Turn one-time shoppers into year-long subscribers

It’s hard to believe that Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two biggest shopping days of the year, are almost here. Over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2023 weekend, Shopify merchants achieved a record $9.3 billion in sales! And whether you’re newly running an online store on Shopify, or a seasoned vet, we’re here to help you have your best BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) yet.

With more than 10 years of Black Friday Cyber Monday experience under our belt, and hundreds of thousands of merchants served, we know what works. That’s why we’ve put together our tried and tested, easy to implement strategies that are sure to help you MAXIMIZE your Black Friday.

So what do we mean by maximizing? If you’ve been following Bold, you may have heard about our new Maximizers™. Maximizers™ are tools you can turn on when using Bold Subscriptions and Bold Upsell together to maximize revenue across every point of your subscriber’s journey. Higher AOV (average order value) means higher revenue and higher lifetime value.

Just like the Maximizers™ that help you make the most of every subscriber transaction, we want to help you maximize your Black Friday season—whether that’s turning shoppers into subscribers, or boosting basket size.

Turn one-time shoppers into year-long subscribers

In this blog post, you’ll find 5 seriously easy ways to turn one-time shoppers into year long-subscribers. But these strategies aren’t just for the holidays—use them all year long! Plus, we’ll show you step-by-step instructions for how to set them up, so you can focus your time on what matters most.

When it comes to Black Friday, running huge sales have become a kind of FOMO thing. You run them for fear of missing out, not because it's a huge revenue booster. You might feel like if you don't run big sales, your loyal customers will go shop at a competitor that is running sales, and there's a chance you might lose them for life. So you have to, right?

And if you have to run huge sales (and let's face it, you kind of do) then you better be doing everything possible to turn all the money you're spending on ads, and all the money you're losing from discounts, into year-long recurring revenue!

The best way to do this is of course to first make sure that you have subscriptions enabled. If you don't, go do that now! Then come back and read the rest. (If you’re not already using Bold Subscriptions, you can try it free for 30 days!)

For everyone else that is selling subscriptions, now is the time to make sure they're perfectly optimized to maximize revenue and conversion over the holidays.

5 surefire ways to turn one-time shoppers into year-long subscribers

#1: Default to Subscribe

This sounds like an easy one, and it actually is! Default to Subscribe is just like it sounds - make sure your subscriptions default to subscribe. Why is this important? Because this ONE simple change has been proven to increase one-time to subscription conversion by up over 20%!

How to set up Default to Subscribe

In your shop, simply head over to your theme settings, click on customize, then go to any product template that has a subscription widget. Select that subscription app block and here's where you can customize anything—colors, copy. At the top there's a little checkbox that says "Default to Subscribe". Simply check that, and that's it. Now subscriptions that use that product template will default to subscribe.

It's specific by template, so you can have some products default to one-time on certain templates and some default to subscription on others.

This one simple change can increase subscription over 20%, so make sure it's on for Black Friday and throughout the holidays. Or all year-long!

#2: Subscription Upsells

If anyone knows upsells, it's us! Bold invented upselling for Shopify and launched Bold Upsell, the first ever Shopify upsell app in 2012. Today, over 100,000 shops have used it to boost average order value and sales. There's one thing we know about upsells—they work! And they work at converting one-time purchasers into subscribers too.

Here's what a Subscription Upsell looks like. When a customer adds a product to their cart as a one-time purchase, show them an upsell offer to upgrade to a subscription and save! It's the perfect spot to remind them how much they save by subscribing, that they can cancel, edit, skip, or pause anytime, and any other benefits or perks that come with a subscription.

This holiday season, make sure to turn on Subscription Upsells and you can expect to turn roughly 6% more one-time buyers into subscribers!

How to set up Subscription Upsells

Subscription Upsells are just one of the new Maximizers™ that work seamlessly when using Bold Subscriptions and Bold Upsell together to maximize every subscriber. To set it up, head to your Upsell app, and click create an offer. Give the offer an internal name like "Subscription Upsell". This is an upsell (not a cross-sell) so select that, and then choose what products you want it to apply to. You can hand-select specific products or collections. This will only show on products that have a subscription.

When creating the offer make sure to select "Upsell a Subscription". That removes the option to select a product to offer, since it will offer the exact same product, but just as a subscription.

Next, give it the best call to action you can. Remind customers how much they’d save by subscribing and how they can cancel or pause any time. Maybe it comes with a perk too, like a free coffee mug the first month. Make sure to include that too. Then click save, and you're done.

Now, when a customer tries to place a one-time order on any product that has a subscription on it, they'll get a gentle reminder to subscribe.

This one simple change can increase conversion of one-time purchases to subscriptions by as much as 6%!

#3: Dynamic Discounts

Dynamic Discounts is one of our newest features, and one you'll definitely want to use over the holidays. With Dynamic Discounts, you can give one discount on the first month when customers order a subscription, and then change to a different discount on a month you specify.

So instead of running your “60% off Black Friday” sale that customers buy, and then are gone forever, give your best discount to your best customers—your subscribers!

With Dynamic Discounts, you can promote "Black Friday savings now, and forever!" Create a big discount for month one (let’s say 60% off), and then set it to convert to a standard subscribe-and-save discount (like 10% off) on month 2, or 3.

Watch your subscription conversion go through the roof this year with an offer like this.

#4: Subscription Promo Packs

You're spending a ton of ad dollars, time and energy to get customers to your store this holiday season, so it's in your best interest to do everything possible to get them to convert. The shops using Bold Subscriptions that see the best conversion offer an amazing package month one that then converts into the regular subscription ongoing.

For example, rather than just offering a regular coffee subscription, offer an amazing holiday bundle that includes 2 exclusive mugs and your best-selling coffee syrup. When the customer subscribes, they get all of that in month one. In month two and on, just the coffee.

Setting this up is easy with the new Convertible Subscriptions Maximizer™. Convertible Subscriptions is a feature that automatically switches the products in a subscription after the first shipment. It's great for things like "subscribe to the scent diffuser, and then just get the scents every month after". But it's also great for promotional events like Black Friday.

How to set up Convertible Subscriptions

To set this up, create a bundle product in your Shopify store that has all the products included. When you set up the subscription group, select the bundle product as the main product, then make it a Convertible Subscription set to switch to just the coffee in month two and so on.

Now you have an amazing offer, available only to subscribers that will Maximize Black Friday subscription conversion even more.

#5: Optimize for Success

All the promotions in the world don't mean a lick if you don't convey them to your shoppers. The first and most important thing to get right is the fundamentals—or what we like to call, objection busters.

Every potential customer in your store has objections that you need to bust. If you don't, your chances of selling to them is nil.

These objections are:

• How do I cancel my subscription if I need to?
• Can I pause it?
• What if I need to skip a month, or change something?
• Can I manage it online, or do I need to phone?
  

The list goes on. You need to address these potential objections where you offer subscriptions.

That's the basics. Now to really see success, take it to the next level by making sure you communicate all of the benefits of subscribing. First, the simple convenience of a subscription is not a differentiator.

A lot of stores offer subscriptions. You need to convey why your subscription, or better put, your “membership”, is so much better than the rest. List all the benefits clearly.

And finally, Don't trust that customers will understand how your subscription discounts work. Make it large and obvious on your product pages: "SAVE 50% YOUR FIRST MONTH!"

At the end of the day, the only true value is perceived value, so make sure your customers understand what they're getting, what they're saving, just how amazing and exclusive your offer is, and why you're better than anyone else!

Ready to take your Black Friday Cyber Monday to the max? Follow along as we share helpful tips and tricks leading up to the busiest shopping days of the year.

Thinking about getting started with subscriptions on your store? There’s no better time to start building year-long recurring revenue. Install Bold Subscriptions now and try it free for 30 days.