by This post is going to help you if you have been struggling to gain traction in your Subscription box business or you simply want to sign up a lot of subscribers and get to the next level.
When things aren’t going as planned and you aren’t getting the sales that you need the easy thing to do is focus on your advertising and keep tweaking it in the hope you can get the sales to start flowing in.
My advice would be if you’re targeting is correct and you are sure you are buying quality traffic you should take a step back and focus on the bigger picture.
This is because the poor performance and lack of sales may have little to do with your ads and more to do with your actual website.
That’s why It is really important that you have google analytics set up on your website so you can measure your conversion rate and track what is actually happening when traffic arrives on your home page.
If it is the case that your website doesn’t convert well and you are seeing a lot of that traffic bounce of the site you should stop advertising right away as you are just wasting money.
Your conversion rate should be 2% at a bare minimum and you should be working to improve that the whole time.
If you have a good product and you know what you are doing straight e-commerce tends to convert a bit higher. This is because subscription is normally a bit harder to sell as it’s a bit more difficult to get a customer to commit to a recurring payment.
If your conversion rate is under 2% it is likely you are going to struggle with growing your business.
To verify this all you need to do is take a look at the costs associated with advertising.
Unfortunately marketing costs aren’t getting cheaper and competition in the direct to consumer space is higher than ever. That means you need to make the most of the traffic you are getting otherwise things can get expensive fast.
How To Improve Your Conversion Rate.
I wrote a conversion rate for beginners article just over a year ago and if you go to my blog you will find this. It goes into some detail about how to structure your Subscription Box Website so it has all the sections required to convert visitors. If you haven’t read this article I would recommend going over and taking a look as it will help you.
I am not going to rehash similar points here as I have already covered structure. I am just going to give you some quick tips and emphasise some important points which will help you improve things.
1. Why are they leaving the site?
This is probably one of the most important things. You need to understand what are the biggest reasons which are driving people away from your website without buying. This is where google analytics comes into play as it can help you figure this out.
If there is a particular page on your website with a high exit rate, this means this page is driving people off your website.
Let me give you an example.
Imagine you have a what’s inside page where you show some examples of previous boxes and you notice this is the page where a lot of people are leaving the site. It is likely there is something on this page which is driving people away.
You should take a step back and figure out what is the problem with this page. If all the pictures are poor quality and it is making the products look bad this could be a reason.
If that’s the case you need better pictures on the page so the products look appealing and people want to buy from you.
That is just an example though, here’s another example.
If loads of people are leaving on the checkout page it could be down to your pricing being wrong or charging shipping and not making the customer aware of this.
Did you know not including free shipping is one of the biggest conversion killers? Sometimes it isn’t always possible to do this, but you should try your best to make it work.
Anyway, they are just some examples of the top of my head. The point I am trying to make is there may be a page with a very high exit rate and that is causing you problems. It is your job to figure out if this is the case, find the problem and then fix it.
TIP: You can use a program call Hotjar to measure each customer journey on your website and really analyse what is going on. If your home page is responsible for a lot of the traffic exiting this will be very handy. You will be able to use this to see what is happening.
2. Getting The Basics Right.
This is really important and honestly, if you don’t do these things maintaining a decent conversion rate on your website will be difficult.
Let me list them below
• Optimised for Mobile.
Around 80% of your traffic will be coming from mobile devices. So If your site isn’t optimised for mobile you are completely killing your conversion rate. I am talking about the layout, types of pictures and overall design. They all need to work really well for mobile and be easy to use.
• Site Speed.
If the load speed on your site is slow you will drive your bounce rate up and kill your conversion rate. People don’t have patience at all, especially these days. Test your site on multiple browsers and mobile devices and make sure it loads up extremely quickly. If it doesn’t you may need to compress some images to increase it.
• Overall design
If you don’t have any design skills at all and the finished site looks amateur I highly recommend hiring somebody to help you. I learned this the hard way. I am awful when it comes to design. I tried to design our website at the start and it took up a load of time and was shocking looking. If we went ahead with that design I highly doubt we would be in business today as we wouldn’t have got off the ground.
You may be satisfied with your work due to the amount of effort it took but if the site looks amateur it will not convert well. This could be sizing issues, placement of images and text, confusing sign up and overall presentation.
You should compare your website to the top subscription box websites or other top websites in your niche. That is what your customers are comparing you to.
Honestly in the grand scheme of things it is not that expensive to hire somebody to design you a professional website if you need it. If you are serious about your business and you want to turn it into your full time job you need to have a professional website that converts well.
The analogy I would use would be if you were opening a retail store, you would ensure your presentation is good and your shop is a place where customers want to spend money. If your shop had stuff all over the floor, it was badly designed and had a really confusing process at the till, it wouldn’t last long and would go out of business. This is the same when it comes to your website.
Now I am not saying it is bad to design your own website. If you have the skills and can make it look good, then go for it. All I am saying is if it is something you are struggling with it would be better to get some outside help to make sure it is done correctly.
• Picture Quality
This is the same point as above. I highly recommend you invest in professional pictures. You can’t expect somebody to commit to a subscription if the products don’t look appealing. A professional photographer will be able to take good pictures and they will be able to help with the presentation of products in the box.
Both of these things are very important. Obviously the products need to look appealing, but they also need to be laid out in a way where it looks attractive to the consumer. If they are all squashed into a box in the dark it is unlikely somebody is going to take out their credit card and pay for 6 months upfront.
If you spend some time studying the bigger boxes you will get some ideas around how to present the products in the correct way. This makes a massive difference to the conversion rate as the customer will actually want what’s in your box.
I hope you found this article helpful. Increasing your conversion rate is a very important process and it can take time. The important thing is to measure it and not be afraid to make the necessary changes when you have to. You should always follow the data and never make any assumptions. If you have any questions about conversion rates or subscription boxes in general please let me know. Have a great day.
