It’s time to focus on the lifeline of your small business - your repeat customers!
In this episode of the S.O.B. (small owned business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are sharing best practices when it comes to getting customers to CONTINUE to buy from you. A new customer is great, but turning that one purchase into a lifelong brand evangelist? That’s how you grow your small business.
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast
03:45 Marketing Strategies for Recurring Sales
11:34 The Importance of Customer Service
18:34 Building Brand Evangelists
25:09 Cross-Selling and Upselling Techniques
35:29 The Power of Subscription Models
46:41 Leveraging Existing Tools for Sales Growth
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Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Vivian: Chelsea, even though our significant others would not believe this, probably call us liars, today in this episode, we're making people's lives easier. Believe it or not.
Chelsea: Yeah, you know what? I'm really Vivian, I am not that difficult.
Vivian: On a scale of one to ten, you're kind of like a...11.
Chelsea: I don't think I'm difficult and I definitely feel like I don't make our SOB's lives difficult. We make their lives easier.
Vivian: Certainly and we want to hear that directly from you. So tell us, leave us a review. Let us know how this podcast has helped you in running your small business, in promoting your products and services. We want to hear it all.
Chelsea: Yes, we're going to make your lives easier today by talking about the easiest way to get some sales, Vivian, in my opinion, and that would be focusing on your repeat customers or your recurring customers.
Vivian: This is what we like to call low hanging fruit around here because the thing is I think sometimes we kind of chase after the newest, flashiest thing in marketing because that's the interesting part. That's the fun part of it, right? Some of the stuff that you're like *snore sound*, that's a snoring sound effect, you guys. Snooze fest is actually the stuff that is probably going to drive more revenue, more sales into your small business.
Chelsea: Vivian, real quick, I had a different hot take, but I have a new hot take, and that's I want to push back on Vivian saying that this is the boring stuff. So today we're talking about best practices for repeat customers or for recurring sales. I think for me personally, this is the interesting stuff. Because it's getting in the nitty gritty and understanding your customers well enough to know how to keep them coming to your small business.
Vivian: And you guys, Chelsea just dropped this little Easter egg for you guys on an upcoming conversation that we're going to have for a future topic and it's actually about target audience.
Chelsea: This is why you need to follow or subscribe. Whatever it is on whichever platform you're listening on. But one of our next conversations is going to be questions to ask to better understand or to learn more about your target audience.
Vivian: Today it's-
Chelsea: It was so smart of me to leave that Easter egg, it was definitely on purpose.
Vivian: I mean, one hundred percent because you are level eleven difficult, I'm sure you're trying to make their lives difficult, leaving little hints everywhere.
How are we going to conduct today's conversation with regards to how people can get that low hanging fruit and the exciting stuff, which Chelsea says this is the exciting part of marketing, tapping into getting more recurring sales from people that have already bought from them.
Chelsea: So we're going to start this conversation by reminding everyone why we should care about recurring sales. That seems like an obvious thing, but I feel like a lot of times businesses focus, focus, focus on new customers and we kind of forget about the people who have already shopped with us. So real quick we're going to talk about why it matters, why you want recurring sales, and then we're going to go into best practices, low hanging fruit, those marketing initiatives that will help you increase your recurring sales.
Vivian: All right, so why an increase in recurring sales should be a marketing goal? When you're out there thinking about what you want to do in 2026, even into 2027, why should reoccurring sales be a priority, Chelsea?
Chelsea: Well, let's start with the simplest, which is it's a lower barrier to entry. Think about it. When you're attracting new customers, you gotta give them a lot of information, right? You gotta tell them why your store is the one they should pick for whichever product they're trying to purchase. You've already done the hard work with these customers. You've already got them through the door once. So now all you need to do is convince them that it's easy and it's simple and it's worth their time to purchase from you again.
Vivian: The other part of it too is and this goes hand in hand with that. Because of what Chelsea said, and remember you guys, we always throw this statistic out here. I should probably get this printed on a shirt because we talk about it all the time. It takes seven to eight touch points for somebody to consider spending money with you nowadays. Think about it, because they're bombarded with scrolling through social media, having ads pop up on them. Running one ad campaign in one particular medium is not going to convert into a sale immediately. You guys know this. If you've been running a business for any amount of time, you know this. Sometimes it takes three months and six different ads to finally get someone to say, you know what? I'm going to spend the $50 to try this new product out. so being that there are so many touch points that are now required or not required, but that it takes for someone to finally spend money with you. That lower barrier is like super important, I think. Once you get them through the door, you've worked so hard, like she said, to get them through the door. You've run so many ads, you've posted so many times, you've done so much free PR to finally get them to spend money. Do not let them just leave.
Chelsea: Don't let them make one purchase and then leave.
Vivian: The other part that goes hand in hand with that is that it actually costs less for that reason.
Chelsea: It costs less, it's a higher conversion rate.
Vivian: Try to do some basic math and you could do the quick and dirty version of this. We always talk about formulas in marketing. You could do a quick and dirty version of this. Try to always have a pulse on how much it's taking for you to get a new customer in and then how much it's actually taking for you to get a reoccurring sale. What you're looking at in that sense is for a recurring sale you are probably doing a lot of in-house stuff, whether it's email marketing to be sure that you're keeping in touch with them. Maybe it's SMS, aka text marketing nowadays. Chelsea this morning gave me her leftover chai from a- only sisters do this, okay? "Hey, I don't want the rest of this. Do you want it?" So I got a little chai.
Chelsea: Can I say real quick: in the back of my head I was like I'm only going to drink half of this and then I'll give the other half to Vivian. I came with like a sliver.
Vivian: I think mom would call that, you brought me dos culitos. The chai tea, two little sips of chai tea. Anyways, she got it from a local coffee shop in Summerville who happens to do a really great job at text marketing. Every time that they're launching a new latte flavor, if they have something going on on a Saturday, if they just want to remind you that they have the best sandwiches in town, they send a cute little quick text out to remind you. These are things you can be doing to bring that recurring sale in that are not going to cost you as much money as having to put out this campaign to try to get a new customer.
Chelsea: That's a great point. Also Vivian, brand evangelists. Vivian taught me the word evangelist.
Vivian: This is part of our marketing lore.
Chelsea: I was about to say, if you've been on listening to SOB for a while now, then you would know this lore. But Vivian-
Vivian: And if don't know this lore, then go back to episode one and start from the bottom up.
Chelsea: I mean, there you go. In one of the earlier episodes, Vivian taught me what an evangelist is, and now it's my favorite word. Brand evangelists are people who are very loyal to your brand, who speak your gospel, who tell everybody about your small business. That is PR. That is free marketing, and that is so important for small business.
Vivian: Yeah, in today's day and age, especially because every single one of you knows this, whether your preferred platform for communication is LinkedIn, whether it's Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, you know the value of just one person who 100% is going to bat for your business or for your product and service. That can actually convert to so many more sales because it is true that the consumer these days, the customer, potential customer, is smart. They know that anytime that you're-
Chelsea: That's true? I'm sorry.
Vivian: Chelsea. Write hate mail. Let me send you the P.O. box number, you guys. Attention: Chelsea Mojica.
The thing is because they're smart and they understand the way that marketing and advertising works, they know that if it's something you're posting, it's going to have a little bit of a slighted view to it. If it's something that's posted by somebody else, by somebody in a Facebook group, when they throw out their who's the best dentist. If it's coming from five different people that are tagging your dentist practice, then they're going to be like okay, I trust these people because they're not getting compensated to say this. So brand evangelists can actually take your business really, really far. To Chelsea's point, the only way to convert someone to be a brand evangelist is to give them as many experiences with your business, with your product and services, good experiences. That's why those reoccurring sales are super important because without them you're not going to have a brand evangelist that converts after just one purchase.
Well. You can but very few and far between.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Also, that would be very impressive. Please tell me if you've gotten a lot of brand evangelists from one purchase. I would love that. Good for you. Okay, Vivian. I think we've convinced everyone. Reoccurring sales are important. Let's talk about best practices. I am starting somewhere, Vivian, I don't know if you're going to agree and it might be controversial to some people, but-
Vivian: I feel like Chelsea just talks in controversial terms all the time.
Chelsea: You know, I just have a lot of opinions. I really do.
Vivian: And you keep none of them to yourself.
Chelsea: No. No. I mean you don't have to listen to me.
Vivian: You do have to listen to this podcast.
Chelsea: Yes, listen to this podcast. Let me rephrase that. You don't have to agree with me. If you don't agree with me, please let me know. Put it in the comments. I want to hear. Let's have a healthy discussion about this.
Vivian: We want fights. We want fighting in this podcast.
Chelsea: I didn't say that. She's the one who said it. I think Vivian's the enabler. You're the original problem.
Vivian: I mean. This could be true.
Chelsea: It's true. I want to start, Vivian, with customer experience. Customer experience is marketing. In my opinion, that is where your marketing starts. Well, not necessarily starts if you brought them in, but it is an important part of your marketing because if you are not providing a good customer experience, you've already lost.
Vivian: So what you're saying is if we're talking about best practices for getting reoccurring sales and repeat customers, you would start and prioritize your customer service. That's regardless of any industry you're in.
Chelsea: Regardless of what industry you're in, no matter what, if your customer has a bad experience purchasing from you, they will not come back.
Vivian: Yeah, and can I just say this from someone who's been in this rodeo for a very long time, the marketing rodeo. I find this a lot with working with advertising companies, not companies but like vendors, okay? Let's say local newspapers or magazines and stuff. When they reach out to you, they have their reps reach out. I've been on the receiving end, that's what I'm saying of this. And how this can impact your future decision making. There are publications that I have worked with in the past where we have taken out ads. What has happened is they've been all about pursuing, right? Because they want the ad contract. Yes, yes, we're the best publication, this and that. They're buddy with you, and then once they get the contract, you don't hear from them in like six months, or sometimes even until you go to renew the contract, which means your person is not checking in on you. They're not asking you how advertising in their publication is going or if there's anything they can do to help. They're not doing any of that. So the customer service part on their end is not good. Ask me how many times I've been like, well, are the ads working for the business? If they're kind of just okay, I would rather spend my money elsewhere. That's what I do. So I think same thing goes for your customer. Like she's saying, if they purchase from you one time, you never check in, you never ask, and checking in could look differently. It doesn't have to be super cumbersome. It could be you setting up an email sequence, a text message sequence. I just went to the dentist office, which is why that example came top of mind. After I went, had a very good experience, afterwards within 24 hours, I got a thing that said like, we appreciate you coming in. Please tell us about your our experience. How was it? They had a form really quickly that you could fill out. If you then wanted to leave them a review of any kind, you could. That was a nice little touch point, right? Reminder, I have another appointment coming up. They send it well in advance to remind you, hey, get this on your calendar. Those touch points are all automated. They don't have someone that's like pushing that out day to day.
Chelsea: So multiple things. First, I want to say, Vivian, I love the example you gave with the advertising. Perfect. I think that sums up the issue with businesses as a whole perfectly. We're striving and working so hard to get that new customer in that once they're in, we're like, okay, well we did it. We got them in. Then the work stops, and that's not what we need to be doing.
Also love that you brought up it's automated. A lot of these best practices, y'all, are going to be automated. I don't want to be mean. I'm going to say this the nicest way I know how, but there's no excuse.
Vivian: I think your tone could be a little better for this.
Chelsea: Yeah, okay. Let me try that again. I'm saying there's no excuse though. How do I make that nice?
Vivian: You can do it. Give it a try.
Chelsea: Y'all, there's no excuse.
Vivian: Do y'all notice that she threw the word y'all in there 'cause she thought sounding southern would make it, I would love it.
Chelsea: I was going for Southern Bell.
Vivian: That's right, well you nailed it. Good job.
Chelsea: Thank you. There's no excuse. A lot of this is going to be automated, a lot of this you can set up and then worry less about it. I don't want you guys to completely like set it and forget it and never touch it again because remember marketing is also about revisiting everything to see how things are working. But yeah, a lot of these best practices, Vivian, are going to be things that we can automate.
Vivian: Yeah, so customer service, let me give you one idea that probably will go a lot further than you think, for the amount of effort. If you were to look at your books, or if you're running some type of business where you're doing contracted work, who are the top five most spenders? Who has purchased from you the most, the top five people? Send them a handwritten note. Send them an email that just says, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Don't tell them how much money they spent, but just say, you're one of our preferred customers, you're one of our most valuable customers. Thank you for choosing us every time you need X, Y, and Z. I think that goes, that makes people feel like for one you're paying attention, you understand their value and these are the people that are more than likely going to be your brand evangelists, the people that are spending the most money with you.
Chelsea: You know who has a great example of this, Vivian? One of the people we interviewed, Lucy. Lucy, she's an OnlyFans top performer in Australia, converted and created her own PR business agency/company doing phenomenal. She has a great example of this and how she would reach out to her top spenders and make them feel appreciated. Appreciation goes a long way when you're trying to build those brand evangelists.
Vivian: Absolutely. I love that you used her specifically because for one, when we're telling you guys it doesn't matter what industry you're in, you can apply these marketing tactics or advice to any industry. So it's not just the traditional insurance agents, which I love talking about. Dental practices, all that. You can make it work for you and for your business. That's just one quick thing that you could do this week that cost you zero dollars. Okay. Maybe a stamp, which is going for what, is it forty nine cents? Fifty nine cents?
Chelsea: Vivian, do you think I buy stamps?
Vivian: I buy books of stamps, so I don't remember what the individual price is.
Chelsea: This is what I do, I say, hm, I really need a stamp. Then I'll call mom and I'll just bring it up in conversation and she's like, "I can give you a stamp". I'm like, thanks mom. Thanks mom for the stamps. I do that to Vivian sometimes too, but she doesn't recognize it until just now.
Vivian: No, the thing is, I'm not motherly, so I'm like, I don't care. Your problem. Go to the post office.
Chelsea: She's lying. I say, I think I'm going to mail this thing and she says, "oh do you need a stamp, here's a stamp". She's lying, she's given me a stamp before.
Vivian: Wait, I have? Got played like a fiddle.
Chelsea: She sure did.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: Okay, fine. Moving on, let's talk about retention automation. So again, we're already getting into automation, but these can be text messages, they can be emails that you send out. The point is that you're going to remind the customer of your business around the time that they'd be purchasing your product again.
Let me give an example. Let's say you buy tea online. That's fun. Good for you. Let's say the amount of tea that you buy, the quantity that you bought, usually lasts around a month. So as the business owner, once a month has passed and you still haven't purchased from me, I'm going to send you an email and I'm going to say, Hey, you know, you're probably running low on tea. Here's our top tea sellers. Here's the tea that you bought last time and other flavors that are related to that tea, you know, just a shove. A nudge.
Vivian: A shove?
Chelsea: A nudge, I changed it to a nudge. I'm sorry.
Vivian: I mean I do like though- and if you're wondering, how would I even go about doing that logistically? Consider your point of sale system that you're using for whatever online sales you're doing. Very simply all you have to do is identify the product that somebody has bought and then say if the person has not bought on day thirty-five after purchasing this, set a little automation. Then they get the email that says, Hey, just a friendly reminder, have you run out of tea? Click this button and, you know, go ahead and purchase now. So I love these little shoves that you're going to be giving people. Another example would be let's say if someone bought a bracelet, you are a jewelry company. You have a matching necklace to go with it based on their purchase of whatever product you could maybe send them something that says- and Amazon does this so well. Other people have bought this.
Chelsea: Right, frequently bought together.
Vivian: That's just a way to keep the conversation going, keep top of mind, remind them you have other products available. Another thing, even if it's not a bracelet and a matching necklace, think of things that are, perhaps you sell jewelry cleaner. Did you forget this in your cart? We have jewelry cleaner. Make sure you're keeping your jewelry in the best shape. You can find a way to sell or pitch accessorizing, not accessorizing.
Chelsea: It kind of is accessorizing though because it's going with, complimenting.
Vivian: Complimenting products. Correct. I like that better.
Chelsea: Okay, yes. I thought accessorizing worked too. I'm glad you brought up how most of these platforms are collecting all of this data. It won't be difficult for you to automate this. It can be, it is a simple thing.
Vivian: Can I just say if you're hung up on the fact that you don't want to bother people, let me just say when you became a small business owner, you got in the business of bothering people, okay? You are knee deep in. Think of it this way. People are now, you're doing them a service by reminding them of other products/services you have that they may be able to take advantage of. If they loved buying tea from you, a particular type of chai tea, why wouldn't they want to know about the other chai tea flavor that you now have available to them?
Chelsea: I think to make yourself feel better about this, make sure that you're doing this the smart way. If the person purchased a tea, you're probably not going to reach out to them about your jewelry, right? That probably would be bothering them, if you started soliciting and talking about your jewelry making business when they have only purchased tea from you. But if you're reaching out to them about something that they enjoyed and they purchased from you on purpose. I mean you have to physically purchase something, then it's not a bother.
Vivian: No, especially if we know nowadays, and we talk about this in other episodes, customization is such a big thing for customers these days. It can actually be the thing that convinces them to purchase whatever product and service you're trying to pitch them. What better way to show someone that you are paying attention to them by offering them something that is aligned with what their previous purchase was? What you're saying is we have all this information on you and we've customized what we think would best fit with what you want or what you like.
Chelsea: Or going back to the tea, I'm really on tea today, guys. It's because I had chai this morning. If I'm reaching out to you and saying, hey, you're probably running out of tea, I find that helpful because I'm not paying attention. I probably would have absolutely just run out of the tea and been like, my god, I have no more tea. But because you reached out to me now I remember, now I can keep stock.
Vivian: And now it's super easy 'cause you've embedded a button that literally I just click, it adds it to cart, and then I just have to make sure my payment information is in there.
Chelsea: Okay Vivian, let's talk about upselling and cross selling. We kind of already touched on this, but let's get deeper into it. What is cross selling?
Vivian: So cross-selling, we pretty much already kind of brought up, which is basically where you are recommending products that are aligned or kind of go hand in hand with what they're purchasing. So perfect example would be curtains. So if I'm buying curtains, show me curtain rods.
Chelsea: Exactly, I'm probably going to need a curtain rod with my curtains.
Vivian: Exactly. So that would be cross-selling. Upselling would then be when you're trying to convince someone, not convince them, but when you're pitching to them purchasing an upgraded version of the product they have.
Chelsea: I can give an example with curtains. So let's say I just want regular curtains and then you on the website pitch, but would you want blackout curtains? Which I do. And I did. And I bought them and it didn't help. But whatever. Whatever. We're not, Vivian, later on off camera I'm going to tell you about the curtain fiesta.
Vivian: Yeah, I can't wait to hear about this. How just buying curtains turns into a fiasco when you're my sister.
Chelsea: It wasn't me, it was Tim. It was the blind leading the blind. Go ahead.
Vivian: Okay, so that's upselling. I think the other part of this too is sometimes this can actually come with, this is a little bit of an old school vibe because by the time you came up, Chelsea, you weren't going to Best Buy to physically buy products, were you?
Chelsea: I mean I've been to a Best Buy before.
Vivian: Okay, so if you guys remember, if you're in your forties like me, you remember a time when you were going to Best Buy to actually buy your electronic stuff and so let's say when you're buying a-
Chelsea: Vivian I don't remember the last time I bought electronics, I think that's what the problem is.
Vivian: If you were buying a computer, if you were buying a TV, they would ask you if you wanted a warranty plan, a protection plan. There were options for that protection plan. They would always try to get you to get the three-year protection plan so that if anything happens to it, you don't have to worry about it, you can bring it back, we'll replace it. Very different than the one-year plan that you're only paying 12 months for.
There's upselling in almost everything. We see it in every which way retail wise. So what we're recommending to you is figure out how you can integrate that into your sales. You probably can automate this as well. But even if you can't, if you have a retail store that people are walking into. We have somebody who's in our SOB community that has a vinyl record store. We have another person that sells apparel online. There are different ways that you could do it. Perhaps what that looks like is for an online apparel company, you do free shipping at $50, your cart is now at $35, and you're like, by the way, you're this many dollars away from getting that free shipping. Is that a good example?
Chelsea: I think that's a great example of upselling. So upselling usually is yes trying to get someone to purchase a more premium product, but I think that's still a good example of upselling because at the end of the day what it is is you want them to spend more money. That's the goal.
Vivian: Yeah, or that could be the deterring thing from I'm buying a t shirt but I really wanted the hoodie, but the hoodie's more expensive, and then you go check out and you're like, well, I could just get the hoodie, get free shipping, and then I'm spending the same amount of money. I do this all the time, if you guys can't tell. It's called girl math in my head.
Chelsea: I was about to say, we're girl mathing right now. But you know what? Use girl math to your advantage.
Vivian: Okay, vinyl record store Chelsea. What would that look like in store? I walk in, I'm looking through vinyl records, I've picked out maybe like three of them. I go to check out, what could an upselling be?
Chelsea: Upselling, it could be that you're purchasing a used record and then you get up to the front and they're like, you know what? We have a new freshly pressed version of this record. If you want the new version, you don't have to worry. Most record stores are really good about making sure that all their records actually play, but you know, if it's used, you don't know if there's a scratch here or dent here, or anything like that. So maybe you want the new pressing.
Vivian: Yeah, I love that the person is then pitching to them trying to upsell them. The other thing could be with cross selling where maybe they see that you've liked a particular artist and you're buying an older vinyl and they're like, "did you know they released a new album last year or whatever? You didn't? Here it is". So that could be cross selling.
Chelsea: Yes. This relates to nothing that we're talking about except for records. But really quick, can I just say Tim and I had gone to the record store a while back, it was record store day is when it happened because I wanted a record store day exclusive, so we went. I managed to get the record, thank God. But while I was looking through all the records, Tim's wandering around and he went up to Rob and he was like, how much is this?
How much is this framed record that's on the wall? How much do you think it's going to be if it's framed on the wall? Rob, our friend from Black Circle Records, was like, "well, first off, it's not for sale". I don't remember how much he said. I think it was definitely over a thousand. I want to say it was much more than a thousand, but I know it was at least a thousand.
Vivian: Tim, what are you an amateur? You don't know this, if it's framed, it's probably expensive.
Chelsea: Yeah, if it's framed and on the wall, don't even bother asking. What are you doing.
Vivian: You're not going to buy it. Yes, and just as a plug here, if you guys are a vinyl record lover, go follow Black Circle Records on TikTok, on Instagram. He's also got a website.
Chelsea: He will get you whatever record that you want.
Vivian: Well, if you also want a really good example of just social media posting and trying different ideas out and all that. Rob does such a great job of integrating his staff into the videos and he's had quite a few videos go viral. So I love that he's got like a little recipe for success. So go check it out. Either for inspiration or also, and also to go buy all your vinyl records.
Chelsea: Yes, absolutely. Okay, Vivian. So that was upselling and cross selling. Let's move on. Next we have subscriptions.
Vivian: Yes, why do we love subscriptions?
Chelsea: Because it is, what's the word I'm looking for? I don't, okay. Guaranteed. Now of course people should be able to cancel their subscriptions if they want. So of course, not everything is a hundred percent guaranteed. But if someone's signing up for a subscription, you're going to get that guaranteed cash flow. That is helpful and that is a big deal. Also, that means that they care enough about your brand to sign up for that. So you can create a brand evangelist with that person if you go ahead and give them I don't want to say kudos...well, yeah, I do want to say kudos. Because remember this is a relationship that you're building. So make sure you're nurturing it. But yeah, subscriptions are a big deal.
Vivian: Yeah, I think the other part of it is we now live in a subscription friendly society, meaning we are subscribed to everything. I think it's been a form of conditioning over time, whereas subscriptions before were kind of like a new thing. Like, you know, who would do subscriptions to buy toothpaste? Who would do subscriptions to buy protein powder? Right.
Chelsea: Well, and I still feel that way. But I think, can I can I real quick, Vivian? One, it does not matter what your feelings are, it matters what your target audience is. So remember you are not your target audience. One, two, for subscriptions specifically, I know a lot of times we feel like, Why is this a subscription? This is pointless, this is dumb. We don't have to make everything a subscription. Okay, but people are subscribing. So I think that's the thing to focus on. If you're feeling kind of strange about creating a subscription, give it a try, see who's signing up and see if it's worth your time.
Vivian: Yeah. Well and reminder, we've seen this. We actually have a community. If you do not know, you can join this community, it doesn't matter where you're at. The whole idea being that you're a small business owner, you need marketing support. Typically the way you would get marketing support is by hiring a marketing agency, hiring a social media manager or something like that to do very specific things. Or you would just spend a lot of time researching stuff. Instead, you can join the community. We do all the research and everything. Once a week you get to hop on a Zoom call with us and we just talk about all things marketing, whether it's updates, ideas you have, we have discussions. Those discussions can be very helpful. The way we set it up is $50 a month subscription basically. You get access to once a week calls, you get access to the platform that we have, you get to post questions in there, have conversations, meet other people.
Chelsea: We have a lot of resources, videos, and guides.
Vivian: That's very similar. That's an idea where typically marketing support was not offered that way. But we thought that's a great way for one that people have consistency. Two, it's affordable, $50 a month for marketing support. Three, it's a good way for people to also show up. So you're subscribed to something, you want to get the full benefit of it, which means you're more apt to show up to the meetings.
Chelsea: Yes. Let's go back to tea again.
Vivian: Switching gears.
Chelsea: Switching gears. I want to give a product example. For tea, let's say you're sending that retention email, so you're saying, hey, you're about to run out of tea. Next time I don't even need to send you this email if you join our subscription. It's a 30 day subscription, every 30 days we'll charge you again and we'll send you some more tea. So you're making it simple.
Vivian: Yeah, we have an elderberry company that we work with that does this and she calls it the subscribe and save. Basically you can sign up for the subscription. You're going to know that you get your products at a certain interval of time, but you also save, I can't remember if she does 5% or 10%. So it's a little bit of an incentive to give people to just automate their purchase.
Chelsea: Yes, automate it. I do this with CBD gummies. My CBD gummies are subscription-based, so I don't even have to worry about it. Every two months they send me more.
Vivian: They just come in, that's right.
Chelsea: Vivian, subscriptions can be a little intense though. You don't have to go so far as to do a subscription. You can do a rewards or a loyalty program.
Vivian: That's right. The most important part there is going to be that you have a system that you understand and that works well to actually be able to track this stuff, okay? 'Cause the last thing you want is to pitch to someone, hey, join our loyalty program or our points program and then they're not getting the benefit or you're sporadic in the way that you're keeping track of this. So if you do have a point of sale system, that's a great place to start because most of them have this integrated into it. It's just a matter of you turning it on and telling it what you want it to track.
Chelsea: Yes, absolutely. Loyalty, I don't want to say loyalty should be rewarded because that sounds kind of intense, but it is nice to show your loyal customers that you appreciate their loyalty. It doesn't necessarily have to be like a discount or anything like that, just the simple like you brought up, a thank you card. That's wonderful.
You could do, Eclectic Chef in downtown Summerville has a punch card. They're a restaurant, I'm sorry, yes. They have a punch card. You know, buy ten, get one free.
Vivian: So that sort of thing, that's more manual. You don't need a point of sale system to integrate that. You just have little cards made and then tell your staff that when people check out. We go to an a local ice cream shop here that I love and they do the same thing, little punch cards. Those things, they work so well in incentivizing people because you bet whenever I get one free scoop of ice cream after I bought ten. I'm over there like, hey, let me get my free scoop, please.
Chelsea: I have an example that worked a little differently. Pumas. We're just talking about local businesses today, restaurants, as we should, because this is a small business focused community. Pumas is a hot dog restaurant in downtown Summerville. They have a loyalty program, specifically the Hundred Dog Club.
Vivian: You guys, the thing with this, this isn't just some regular old hot dog place.
Chelsea: They have like really intense hot dogs. They have really cool. I like the Scooby Doo and it has cheese. Is it chili maybe? It has talkies on it. I know that for sure. I think ranch.
Vivian: Yeah, they do very weird combinations. They have like a dessert hot dog or something.
Chelsea: Yeah, there's one with whipped cream and sprinkles on it. It's pretty good. Tim loves it. So they give you a discount after you've purchased a hundred hot dogs.
Vivian: That is quite the loyalty program.
Chelsea: I think they have maybe a less intense loyalty program, but the reason I know about this is because Tim had gone. I don't remember if- I definitely wasn't there. But he had gone and he came back and he was like, hey, I got this shirt and I got my picture taken on the wall and I got a discount because I hit the hundred hot dog clubs. Well if you
Vivian: He's a local celebrity.
Chelsea: Y'all, if you're local to Summerville, if you go in Pumas in downtown Summerville, you can find Tim on the wall.
Vivian: I'm going to go take a picture, a selfie with his picture now. He's Puma royalty, Puma hot dog royalty.
Chelsea: He bought a hundred hot dogs. I have no words. But you know what? There are a couple of people on that wall. But not a a huge amount, and you're on the wall.
Vivian: It makes it fun. Okay. If you don't think that I'm not going to go up there and take a selfie and then tag Puma, I'm one hundred percent doing it. It makes it fun. It gives people something to look forward to. Also, this kind of reminds me for any of you that went to college-
Chelsea: I did, yes.
Vivian: And had a lot of fun drinking back in the day.
Chelsea: I didn't, no.
Vivian: There was a place in Columbia, 'cause Chelsea and I both went to the University of South Carolina. Two different decades.
Chelsea: I was going to say we also had very different experiences.
Vivian: But there was a place called I think it was the Flying Saucer.
Chelsea: So that place closed down, I'm pretty sure during my college days.
Vivian: Yeah, was it that one or was it something kilt green kilt or something like that? One of the places though you could actually go and it was very similar to the hot dog thing where if you bought a hundred beers or something you would get your name on a plate or something on the shelf. It was a big, in a college town lots of people are going to take full advantage and try to get that distinction.
Whether it's loyalty programs or points that you're tracking, it kind of reminded me. I wanted to bring up the psychology of this, for any of you that grew up clipping coupons with your mother. I always used to get this feeling of like having a good coupon that's kind of burning a hole in your pocket, you have to use it. Maybe you didn't necessarily need the product, but it was such a good deal you had to use it.
Chelsea: That is definitely still a thing. That is definitely still a thing. You want to know why? Because yesterday I went shopping with my friends and one of my friends said, "hey, we gotta stop at the pet store because I have a $5 coupon that expires and I need to use it". Then she went in there and bought-
Vivian: $80 worth of stuff to save $5. I mean, but that's the whole thing. When you feel like it's quote unquote free money, it's hard to turn that down. We were laughing about girl math. In your head you do this mental gymnastics of like I need to spend this money because it's free cash that I have. Just know people are usually hardwired for this. This is why these incentive programs work, these bonuses and rewards work. You just have to lay out the plan, let people know about it and say, hey, for every $50 you spend with this, you get $5 back. Whatever you decide to do, it does skew the way some people are going to behave when they go out and purchase something. Sometimes that is the thing that decides for them they're going to go shopping that day just because they have $5 to spend.
Chelsea: Exactly. These are all relatively easy implementations to get those recurring sales.
Vivian: And low cost. So a lot of this stuff, maybe you could do it for cents. The other thing, you may already be paying for some of these features and you're just not taking full advantage of it. So that may be a good place for you guys to start. If you're using an email platform, if you're using a point of sale system, look and see what features you're paying for because there are likely some of these initiatives that are targeted at improving your recurring sales that you just haven't flipped on and you may already be paying for it. So start there. The other thing is, if we forgot a very good one that you guys want to share with other small business owners, drop it in the comments so that we can bring it up in the next episode and we could share. Because we're all about, if something worked for you, we want to use it as an example so that other people, it can inspire them or have them think outside the box.
Chelsea: Yeah, we are all here working to get small businesses the help that they need.
Okay, well you know what? Make sure you subscribe. Don't miss next week's episode. I think we are going to talk about target audiences next week, so make sure you check that out and go be the best SOB you can be.