You Don't Need a Big Audience if You Have the Right Audience

What if I told you that you could launch your subscription box to an audience of only 600 people and 100 of them would subscribe?

Does that seem impossible?

I have to admit, even to someone who knows as much about the subscription box business as I do, that sounds very unlikely.

But it happened. And it happened to one of the members of my subscription box coaching group, Launch Your Box.

So, I wanted to talk to Amanda and find out what she did to get 100 people to sign up for her subscription box when she only launched to 600.

And you know what I found out?

Those 100 subscribers could have been more.

Amanda made an optimistic guess about how much product she’d need if she hit her stretch number of 100 subscribers.

She quickly sold all 100 and discovered even more members of her audience wanted to subscribe!

So how did Amanda do it? Does she know things the rest of us don’t know?

Nope.

Amanda did two things I talk about all the time… and she did them very well.

Let’s talk about what those are.

The riches are in the niches.

If you happen to be new around here, this may be the first time you’ve heard talk about this.

For everyone else, there’s a reason I say this a lot. It’s true.

Amanda is a super-fan of a particular brand of planner I was not familiar with, Hobonichi Planners. These Japanese planners are very specific in their layout and use special paper that allows users to write in them with fountain pens.

Amanda likes to use stickers in her planner. But she wasn’t able to find the size stickers she needed in a style she liked.

At first, Amanda dealt with this by making alterations to other stickers. That worked for a while… kind of.

Then she decided to start making her own stickers. Her own stickers that were specifically designed for Hobonichi Planners. And not any Hobonichi Planner, a specific size of Hobonichi, the Cousin.

Amanda’s subscription box is a monthly box that contains custom-designed stickers and accessories specifically for Hobonichi Cousins.

That’s what I call a niche!

Amanda started making the stickers and selling them on Etsy because her audience (we’ll talk about that next) wanted her to. She decided to create a monthly subscription of planner stickers because, you guessed it, her audience wanted her to.

Build an audience of your ideal customers.

Audience building is the first step when it comes to starting a subscription box. Building an audience of your ideal customers is crucial. Find them and make it easy for them to find you.

I talk about audience building even more than I talk about niches. This blog post and this episode of the Launch Your Box Podcast are great resources to learn more about building your audience.

Amanda found and built her audience on YouTube. This is a bit unusual. Most subscription box owners, including me, do the majority of our online audience building on Facebook and Instagram. But Amanda knew exactly what she was doing.

She started a channel and simply recorded videos where people could follow along as she planned her week in her Hobonichi Planner.

I know planner people are serious about their planners. For them, it’s about so much more than just writing appointments and to-do lists in a cute planner. For them, planning is a ritual.

Slowly, people started following Amanda and commenting on her videos. As she planned, she shared parts of her life with her audience. She connected with them. She let them get to know, like, and trust her.

So when Amanda talked to her audience about her challenges with the existing planner stickers, they got it. They had the same problem. And when she decided to start making - and selling - her own stickers, they were right there with her, ready to buy.

So when Amanda asked her audience if they would be interested in a monthly subscription of stickers, they said, “Yes!”

And when Amanda launched - to her audience of only 600 people - they said “yes” again. 100 of them subscribed with more on the waitlist.

I can’t wait to see where Amanda takes her subscription box business. It has already grown to the point where her husband was able to quit his job as an engineer to work with her full time. The best part? She’s just getting started!

Remember, you don’t need a huge audience. You need the right audience. I don’t have a huge audience. I have the right audience, an audience filled with my ideal customer. Choose your niche, start building the right audience, and get ready to be amazed by what you can do.