How a One Time Holiday Box Can Validate Your Subscription Box Idea | EP 169

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Have you been sitting on the sidelines, listening, watching, and waiting to launch your subscription box?  You have an idea, and you’ve taken some steps toward turning those dreams into reality, but something is holding you back. 

What if you could test your subscription box idea with your target audience without committing to a full-blown launch? Now is the perfect time to validate your subscription box concept with a carefully curated one-time box. 

Why now?  

Retail and e-commerce businesses will see high consumer spending over the next four months. Most will bring in 50% of their total year’s revenue during the next four months. That makes now the best time to test your idea. 

During the holidays people are more likely to spend on items for others. They’re looking for something fun and unique, something special that stands out from all the other gifts under the tree. 

Your one-time holiday box can be the perfect, thoughtful gift.

Why a one-time box? 

The ultimate goal is to start, launch, and grow a thriving subscription box business. And a one-time box can be the perfect first step. A one-time box has a lower commitment for customers. It allows you to bring them into your business and then nurture them into being a subscriber. 

So how can you curate the perfect one-time holiday box? 

Your one-time box should be similar to your subscription box idea, appealing to the same ideal customer. 

Think about whether the recipients will receive the box before the holidays or as a holiday gift. This determines whether it can be holiday-themed or needs to be an everyday theme. 

I do a one-time holiday box every year. My audience loves it, it sells out early every year, and it brings a nice punch of revenue into my business in the 4th quarter. Since it’s intended to be given as a holiday gift (although a lot of my customers buy it as a gift to themselves), the contents of my holiday box do not have a holiday theme. Instead, it contains items similar to those found in my Monogram Box. 

A one-time box is your opportunity to get it right. To put together a curated experience that will wow your ideal customer and give them a feel for what they could expect if they became a subscriber. 

Now that you’ve curated your one-time holiday box, it’s time to sell it. 

• Continue the audience building you’ve already been working on- growing your social media following and your email list. After all, you have to have someone to sell to! 
• Build anticipation for your audience with countdowns, coming soon & save the date announcements, and sneak peeks. 
• Engage your audience in the process and get their buy-in with polls, behind-the-scenes, and other interactive content. 
• Plan a launch following the Launch Strategy with socials, lives, emails, and ads. Launch Your Box members can find the plan in the Launch Your Box training library.
• Go all in. To be successful, you need to market your one-time box with a launch. 
• Create urgency, scarcity, and exclusivity by selling one-time boxes as pre-orders. 
• Analyze what’s working and what isn’t and adapt. 

This process is great for new subscription box owners since you’ll go through a launch, curate a box, market the box, and fulfill the box. You’ll learn a ton about the launch process just by launching a one-time box and be ready to apply that knowledge to launch your subscription box. 

Many of my students shifted their entire businesses from successful one-time box offers to subscriptions….because they had proof of concept before turning it into a subscription box.

• Kristy of Kristy’s Craft Room went from selling one-time kits month after month, never knowing how much product she needed or how many kits she would sell to a subscription box business with more than 1,000 monthly subscribers!   
• Nicole of GPig Box launched a one-time holiday box, sold hundreds, and then launched her subscription in the new year. 
• Stacey of Wilshire Collections (who already has multiple very successful subscriptions) just launched a new throw blanket one-time offer to see if it was viable for a quarterly subscription. After selling out of hundreds of blankets, she’ll launch the new subscription in a few months. 

Owning a business means testing and trying new things. A one-time box is a golden opportunity for you to test the validity of your subscription box idea. And the holiday season is the perfect time of year to do it! 

I’ve got a great, free new resource to help you curate a box experience for your subscribers.

Join me for this episode as I talk about validating your subscription box idea with a one-time holiday box. Now is the perfect time to get your subscription box dreams off the ground! 

• Kristy’s Interview - Episode 45 - Journey from One-Time Boxes to a Thriving Monthly Subscription 
• Nicole’s Interview - Episode 13 - A Passion for Animals Turns into 500 Monthly Subscribers
• Curating a Box Experience for Your Subscribers