Dose #74: What Makes an Offer

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

In this week’s dose, we dive into offers. What they are, and what you can do to make them great. You should come away from this dose with ideas to improve what you’re selling to your best customers. PLUS a special offer from ME!

Free Subscription Mastermind

If you’re looking for some extra, hands-on help with your subscriptions… I got you. Starting this month I’m launching two mini-masterminds - one for beginners, and one for more established brands.

Participation is free for the first five in each group. If you’d like to join, have questions, or are just curious, hit reply and let me know. You are the first group to get this announcement, but it’s going live to my social and network soon so don’t wait.

Save your spot and hit reply to let me know now!

Now, let’s get into offers.

An offer is the most important part of your business. It is what compels customers to buy (and subscribe) your product. It is something I talk about and comes up so much that it deserves its own Subscription Prescription dose.

Developing a powerful offer requires creativity and putting yourself in your customers' shoes. We’ll do a bit of both in this week’s dose.

What is an Offer?

An offer is the total package you’re selling and includes reasons or incentives to make the purchase happen. A carefully crafted offer should have far more value than the price. This should be so apparent to your ideal customers that they cannot resist purchasing. A great offer is a no-brainer for them.

An offer includes the price, discounts, bonuses, add-ons, freebies… everything that comes with the product. Here are a few examples of different offers you may have come across:

• Discount that you can’t get anywhere else

• Access to free content along with purchase

• Buy One Get One Free

• Exclusivity (limited edition or available for a limited time only)

• Gift, like a branded coffee mug on a coffee subscription

• Additional products in a bundle

Free shipping is a typical offer you see out there - so much so that it is considered standard practice for most ecommerce purchases. Discount is another common part of offers. Most subscription offerings include free shipping and a discount of (at least) 10% off.

Both price discounts and free shipping are so common, however, that I would argue they aren’t part of a great offer. It’s just something people expect.

A subscription offer also includes the frequency. For example, a monthly box is a different offer than something that comes quarterly or annually.

What Makes an Offer Great?

Recently, I came across an incredibly compelling (for Matt, the consumer) subscription offer. An online ad offered free chicken wings for life if I subscribed to a monthly meat box. I love chicken wings so much - and have been making them a lot in our air fryer - that this offer had me thinking long and hard about making the purchase.

The miss here is that I wasn’t in the market for a meat subscription. If I had been, that offer would have been a no-brainer. It was still almost good enough for me to try it.

When crafting a great offer, you must go beyond discounts and free shipping and consider the solution your potential buyers seek.

Here’s another excellent offer I’ve seen: including a storybook with a stuffed animal. It’s simple, but there are a million options for any parent looking on Amazon for a teddy bear. Bundling the bear with a storybook for children makes a more compelling offer that stands out. It works because parents shop for stuffed animals in the first place - something to comfort and console children at bedtime. A storybook goes nicely with that need.

Subscriptions usually answer a want or need that happens often enough to be purchased regularly. Consider the benefit you provide or the problem you solve to think through ways to improve your offer.

Ideas to Improve Your Offer

Subscription products can vary from brand to brand, but there are some common ones I can use as examples. Here are some ideas that can enhance your offer.

• Pet food/supplements - pet owners want to take better care of their pets. Toys, games, additional food, or supplements - you can include plenty of additional options to make your offer more compelling for pet owners.

• Supplements - the type of supplement all depends on the outcome customers seek. Weight loss, adding muscle, more vitamins, better skin… the list goes on and on, but I bet you know very well what your customers are seeking to change. To make that happen, find additional things to include, like guides, courses, products, and more.

• Food - are you saving someone time or giving them a treat? Food subscriptions can often include both, but great offers are more than just delicious. Programs like Hello Fresh will often include free meals (think a better discount) plus free samples of other foods that act as a gift (and an upsell).

• CBD - relatively new and growing fast, CBD is also fiercely competitive. Some brands offer higher doses, higher volume, and free products to enhance their offer. But think through how the product is used - are you selling gummies to help people sleep or reduce stress? Increase focus? Those use cases cry out for enhanced offerings like content, additional products (like a sleep mask or white noise machine), and education.

Wrapping Up a Great Offer

Consider why you subscribed to this newsletter in the first place. Getting ideas you can implement on your subscription program is part of my offer. There’s even a podcast now you can listen to for free. ;)

Ultimately, offers require you to be creative and consider what your customers will find compelling. Nothing will be more critical to the long-term health and viability of your company than your offer, so it’s worth the time and effort!

That’s it for this week’s dose! If you have any ideas or questions about good offers, hit reply and ask away.

What do you think of the new format and domain name? Stay tuned for Dose #75 next Tuesday!

- Matt Holman 🩺

The Subscription Doc