How to Stay Consistent When Your Subscription Box Isn't Growing

Learn how to stay consistent when your subscription box growth slows, focus on what is working, and make smart changes without doing more.

You’re doing all the things.

Posting on social media. Sending emails. Talking about your subscription box and showing up for your audience.

But your subscriber count is barely moving.

You gain a few subscribers, then lose a few. You have a good month and start to feel like you’re finally gaining some momentum, then the next month is slow again.

And that’s when doubt creeps in and you start asking questions.

Should I change my box? Do I need a new offer? Am I talking about it enough? Should I try something completely different?

It’s hard to keep doing the work when you’re not seeing the growth you want. But before you start changing everything, I want you to take a closer look at what’s going on in your business.

Because “my subscription box isn’t growing” doesn’t tell us what the problem is.

We need to figure that out first.

Consistency Doesn’t Mean Doing More

If you’ve been around for a minute, you’ve heard me talk about how important it is to be consistent. 

Consistency trumps everything.

I’ve written blog posts about consistency, done Monday Momentums about consistency and even recorded an entire podcast episode about it. In episode 150 - Are You Giving Your Business Enough Consistency? I talk about five areas where subscription box owners need to be consistent: planning your boxes, going live, emailing, posting on social media, and talking about your subscription.

There’s one thing I want to make sure you take away from this post and that episode. 

Being consistent doesn’t mean doing ALL the things. And it doesn’t mean you have to keep doing something that clearly isn’t working.

Consistency doesn’t mean doing the exact same thing forever. It means staying committed to the work long enough to learn what’s working.

When growth slows down, I don’t want you to immediately decide you need to post twice as much, send twice as many emails, get on another social media platform, create a new offer, or completely change your subscription.

Doing more isn’t automatically the answer.

First, let’s figure out what’s going on.

What Does “Not Growing” Really Mean?

Take a look at your numbers.

Are you getting new subscribers but losing about the same number every month? That’s different from not getting new subscribers at all.

Are people seeing your content but not clicking through to learn more about your subscription?

Are they getting to your sales page but not subscribing?

Or have you gotten so busy doing everything else in your business that you’re simply not talking about your subscription enough?

See how different those problems are?

Before you decide you need a new strategy, ask yourself:

• Are new people finding me?
• Am I consistently talking about my subscription?
• Are people clicking when I talk about it?
• Are new subscribers joining?
• Are the subscribers I already have staying?

Don’t make this complicated. You don’t need a spreadsheet with 27 tabs.

You’re looking for where things are getting stuck.

Because once you know that, you know where to focus.

Keep Talking About Your Subscription Box

Marketing is your #1 job.

Especially when your subscription isn’t growing the way you want it to.

This is where I see business owners get frustrated. They’ve talked about their subscription. They’ve sent the emails. They’ve made the posts. And because they’re not seeing enough new subscribers come in, they start talking about it less.

But your audience isn’t seeing everything you put out.

They didn’t all read Tuesday’s email. They didn’t all see yesterday’s Instagram post. They weren’t all on your LIVE last week.

And the people who did see those things may not have been ready to subscribe yet.

So keep talking about your box.

• Show them what’s inside. 
• Tell them why you chose those products. 
• Show them the boxes being packed. 
• Share what your subscribers are saying. 
• Answer their questions. 
• Talk about who your box is for and why you created it.

And please don’t hear “keep marketing” and think I’m telling you to be everywhere.

I’m not.

In episode 236 of the Launch Your Box Podcast -Stop Trying to Be Everywhere, I talked about choosing two primary marketing channels and adding email every week. That’s it.

Choose the places where your audience spends time and where you can consistently show up. Then give those channels your attention instead of spreading yourself thin trying to keep up everywhere.

Because the goal isn’t to do more marketing.

It’s to get more consistent with the marketing that makes sense for your business.

Before You Try Something New, Look at What’s Already Worked

When something isn’t working as well as we want it to, our first instinct is usually to find something new to try.

New strategy. New promotion. New content idea.

But before you go looking for something new, go back and look at what has already worked in your business.

• Which emails got people clicking?
• Which posts got people commenting or asking questions?
• What promotions brought in subscribers?
• Where did your best subscribers find you?
• What do your subscribers tell you they love about their boxes?

There are clues everywhere.

And don’t think you can’t repeat something because you’ve already done it.

• If an email worked six months ago, use that idea again.
• If people loved watching you pack boxes, show them again.
• If there’s a story that helps people understand why you started your subscription, tell it again.

You remember everything you’ve posted. Your audience doesn’t.

Make One Change, Not Ten

Once you’ve looked at your numbers and your marketing, you may find something that needs to change.

Great. Change it.

But change one thing.

If you change your pricing, rewrite your sales page, completely change your messaging, start posting every day, and create a new promotion all at once, you won’t know which change made the difference.

Instead, ask yourself, What is the one thing that needs my attention most right now?

• Maybe you haven’t been emailing consistently. Start there.
• Maybe people are getting to your sales page but not subscribing. Take a closer look at the page.
• Maybe new subscribers are joining, but too many current subscribers are leaving. Focus on retention.
• Maybe you’re doing a good job marketing to the people who already know you, but you’re not getting in front of enough new people. Work on growing your audience.

One problem. One focus. Then give it some time.

Remember, Marketing Doesn’t Always Work Immediately

This part can be hard. 

You send an email today, and nobody subscribes.

You go LIVE, and nobody subscribes.

You make a great post, and nobody subscribes.

It’s easy to look at that and think, “Well, that didn’t work.”

But you don’t know that.

We want immediate results. But that’s not how this works. 

Someone could see your post today, start following you, join your email list a few weeks from now, and subscribe three months later.

People need time. Now more than ever. 

They need to see you. They need to hear from you. They need to understand what you offer. And they need enough opportunities to decide, “Yep. This is for me.”

One post usually isn’t going to do all of that. Neither is one email.

That’s why consistency is so important.

Keep Doing the Work That Matters

If your subscription box isn’t growing right now, I don’t want your first response to be, “I need to do more.”

I want you to get curious. Dig in and ask yourself: 

• What’s happening? 
• Where are people getting stuck?
• What’s working?
• What needs some attention?

Then focus there.

Keep marketing your subscription. Keep serving the subscribers you already have. Keep paying attention to what your audience responds to. Make changes when you need to make them.

And give yourself enough time to learn from what you’re doing.

Consistency doesn’t mean doing the exact same thing forever. It means staying committed to the work long enough to learn what’s working.

And if you’re struggling to figure out what that work should be, that’s exactly why I created Launch Your Box.

Inside Launch Your Box, you’ll find the roadmap, training, and support you need to launch and grow your subscription box without chasing every new idea that comes along.

You don’t need 100 new ideas.

You need to know your next right step. And then you need to take it.