is a type of marketing strategy that compels a high-quality prospect to take immediate action by opting in to an advertiser’s offer on the spot. E.G You get sales and subscribers straight away. Direct response marketing can be found in nearly all forms of advertising. That includes TV, Print, Online and Radio. It costs very little to produce and all results are measurable.
Direct response marketing will work for any sized business, but in my opinion, it should be the only type of marketing small subscription box company’s should use.
There are two main kinds of marketing strategies. They are branding (Mass Marketing) and direct response marketing. Direct Response marketing when done right will deliver a return for a small business ASAP while branding won’t.
What is branding?
Branding is what all the big company’s do. It is a type of advertising which aims to remind customers about your brand as well as the products and services you sell.
The concept behind it is that if you run your ads over and over again eventually people will remember it. Then when they eventually decide to make a purchasing decision related to a product or service you offer your brand will be top of their consciousness.
This is how a lot of gigantic brands like Apple, Coke and Mercedes set up their advertising campaigns.
What is the Benefit of Branding?
I am not disputing the fact that branding is extremely effective and having a strong brand presence can be very important for your company. The thing about it is this kind of marketing is not for everybody and here’s why.
1. It’s extremely expensive
2. It takes a very long time
For branding to truly work, you need a gigantic marketing budget to completely saturate all forms of advertising media. As I stated this takes time and is very expensive. This isn’t a problem for big companies. They have gigantic advertising budgets and they don’t need an immediate return on their investment.
It does become a problem though when a small subscription box company which runs out of somebody’s spare bedroom starts trying to imitate a big company’s marketing campaign. When this happens the small subscription box company will see little return on their investment and run out of money quickly. It’s not that the small company doesn’t have the capabilities to create fantastic mass media ads. The problem is they don’t have the marketing budget to run their ads for long enough for them to make them effective. Without millions of dollars behind you to fund your campaign, there is a high probability of failure.
One of the main differences between mass marketing and direct response marketing is the following. Branding or mass marketing targets everybody. Its main goal is to build brand awareness and does not expect the consumer to take immediate action. While Direct Response marketing targets a niche audience. It also uses compelling messages to get an immediate response.
10 Rules of Direct Response Marketing
I will now discuss the 10 rules of direct response marketing (As created by Dan Kennedy) and explain how and why they should be applied to your subscription box marketing campaigns.
1. There will always be an offer.
Rule number 1 for a reason. In my opinion, this is the most important rule. If you have read any of my previous posts you will know I love to bang on about this around the clock. It’s so important and it is something that a lot of subscription box companies haven’t been able to grasp. If you want your prospects to respond IMMEDIATELY you need an irresistible offer that is going to urge them into taking action.
You should never send out an ad to a cold audience without making them an offer. If you don’t bother making am offer here is the typical result of your campaign.
· Slow sales
· High CPA
· Cash up in smoke
The offer isn’t going to be something that financially cripples your company. It has to be something that makes sense financially for you as well as entice the customer to take action. This is where the metrics come into play. Things like the CPA, CLTV, and churn will let you know how profitable your offers are and if they are viable for your company.
2. There will be a reason to respond right now
I love this analogy from direct-response copywriter John Carlton. John says you should imagine your prospect as a gigantic sloth who is unlikely to move when they see one of your ads.
You need to think about this when constructing your offer. Is some rubbish offer giving away a 5% discount on a 6-month subscription really going to cause the sloth to move and sign up for your box? NOPE.
These days we are all competing for the same eyeballs on competitive platforms and prospects are getting bombarded on social media with so many different ads. This means you need something pretty special to get somebody to sign up straight away.
Your offer needs to generate a direct response. This is the whole point of this kind of marketing strategy. If you can provide value to your prospects and convince them that signing up for your subscription box will solve their problems or satisfy their current desires then you are onto a winner.
3. Clear Instructions.
This is pretty self-explanatory but is something that a lot of people struggle with. I see so many subscription box entrepreneurs writing extremely confusing ads. E.G There is too much copy and the information is all over the place. You need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. If you saw your ad appear on your feed and you knew nothing about your company, would you really know what is going on?
Remember the two golden rules.
· Confused consumers do nothing
· Most people can follow directions
This means your message should be so clear that if a dog on the street saw your ad they would know exactly what was going on and would know how to sign up to your box. This doesn’t only apply to ads it also applies to emails, landing pages, sales letters and any form of communication with prospects.
4. There Will Be Tracking And Measurement.
Yes, that means all decisions will be based on real hard facts and data. No assumptions will be made when it comes to your marketing campaigns. We all think we know what is best for our subscription boxes, but unfortunately a lot of the time we are completely wrong.
This means you will have tracking set up accurately depending on your platform of choice. E.G if you are advertising your subscription box on Facebook you will have your pixel set up correctly and you will take the time to learn what all of the reports mean.
Since we are in the subscription box industry you will also take time to learn what all the subscription box metrics are which are important and how to track them. I have written multiple articles about these already so take a look at my blog if you want to learn more information.
The one thing you won’t do is send out a load of ads and not bother doing any of the above. If you do this you are likely to lose all your money. If somehow you manage to sign some people up and not understand any subscription metrics you won’t know what you even have to do to turn a profit (You could be losing money on every customer)
Ultimately, you want to know what your ROI is for every dollar which is spent on marketing. This way you can gut the ads that aren’t performing or bringing you a decent CLTV. Once you get in the habit of tracking data this will become second nature and a lot easier going forward.
5. Branding As By-Product
One of the best things about Direct Response Marketing is it can lead to brand building. You should never focus on it though. You should focus on the most important thing in your business when investing your own capital and that is sales. This means no time or money should be wasted on building likes or getting video views. Your main objective is conversions. They are the only things that will keep your lights on. Unfortunately, Facebook likes don’t pay the bills the last time I checked.
6. There Will Be Follow-Up
Not everybody is going to convert straight away and that is ok. To tackle this issue you need to follow up. You can follow up with your prospects in multiple ways.
· Email Marketing
· SMS Marketing
· Retargeting
The main thing is you need to have these systems set up and ready to go. If you don’t bother with them and you are just sending somebody to your landing page and then letting them fly off into the sunset, it’s the marketing equivalent of flushing your money down your downstairs toilet.
7. There Will Be Strong Copy.
This is a skill and takes time to learn. This isn’t something you are going to learn overnight on some bogus Udemy course. This will require effort. Your copy needs to be strong and clear. You should know your audience so well that you are well able to provoke their buying emotions and make them sign up to your subscription box without a second thought.
8. In General, It Will Look Like Mail-Order Advertising.
This can be a hard one to wrap your head around but is 100% accurate. Back in the day before we had fancy internet marketing a lot of companies had to generate business by advertising in mail-order catalogues. The masters of this kind of advertising we’re able to generate millions from these type of ads. You can apply the same principles to the type of ads you are running now on social media for your subscription box. If you manage to master this kind of advertising it can be extremely effective.
Create a swipe file of mail-order newspapers and magazine advertisements that show clear calls to action. Next time you come up with an offer for your subscription box flip through the file for inspiration.
9. Results Rule, Period.
Real results are the only things which matter in your subscription box business. This means subscribers and sales. You need to get into your head that nobody except your customers is going to put money into your bank account. This means if your marketing is bringing in sales it is working if it isn’t it needs to be scrapped.
Now is also a good time to dump the fly by night marketing agency operating out of Ohio who has been “Running Your Ads” for the last few months. When I say “Running Your Ads” I really mean setting your money on fire and bringing in no new subscribers. Instead, they jump on conference calls and tell you how much brand awareness they have brought you through page likes, video views and competition entries. Sorry, none of that matters. If they aren’t bringing in sales and subscribers time to get rid of them and take matters into your own hands.
10. You, Will, Be A Tough-Minded Disciplinarian And Keep Your Business On A Strict DIRECT Marketing Diet For At Least Six Months.
Cut the junk and bin the rubbish. Get obsessed with these principles and master your craft and I promise you will transform your subscription box business. It won’t be easy but if you pull it off, it’s the easiest and cheapest way to get massive amounts of new subscribers.
Thank you for reading this article. I took a lot of inspiration from Dan Kennedy, who was an unbelievable Direct-Response Marketer. The reason I wrote this is because over the last few months I have spent a serious amount of time writing articles about how to market on specific platforms. I realised recently, though I should explain the thought process behind a lot of the strategies.
You can be a master at optimizing Facebook ads, but if you don’t understand these principles you won’t know how to run a profitable campaign. There is so much more to a successful marketing campaign than just understanding how a specific platform works. If you have any questions about direct response marketing or subscription box in general, please let me know and I would be happy to answer.
