Expert Advice for Building a Successful Subscription Business from the Ground Up

Introduction

Starting a subscription business is no small task. It takes a lot of time and effort, but it's also immensely rewarding. The most important thing you can do is to learn as much as possible about the world of subscriptions before diving in. Here are six tips for building your very own successful subscription business:

Realize that there's a learning curve to building a successful subscription business.

The learning curve is a good thing. Just because you’re not immediately the best in your field, or even a seasoned veteran, doesn’t mean that you won't improve over time.

Building a successful subscription business takes time and effort—so don't feel like you need to have it all figured out right away. Instead, consider how much of your growth as an entrepreneur will come from mistakes and failures (and believe me, there will be plenty).

The Basics of Starting a Subscription Business

If you're thinking about starting your own subscription business, it's important to know the basics. Subscription businesses are those that sell products or services in a recurring format. The idea is that customers sign up for automatic payments, and as long as they continue paying their monthly dues, they will receive the same product or service each month.

For example: If you were an online retailer who sold beauty products and offered free shipping on orders over $100, your customers would be able to sign up for a subscription service where they pay a monthly fee (say $10) and receive one product each month at no additional cost. That way, even if customers don't purchase anything from your store during that particular month, they still get something in exchange for their money because there is still value being added through the subscription service itself!

Because of this structure—and because it can be difficult for new companies to achieve success without marketing strategy help—we've put together some tips below on how best start building a successful subscription business from scratch!

Starting With the Successful Business Model: Find Your Niche

• Find Your Niche. One of the most important things you can do when building a successful subscription business is to find your niche. Before you start creating a product, make sure there is a market for it. If there isn't, or if it's too small, do some research into whether or not customers are willing to pay for what you're planning on selling them.
• Know What You're Doing and What You Are Selling Them. Once you've found your niche, make sure that you know what needs to be delivered in order for it to satisfy customer expectations and deliver value in their life (this applies whether they're buying from you directly or through an affiliate network). This means having strong working knowledge of how this product will be produced - including where materials come from and how they'll be manufactured into finished goods - as well as knowing how much it costs per unit so that pricing structures can be established accordingly without losing money on each sale made through either channel mentioned above (more about this later).

Be flexible with your plan offerings.

• Be flexible with your plan offerings.
• Be willing to change your business model.
• Be willing to pivot.
• Be willing to experiment.
• Try new things and don't be afraid to fail!

Create a streamlined, easy-to-understand subscription pricing model.

• Create a streamlined, easy-to-understand subscription pricing model. It's essential that you make your service easy for customers to understand and use. The more complex the pricing model, the more difficult it will be for people to transact with you. Your subscription pricing should also be scalable in order to accommodate growth.
• Make sure that your payments are integrated into your platform in a way that doesn't require users to switch over from one app or browser window into another. This can be especially important if you're targeting a global audience: You want them all using your software using the same payment options at once so they can get started putting their data into it as soon as possible!

Keep Your Customer in Mind

There are many factors that go into creating a successful subscription business, but none is more important than keeping your customer in mind.

Whether it's the experience they have with your product or service, their satisfaction with the help you provide when they need it, and even their loyalty to you as an individual brand—it's all about how well you can keep your customers happy and engaged.

Poor customer service will drive away customers faster than anything else. And while there are some businesses that can survive on social media alone, most businesses require actual human interaction at some point during their journey with a brand. For example, if someone is having trouble getting started with a new software program or tool end of month payments (such as Airtable), then they might want to reach out for help right away rather than wait until next month or later when they've already invested too much time into figuring things out on their own.

If this happens frequently enough over time then eventually no one will be willing participate in these types of programs at all because there isn't enough incentive for them besides just saving money upfront without any guarantee that things won't fall apart later down line."

Calculating the Lifetime Value of Your Customers

You can't build a successful subscription business without knowing your customers' lifetime value (LTV). The LTV is the average amount of money a customer will spend with your company over the course of their lifetime. To calculate this, you need to know:

• How much it costs to acquire a new customer
• How many times someone purchases from you in their lifetime

Theoretically, if you have great retention and upselling rates, every new customer will spend more than they cost to acquire. That's what makes them valuable! So if it costs $10 per acquisition but each person turns into an excellent repeat buyer who generates $20 worth of profits for your business over and over again until they die (or stop using your service), then that's a profitable customer!

Make sure your website is user-friendly for mobile devices.

Make sure your website is user-friendly for mobile devices.

By the end of 2018, more than half of all digital traffic will come from mobile devices. That’s over two billion users accessing websites through their phones or tablets! If you want to make sure that your business can reach as many potential customers as possible, it’s important that your site is optimized for mobile. The best way to do this is with a responsive design (also called adaptive design). A responsive website automatically resizes itself based on what device you are using, which means it will look good whether people view it on their desktop computer or on their smartphone or tablet. Designing a website this way requires work up front, but the payoff is worth it: when someone visits your site while they are using their phone instead of their laptop at home—or vice versa—the page will still look great and function smoothly without any additional effort needed by either party involved in the transaction (you!).

Finding a Viable Pricing Model for Your Subscription

Finding a viable pricing model for your subscription business is a key part of your overall business model. Typically, you will have a combination of monthly fees, annual fees and/or transaction fees that add up to the total cost of the subscription. When determining which pricing models to use for each tier, consider what makes sense for your product or service and where you see yourself in the future.

Here are some examples:

• If your product requires additional equipment (e.g., a printer), then an annual fee might be appropriate because it allows customers to pay upfront without having to worry about extra charges later on down the road.
• If you’re selling educational content online, then it may make sense to offer monthly subscriptions so students can access lessons any time they want without having worry about paying all at once.

Building a successful subscription business requires a lot of time and effort, but the good news is that it's absolutely doable for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Building a successful subscription business requires a lot of time and effort, but the good news is that it's absolutely doable for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

It's also important to remember that the more time you spend building your subscription business, the better off your business will be. The same goes for learning as much as possible about the industry—the more you know about how other companies have succeeded in this type of marketplace, the easier it'll be for you to follow in their footsteps.

Finally: invest in subscriptions! There are no guarantees regarding success when starting out on this path, but there are also ways to reduce risk by putting money behind what you do know works well (i.e., subscriptions).

Conclusion

Building a successful subscription business requires a lot of time and effort, but the good news is that it's absolutely doable for businesses of all shapes and sizes. You don't have to be an overnight success; instead, focus on building your business slowly over time. Remember that there is no "one size fits all" model for subscriptions—and that's okay! Yours will come together in its own unique way. Get started today by exploring some of these tips on how to get started with subscriptions at your own company or blog, or reach out if we can help with anything else along the way!

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