How to use social to drive subscription revenue

By Marketing Team

Subscription services ranging across music, groceries, movies and fashion are significantly on the rise with Forbes recently citing “In the month of April 2017, subscription company websites had about 37 million visitors. Since 2014, that number has grown by over 800%.”

The rate of growth for subscription services is huge with new subscription services emerging everyday. The accessibility, convenience and personalisation subscription services offer has led consumers to rapidly adapt their buying habits to the new wave of subscription offerings.

Reaching the right audiences, attracting new subscribers and retaining them are common challenges subscription brands face, and few channels come close to the functionality and effectiveness social delivers when it comes to driving subscription revenue.

Top ways to use social to drive subscription revenue include:

1) Incredible targeting

The targeting functionalities available on social media are unparalleled, and subscription brands can leverage social to laser in on exact target audiences with the following capabilities.

Location: Subscription brands can target users in the country, state, or city they offer their service making it easier than ever to reach audiences in specific locations with highly personalised campaigns.

Age and gender: Subscription brands can utilise their existing data to target specific age and gender demographics. For example if the bulk of a subscription brands users are men aged between 18-24, they can use social advertising to target that specific group of users.

Interests: Targeting by interests is one of the most powerful features social advertising delivers. Subscription brands can target audiences across broad and precise interests. Broad interest targeting includes topics such as films, fashion, cooking, engaged and expecting parents. Precise interest targeting allows subscription brands to target individuals based on their user behaviour, such as their listed interests and preferences for example 'comedy films' or 'H&M Fashion'. Targeting individuals by their interests ensures brands are targeting users who would be responsive to their offering.

2) Valuable data insights


Alongside measuring KPI’s such as downloads, installs, sign ups and purchases, subscription brands can tap into additional social media data streams by monitoring real-time reactions to their products, services and campaigns with clicks, views and comments.

Measuring the volume and relevance of these interactions allows subscription brands to determine how products and services are being received.

Subscription brands can harness this valuable data to develop a demographic picture of their social audiences and develop a more customised marketing approach tailored to their users specific needs.

3) Driving growth at every stage of the customer funnel

Whether subscription brands are promoting their Freemium or Direct To Paid business model, social advertising can act as a powerful tool to launch multiple campaigns which focus on moving users from awareness, to free or paid subscriptions, to upselling value and maintaining retention.

Social is a powerful tool to engage users with USP’s at every stage of the subscription funnel. Subscription brands can tailor their creatives to their campaign objectives, and match these campaigns with their buyer personas to move them through each stage of the customer funnel.

4) Re-targeting subscription prospects

Subscription brands can use social to re-target people who have already visited their website or are in their database as a prospect based on previous actions.

Subscription brands can make the most of this feature by up-selling their services, re-engaging previous subscribers and maintaining retention, all of which are key to driving revenue for subscription brands.

Another advantage of running retargeting campaigns on social is that it allows subscription brands to draw buyers attention to new products, features or announcements which can strengthen brand loyalty.

Final Words

Social provides all the tools a subscription business requires to attract interest, encourage engagement and drive revenue, and if your subscription brand isn't leveraging its powers yet, it could play a huge role in helping you to grow a profitable subscriber base.

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