Dose #77: Milkbar’s First Bite Club Delivered

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

This week’s dose is all about diving into a premium subscription offering: Milkbar’s First Bite Club Delivered. Launched earlier this year, it sold out in a single day. This dose walks through the magic recipe they followed to overdeliver for their subscribers and what you can learn from it.

Reading too much already? This week’s dose is also on our podcast:

This week’s podcast dose is also about Milk Bar’s First Bite Club Delivered and why it’s so powerful.

If you don’t know Milk Bar, then you don’t know baked goods. Founded by Christina Tosi, Milk Bar is an award-winning bakery famous for familiar desserts with a new twist.

With so many amazing desserts and avid fans, a subscription may not seem necessary at first glance. But a brand like Milk Bar is always looking to improve their offering - especially for their best customers.

A Delicious Subscription Launch

It all started with the question: “How do we bring a monthly membership to Milk Bar fans that feels authentic and exciting?”

The answer comes down to understanding part of the magic that makes up the Milk Bar brand. They are constantly innovating recipes and formats for desserts. (See the Pumpkin Coffee-Cake Cake as an example.)

What makes your brand special? Something to think about while you follow along with this story. :)

The First Bite Club Delivered gives members access to limited-edition innovations before they hit the official menu. Milk Bar is leaning into their mission of creating new formats and new flavors by bringing that into their subscription offering. The goal of the program is to engage their most loyal, experimental, and passionate customers.

In a recent Subscription Prescription dose I explained how great subscription and membership programs should aim at uncovering your best customers. These are the most valuable customers to your business.

Milk Bar’s club is a perfect example of this. They charge for access instead of selling it at a discount. They’ve created an experience that is unmatched anywhere else in the dessert space, especially for the fans of Milk Bar.

On top of the actual desserts customers receive each month, Milk Bar creates unique content for these subscribers. “Between Two Mixers” is a video made with each shipment that includes the founder and chief baker talking about the experiments that led to that month’s dessert.

The benefits of this subscription are mutual. Subscribers access new and delicious desserts before anyone else. Milk Bar gets a testing ground for new products and ideas, while adding another profitable revenue stream to their business.

The cherry on the top for this particular subscription offering is that Milk Bar has created an experience their customers can’t resist talking about. They consistently talk about the new products they’re trying, promoting the brand and the subscription.

What You Can Learn from Milk Bar

There are a few critical takeaways from Milk Bar’s monthly subscription. The first is that you should know what your customers value the most from your product and brand. This can give you direction on new ideas on how to enhance your offer.

Second, they created an offer that customers would pay more for. They targeted their most avid fans and gave them something worth spending more money on. Leaning into offerings for your best customers will create new and more profitable revenue opportunities for your business.

Third, they tapped into content. It enhances the overall experience because subscribers hear about the story that went into the dessert for that month.

Finally, Milk Bar’s approach was all about going above and beyond for their customers. The packaging was unique. Marketing the subscription was unique. The experience each and every time is memorable.

Final Thoughts

Subscriptions can be tough when it’s only a transaction between you and your customer. For many of them, this is all they want, and that’s fine. Finding opportunities to sell more to customers who want more is the key to unlocking profitable scale.

That’s it for this week’s dose! Let me know if you found the story format useful and I’ll do it for more brands.

Stay tuned for Dose #78 next Tuesday!

- Matt Holman 🩺 

Subscription Doc