5 Smart Tips for Acquiring New Subscribers

Getting new customers can be quite a challenge, but it can be especially tricky for businesses that follow a subscription-based model as it takes a much bigger commitment on the part of the customers.

Sticking to your tried-and-tested customer acquisition methods may not be enough, but you don’t necessarily need to completely overhaul your marketing strategies. Here are some simple ways to win over those subscribers.

Make Signing Up as Easy as Possible

Customers love it when things are as hassle-free as possible, to minimize the number of fields in a sign-up form. If people can register with just one or a few clicks—say, through a Facebook sign-up or by just providing their name and e-mail address initially—then make it so. Use a recurring billing platform to handle the inconvenience of failed payment transactions, and ensure the privacy and security of billing details at the same time. Take note that studies have shown that failed payment transactions, in particular, contribute significantly to customer attrition. This is why you need to address this challenge as efficiently and as effectively as possible.

Target Other Markets

Perhaps you’ve already exhausted all possible customers in your target market, and it’s time to expand your horizons. If you’ve initially targeted young married couples, for instance, then maybe you can craft a special offer that appeals to single young professionals.

You can even look at foreign shores, especially if you don’t have physical products to ship. Consider how Netflix expanded its subscriber base abroad, even as they were having troubles acquiring new customers locally. What you have to find out is what these foreign markets want and how you can adjust your offers in order to appeal to these people.

Run Promos and Give Special Offers

People love getting free stuff, even if it’s just nice souvenir pen. You don’t even have to offer something big; most of the time, it’s your own products that can lure people in. Offer a free premium subscription for a month, just to give them a taste of what’s in store for signing up. You can waive membership dues for the first six months, or even a discounted annual fee if they subscribe for a minimum of two years.

You can then run these promos and offers on social media to gain even more exposure, and attract even more potential subscribers. Of course, you can also run promos for your existing consumer base and use these offers as a carrot for new subscribers. This can be an exclusive, “members-only” type of promotion, which can be a powerful convincing tool.

Explore Partnerships

Partnerships can open more opportunities for customer acquisition, especially because your partners’ consumer base may be an entirely different group of yours. You can introduce your brand to this new market without having to worry whether or not they’ll pay attention. Your partner will help ensure that they listen because they’ve already gained their own customers’ trust. Partnerships also allow you to create bigger, more customized offers to further entice your potential subscribers.

Exit Offers

Sometimes, people just don’t push through with signing up for one reason or another. You can create pop-up offers to convert these people one last time. These might be a little more unconventional compared to other promotions, but it is also your last chance to make these potential customers pay attention.

Develop something that’s different from your initial offer—they didn’t convert the first time, after all— but be careful not to make it too “hard sell” or these customers may be turned off completely.

Another challenge that makes it more difficult to acquire new customers is that the market naturally shrinks over time — there’s only so many people that you can convince to sign-up after all. This is why subscriber-based businesses should always revisit both their retention and acquisition programs, to see how these can be tweaked to be more responsive to the demands of the market.