The last few months of the year usually tend to see a drop in subscriptions and memberships.
That’s because consumers are busy shopping for products and services available at discounts during the Black Friday Cyber Monday and holiday season sales.
In between buying products for themselves, home, and gifting, consumers often don’t prioritize subscriptions and memberships.
But your Shopify store can reduce subscription and membership churn during this lucrative season. With a few strategic campaigns and tactics.
This blog looks at strategies to reduce churn of membership and subscription plans during the holiday season.
Read on!
How to reduce subscription churn
ECommerce subscriptions are a form of marketing and sales strategy wherein customers join a paid or free subscription to avail benefits and perks from brands for a continued or long-term period. For example, Netflix annual or monthly subscriptions.
During the holiday season, many brands see a drop in subscriptions. Customers rather choose to buy individual products from sales. However, you can reduce subscription churn during the BFCM and holiday season. Here are a few strategies.
1. Offer discounted price during holiday season
Many consumers may focus on shopping for products and gifts that are at discounted rates during the BFCM and holiday season. In the process, they may avoid purchasing subscriptions because they are not their immediate requirement.
However, you can increase the probability of them signing up for subscriptions by offering a discount. Here’s what you can do:
- Promote the discount offer to existing subscribers as well as potential new subscribers
- Create a special campaign for subscribers who are up for renewal of their subscription in the next few weeks or months – offer them a discount if they sign up during the holiday sale
- Run limited-time, flash sale during the holiday season to increase the potential of new subscriptions
2. Offer free trials of new products to long-term subscribers
One of the benefits of subscriptions is that brands can introduce new products to customers much more easily. Customers also get an opportunity to discover and try new products.
You can leverage this advantage during the holiday season to reduce subscription churn. Here’s what you can do:
- Segment long-term customers into one group and share a personalized offer of free trials of new products, only available during the holiday season
- Create a segment of dormant subscribers and share this offer to entice them to become active subscribers again
- Utilize data from their past orders to understand their likes and interests and then offer relevant products for free trials
3. Allow subscribers to build their own box
Customers value flexibility. And that is why 91% of top-performing retail subscription merchants offer customers the ability to make changes. One such flexibility option is to allow customers to build their own subscription box; in other words, choose the products or services they want.
Use this tactic to reduce subscription churn during the holiday season. Here are some cues:
- Introduce build-your-box subscription during the holiday season for fixed subscription box plans – make subscription experience exciting
- Promote build-a-box subscription as a gifting option for the holiday season as customers tend to shop for gifts during this time
- Offer different denominators for build-a-box subscription to cater to different customer preferences and budgets
4. Personalize holiday season subscription offers
One of the biggest reasons customers cancel subscriptions or leave brands is a lack of personalization. Personalization has become a standard expectation of consumers. Infact, 75% of customers are willing to pay more for personalization.
Here’s how you can provide a personalized subscription experience this holiday season to reduce churn and engage customers for the long term.
- Utilize data to create personalized subscription boxes and plans. With personalization, you can differentiate the regular holiday season offers from your subscription offers and generate customer interest
- Even if shoppers don’t sign up for subscriptions during the holiday sales, you can retarget them soon after the sale ends. Customers tend to shop multiple times during the entire holiday season period. Hence, set up retargeting strategies
- Use an efficient Shopify subscription app, such as Appstle, which automates personalization features, data collection, etc. This will enhance your personalization strategies
5. Create special holiday campaigns to highlight members
Customers sign up for memberships not just for price benefits, discounts, and free shipping. Becoming members and a part of a community also adds value to their lives.
For instance, members love to be a part of communities that brands build where they can engage and interact with other like minded people. The holiday season is a time to make this experience stronger. Here’s how.
- Create campaigns to highlight member achievements, for example, show the members who have earned highest points or the most number of badges or benefits
- Run contents where members can participate and highlight how your Shopify membership helped those members
- Offer free gifts to members who have maintained a good member profile by participating in activities throughout the year
How to reduce membership churn
Memberships are a marketing and sales strategy wherein customers sign up for a membership to avail various kinds of perks and benefits from brands. For example, Amazon Prime – by paying a membership fee, customers can avail benefits such as free deliveries, express deliveries, early access, etc.
In this section, we look at some strategies to help you reduce membership churn on your Shopify store during the holiday season.
1. Offer a free gift to members for the holiday season
We humans are wired to feel good when we get something over and above the usual, for example, gifts. Offering your members a gift during the holiday season can greatly impact their perception of your membership program.
Here’s what you can do:
- Offer a free gift to members for renewing or joining your membership program during the holiday season
- Ensure the gift is valuable and resonate with your members
- Segment members based on tiers and offer different gifts to different tiers
- Offer holiday-themed gifts to make the experience more relevant
2. Offer free delivery for all holiday season membership orders
Another strategy to reduce membership churn during the holiday season is to offer free deliveries to members. Free shipping is one of the most attractive incentives for customers. Study shows that 93% of customers shop more if there’s free delivery. Here’s what you can do:
- Offer free delivery to members only to encourage customers to join membership
- Set a minimum spend amount to avail free shipping
- Allow members to choose from a selection of gifts – offering their favorite products as gifts is one of the biggest selling points and can help reduce membership churn
3. Offer in-person community events experiences
Today, customers like to be a part of communities facilitated by their favorite brands—meet and discuss the products and services with likeminded people. Customers want experiences that add value to their lives and don’t want to limit their association with brands to transactions only. So, here’s what you can try:
- Organize in-person meet and greet events for your Shopify members
- Urge customers to sign up for membership during the holiday season by promoting these member community events
- The holiday season is a time for celebration. Organize different types of events for your different membership tiers. For example, an awards function for members – award most active member, highest points earning member, oldest member, etc.
4. Offer a free trial period for membership
Another effective strategy to reduce membership churn during the holiday season is to offer your membership for a free trial but only during the holiday sale period. Let’s see how you can make this offer exciting for customers:
- Offer your membership for free for a few days during the holiday sale
- Create special email and social media campaigns to engage these free-trial members, making the campaigns exciting. For instance, share engaging blogs, articles, and videos through campaigns
- Let members try out a new product as part of the membership trial
- Integrate an intuitive Shopify memberships app such as Appstle
5. Improve engagement before the holiday season
Customers come across hundreds of brands on a daily basis. Hence, if you slack in keeping them engaged or communicating with them, it’s easy for them to forget about your brand. In the meantime, your competitors could easily grab their attention.
Here’s how you can improve member engagement much before the holiday season to reduce churn.
- Be proactive, create engagement campaigns to ensure you are on top of your customers minds
- Use surveys, review and feedback forms, one on one interactions to understand their membership experience and how you could make it better for them in the coming year
- Try to reconnect with lost subscribers – those who canceled their subscriptions in this year. Offer them attractive pricing and incentives to rejoin
How will you reduce subscription and membership churn this holiday season?
The strategies and tactics you employ to reduce churn of subscription and memberships would depend on your brand, products and services. What’s important is you definitely put together a plan and prepare for the holiday season to get more sign ups and reduce churn.
Appstle can make these strategies easy for you. Install Appstle Subscriptions and Appstle Membership apps on your Shopify store. Automate data collection, messaging, discounts, perks, cancellation dunning, etc. with these Appstle apps.
Install Appstle Subscriptions and Appstle Memberships apps on your Shopify store this holiday season!
