Memorial Day Weekend, Black Friday & Cyber Monday, New Year’s – there are plenty of sitewide sales opportunities your brand can capitalize on each year.
However, during these significant sale periods, it can be challenging to retain subscribers if they see a better deal or one-time sale offered to first-time shoppers or non-subscribers. They may opt to cancel their subscription or, worse, churn altogether.
To combat sitewide sale-related churn and as a best practice from the experts at Stay AI, you should always ensure that your subscribers – your most valuable customers – receive the best deal on your product, no matter the occasion.
Implementing Automatic One-Time Subscription Discounts During Sitewide Sales
Let’s say Labor Day or Black Friday is right around the corner, and your brand wants to run a 20% off sale sitewide. If your evergreen offer for subscribers is 15% off, these subscribers may pause or churn on their subscriptions to grab a better deal.
To prevent this, give subscribers an additional, one-time 5% off code directly in their Customer Portal that matches the 20% off offer – or give them a slightly better offer as a thank-you for their loyalty and repeated business. This way, your one-time discount will aggregate to match the total discount amount your first-time shoppers receive during the sitewide sale.
If your brand already offers a Subscribe & Save percentage discount, you should be careful when implementing additional one-time discounts. Because your Subscribe & Save discount is set up within the same Shopify Selling Plan as a one-time discount, if not set up correctly, you may accidentally give subscribers a stacked discount amount that’s not great for your bottom line.
Our friends at Olipop applied an automatic, one-time discount code for subscribers during their sitewide BFCM sale to ensure their most valuable customers, their subscribers, were still receiving the best offer. The team also implemented a BFCM-themed in-portal banner ad in the Customer Portal to ensure subscribers saw their special offer and could easily apply it to their next order.
Please Note: You would never create a one-time subscriber discount of 30%, as this would stack on top of their usual discount and incorrectly discount their order substantially.
For additional info on setting up a “Subscribe and Save” Selling Plan and associating this with specific products, check out Shopify’s step-by-step guide here.
More Subscription Strategies to Consider During Your Next Sitewide Sale
Consider making your subscribers’ discount slightly higher than the sitewide sale amount (ie. 30% off rather than 25% off) to recognize your most loyal customers.
Implement a site popup that provides non-subscribers a sneak peek of the exclusive offer(s) they would receive as subscribers during the sale period.
Segment between first-time shoppers, existing customers, and subscribers in your email & SMS campaigns. Exclude subscribers from sitewide sales communications or popups meant for first-time shoppers to ensure the right messaging and promo offers reach their intended audience only.
Further segment subscribers to deliver a special discount that can be directly applied to their next subscription order with just one click using our Klaviyo Quick Action email feature.
Creating a Promotional Banner Ad Directly in the Subscriber Portal
In-portal banner ads are one of the most effective strategies for communicating exclusive limited-time offers, seasonal promotions, holiday sales, and more to your subscribers.
Enabling the in-portal banner ad is so easy that you’ll be done in just three steps.
To create one, navigate to the Stay AI merchant portal, click Customize Portal, then click Design.
Select the option to include a banner ad from the lefthand panel.
Upload custom graphics featuring your chosen products and promotions offers and link the most popular product to enable a two-click purchase.
For additional AOV optimization, add an upsell carousel featuring selected sale products with a special discount so subscribers can quickly add those to upcoming orders.
For more detailed instructions on the Banner Ad, check out our article on Using the Customer Portal Banner Ad.
For more best practices and tailored strategies for leveraging customer portal banners during promotional periods, check out our full strategy breakdown here.