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

Launch Your Box Podcast with Sarah Williams | Start, Launch, and Grow Your Subscription Box

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.

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.

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.

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.
• 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.
• 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.

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

Join me in all the places:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Launch Your Box with Sarah Website

Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join the waitlist today!