Dose #100: Acquire More Subscribers By Scaling Ad Creative

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

This week’s dose is all about getting more content out for subscribers. Content on ads. To make potential subscribers click through to your landing pages, you need to identify the emotions that resonate best with them and compel them to action - buying a subscription. In this dose, we walk through a framework you can use to scale content for your ads.

Prefer your dose in a podcast or video format? Scroll to the bottom for links.

If you’re facing churn from too much product, a new solution is taking the market by storm. Imagine subscribers getting reorders when they’re running low - automatically? Imagine a system that can track how much your subscriber has on hand.

Bottomless makes that automation possible. With their smart scale tied directly into a subscription app, customers don’t need to reorder; Bottomless makes that automatic.

The best part is that you can run Bottomless alongside whatever subscription app you’re using or all on its own. See how subscription brands are drastically reducing churn using Bottomless.

One hundred doses.

Almost two years.

Writing every single week, except for two times I missed.

All because I want subscriptions to work for your business. Work the right way. A way that scales. That can transform the lives of your customers.

No matter how much we talk about subscriptions, the biggest issue and opportunity comes down to acquiring more of the right customers.

This dose is a special one, because I’m sharing a content framework that my friend Jordan West uses. At his agency, for his brands, and it’s all something you can do on your own.

So, let’s dive into how you can acquire more subscribers by scaling ad creative.

The Framework

First, I highly recommend listening to the podcast version of this dose (links at the bottom of this email) because Jordan walks through how it all works (and much more).

You can use this framework in Google Sheets to keep everything organized. Simply make a copy to make your own edits.

Step 1 is research. Take your product and solution, and each month, enter it into Google Trends, Google Keywords, and Answer the Public. Keep track of relevant keywords, phrases, terms, links, data, stories… you get it.

Once a week, look at Pinterest Trends, TikTok for Business, and Foreplay for more ideas.

This research will give you ideas to guide your creative.

You’ll also want 100-150 customer reviews ready for Step 2.

Find the Emotional ID

The best creative and ads center around emotion. With ChatGPT, it has never been easier to synthesize what your customers are saying into copy you can use.

You can also use post-purchase comments about your product for this too.

Put all those reviews into a spreadsheet you can copy into ChatGPT. Use this prompt:

“Using this list of emotions: Belonging - The desire for acceptance among peers or people with similar interests. Esteem - The desire to be respected by others or to gain recognition or appeal. Nurturance - The desire to care for and support your family, friends, or yourself. Autonomy - The desire for independence and autonomy. Competence -The desire to feel intelligent, especially when making decisions. Security - The desire to feel safe, protected, and free from risk. Achievement - The desire to achieve success or obtain a specific goal. Empowerment - The desire for authority over oneself, feeling capable as a person. Engagement - The desire for unique and satisfying life experiences. Analyze the following reviews and list the top 3 emotions you find. Here's the data: [insert reviews here]."

You’ll get the top 3 emotions your customers use to describe your product.

Generate Some Copy

Now we take the research from Step 1 and combine it with the emotions ChatGPT uncovered for us. You can look up those emotions on Thesaurus.com to get nuanced terms

PROMPT: “For nuanced language selection: Give me 10 ad headlines (4-7 words long) that persuades [target market] that they can [nuance choice] their [purpose of product or target] with [product]."

EXAMPLE: "Give me 10 ad headlines (4-7 words long) that persuades dog owners that they can care for their pets better with DogX product."

If you find one that’s ok, but want more versions of it, you can go one step further with this prompt: “Give me 10 [modifier]-based headlines (4-7 words long) that are similar to this one: [copy and paste original headline here].”

Combine Headlines with Static Images

You’re almost ready to launch more ads! With great headlines to test, you can combine them with static images.

Once you find images that win with your headlines, you can keep creating. Turn images into gifs or videos. Test different backgrounds.

The point is that once you have the right emotion and a winning headline, you can keep iterating different versions of it. And of course, always keep track of your tests.

Scaling Great Creative

This is what the best brands do - they find winning concepts and spin up more and more content to support the idea. This framework is one you can follow - no matter the size of your brand or team - to find better headlines and create more ads.

The benefit of any good subscription offer should be based on emotion. Identifying the most compelling emotions will help you attract more subscribers.

That’s it for this week’s dose! Here’s to another 100. 🙂 

Be sure to join our workshop on subscriptions later this week - Ash Melwani from Obvi will be joining us. Dose #101 is out next Tuesday.

 - Matt Holman 🩺

The Subscription Doc

Catch this week’s dose on the podcast or YouTube: