Never Give Up - Breaking Through a Plateau

Discover how Launch Your Box member Lexie turned lessons learned from a disappointing launch into hundreds of subscribers.

Can you imagine being one of the top 1% of all Etsy sellers in the wedding category? The wedding category - which is crowded with sellers offering anything and everything to make a bride and groom’s special day perfect. Launch Your Box member Lexie of The Crafty Lady Boutique reached that top 1% milestone and felt like she was on top of the world. Then the global pandemic hit. 

And the wedding industry - like so much of the world - just shut down. And so did Lexie’s business. 

Lexie knew that if her business was going to survive, she needed to pivot. And she did. As the wedding industry slowly started coming back, Lexie introduced The Monogrammed Bride subscription box. She built her audience, followed the launch plan, and launched her subscription box. The results were less than she’d hoped for. 

When a member of Launch Your Box tells me they had a disappointing launch, I’m usually able to diagnose the problem easily. Rarely - like seriously very rarely - do I find a member who did everything I teach and didn’t get results. Lexie had done all the right things. 

Getting the right people to engage with your content. 

Not only was Lexie’s launch disappointing, her attempts to grow her subscription box didn’t seem to be working either. She’d reached a plateau and couldn’t seem to get past it. She had a feeling audience engagement was a big part of the problem. 

So, when I invited members of Launch Your Box to join me for a special “Ask Sarah” series on the Launch Your Box Podcast, Lexie was anxious to participate. Her question was simple - “How can I get people to engage on social media?” 

Listen to Lexie’s interview on episode 68 of the Launch Your Box podcast. 

When someone is struggling to get engagement on social media, I am usually able to identify the cause easily. 

The problem might be: 

• Lack of followers
• Lack of consistency 
• An issue with the quality of photos or videos
• An issue with the product itself 

In Lexie’s case, NONE of these was the problem. She had a good number of followers. She had been posting consistently for the past several months. Her images and videos were GREAT. And her products? Well, let’s just say there was a reason she was in the top 1% of her category! 

So what was the issue? Why weren’t Lexie’s followers engaging with her content? 

No one was seeing her stuff. 

Sure, Lexie was getting in front of people. But they weren’t the RIGHT people - brides. 

Coming up with a plan to increase engagement. 

When people don’t engage with your content, it hurts the algorithm. That means even fewer people see it. We needed to get Lexie’s content - which was very good - in front of her ideal customer. 

As Lexie and I talked, I came up with an action plan for her to follow that included: 

1. Picking a day and time to go LIVE each week. 
2. Teasing something that’s coming up on the LIVE in a social media post and an email. 
3. Getting her friends to show up to her LIVES to ask questions to generate conversations. 
4. Boosting one post per week. 
5. Finding more brides by holding quarterly giveaways and getting active inside bridal groups.  
6. Serving her audience by creating content that establishes her as a wedding authority. 

Getting consistent and connecting with her audience. 

Lexie left our interview and started implementing the plan right away. Just like I knew she would. She focused on finding the right people and engaging with them consistently. 

Lexie SHOWED UP. 

• She built a community - giving her subscribers something to feel they were a part of. 
• She posted stories on Instagram - consistently. 
• She created engaging posts featuring pictures of subscribers and their boxes - providing important social proof. 
• She went LIVE much more consistently - and started building an audience who showed up for her and engaged with her during the LIVEs. 
• She followed her subscribers back and engaged with their posts. 
• She did tons of short video - finding cracks of time while sitting in her car waiting to pick her kids up from practices.  
• She sent boxes to a small number of influencers from TikTok and Instagram - people with 1000-2000 followers who wanted to grow as influencers. 
• She ran Facebook Ads - and got really dialed in which drove the cost per engagement way down. Lexie analyzed her Ads every week and made changes as needed. 

Reaching a longstanding goal! 

Just like she has done since the beginning, Lexie followed the plan we set. She did everything we talked about - consistently. 

Her reward for all her hard work and consistency? Hitting the longstanding goal she’d set for her subscription box business - 100 subscribers! 

LIsten to this part of Lexie’s subscription box journey on episode 134 of the Launch Your Box Podcast. 

But she didn’t stop there. Lexie is not only an active member of Launch Your Box. She’s also a member of my next-level membership, Scale Your Box. She continues to learn and implement, learn and implement. And the community and I continue to celebrate her success - like when she reached 200 subscribers and when she launched a second subscription box! 

There are so many lessons we can all learn from Lexie. At so many points along her journey, she could have chosen to give up. When the pandemic hit and her business nearly disappeared overnight, she could have quit. She didn’t. When she worked so hard and did all the right things and still had a disappointing launch, she could have quit. She didn’t. 

Lexie’s advice to any subscription box owner or subscription box hopeful who is struggling to find success is simple. 

“Don’t give up. Just keep moving forward.” 

With consistency and the willingness to continue to learn and implement that learning, Lexie now enjoys the benefits regular recurring revenue from more than 200 subscribers brings to her business and her life. 

There is SO MUCH more to learn inside Launch Your Box about starting, launching, and growing your subscription box. We’d love to have you join us!