So you want to sell a membership on Shopify, but it intimidates the heck out of you…
We get it! It’s a whole different beast. However, it doesn’t mean that the best cannot be tamed, and today we’re going to walk you through how to do that. Why? Because memberships are valuable to developing residual income and a loyal customer base that comes back continually for more.
Here’s how to get started:
1. Decide on Your Choice Subscription App
There are three that we’d recommend: 1) Subscription & Recurring Pay, 2) Bold Subscriptions, 3) Recharge.
Subscription & recurring pay helps motivate customers by offering fun options like trials and discounts that blend well with your subscription-based service. They also save you time with automatic recurring billing and subscription management that offers seamless integration with your Shopify checkout. Even better – they offer various paywall options that help reduce any friction for potential consumers to move forward with a purchase.
Bold Subscriptions is an easy, flexible app that offers unified cart integration, powerful API customizations, and a way to reduce unsubscribe counts. This app also allows you to set your own subscription rules and even develop branded customer portals. The limits are truly endless when generating dependable recurring revenue by using Bold Subscriptions.
Recharge offers a way to make buying easy and increase the customer’s engagement – while also rolling our subscriptions quicker and scaling your business into a machine. Their standard plan has no fees and offers subscription billing, merchant tools, payment management, and order management. It’s a great option to build a reliable revenue stream in a way that’s feasible and affordable.
2. Decide on Member Options
What’s the rate at which your customers will pay, and how much will they need to allocate to this subscription? Is it going to be yearly, monthly, weekly? Will it have options to do annually with a discount? These are all factors that you need to think about and price out to determine which will be most profitable and marketable for you!
Obviously, you don’t want to be priced too low, but your subscriptions should be offering you a return on investment and then some. So don’t be shy to take some time to decide this before you roll anything out. It’s critical to know before you start selling.
3. Describe it and Add Imagery
Quality product/service descriptions about what your subscription offers can significantly impact whether or not people decide to invest. Is it going to be worth the commitment for them? What do they get? How is it different from other subscriptions in the same category? Think about all this, and then find images to compliment your sale story.
Visual representation is also super important because it gives consumers a peek into what they’re paying for. Whether it’s a surprise box or an all-over service – people have eyes, and we like to at least be able to observe what we will get in some fashion. So think about this aspect too when developing a page about your offer.
4. List the TOS & Privacy Policies
Subscriptions can get tricky and sticky – especially with cancellation dates and refund requests. This gets even more confusing when it pertains to digital content. So make sure that all your Terms of Service are laid out and your Privacy Policy answers all the common questions before you go to sell! This step will save you many headaches if all those common concerns and questions have an answer beforehand.
Customers need to know what you are willing to do/offer and what they need to accept as policy. So do not shy away from laying down the law. However, we always recommend seeking legal advice to do this stuff correctly in the first place.
5. Outline the Membership
A customer should have the proper links to visit to understand everything they need to know about membership before joining. This means you need an FAQ page, your TOS (as stated above), what it provides, how it works, etc. If you don’t have this all linked and laid out, it can be more difficult to influence people to join a subscription program you are marketing. Why? Because they don’t have anywhere to go to answer their questions that will help them develop trust.
Trust is critical, and the more you develop rapport by providing the information they want to know, the more trust they’ll have in you and your offer.
6. Develop a Sales Landing Page
Better yet – develop an entire page dedicated to answering all of the questions a customer may have! Walk them through how the subscription works, little insights into what it offers, and create enticement with fun graphics! Sales landing pages are a great way to tell a story and guide your potential clients through the motions of why they need this product/service regularly! Utilize these to your advantage, and we are almost positive your sales will increase.
7. Market Before You Launch
The best thing you can do to have a successful launch day is to get the word out in a way that will draw people in. So how do you do that? Social media! Because social media relies on visual components designed to attract those that relate to the content – be it Instagram, TikTok, etc. – it’s an incredible choice to captivate the attention of your desired audience.
Use creative videos like reels or interactive posts that get people engaged long enough to find intrigue about your offer. The key is to hook their attention and then reveal why they need that subscription in their life!
8. Automate Emails
Babe. Do yourself a favor and automate those emails with Klaviyo. Why should you have to worry about sending out post-purchase emails when everything can be entirely done for you before you launch your subscription product! This new launch should be a smooth process for you, and automated emails can allow you to relax instead of working overtime feverishly.
Even better? Automated emails can be used to announce a Subscription launch to your current clients that follow your newsletter too! Easy marketing trick right there.
Whether you are launching a brand new subscription or this is your first – these are all significant steps to follow every time you do so! Plenty of subscriptions live online now, and you need to give yourself a competitive edge. So, provide the most effortless and most fluid experience for the customer and the most stress-free process for you!
Believe us – launching subscriptions can be fun AND lucrative when done right!
