This help article introduces you to subscriptions in Book That In and explains how they work and why you might want to use them.

 

What are subscriptions?

A subscription is a way for your customers to sign up to pay you the same amount at regular intervals, automatically. Think about your Netflix subscription – you pay your £5.99 every month, without thinking about it. That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about here.

 

Why use subscriptions?

Subscriptions are not the be all and end all, but if you can find a way to create a subscription offer to your customers, they can bring various benefits:

  1. They’re great for online content
    Some people LOVE live online classes. Others prefer to watch when they choose, without being tied to a set day and time. Subscriptions are an amazing way for you to serve both these groups of people, and leverage your live classes to generate more income. Record your live classes, then give people unlimited access when they sign up to your subscription.
  2. The flexibility they offer is good for uncertain times
    When things are uncertain, people can be uncomfortable about committing to things. A subscription takes the risk out of booking something as the customer can cancel whenever they want, so more people are likely to sign up.
  3. It make your service seem more affordable
    Compare a block of 12 classes for £120 to a weekly subscription for £10 per week. It’s a much easier decision to spend £10 p/w, than to spend £120. Whilst you are charging the same, it reduces the perceived cost of your service, meaning more people sign up.
  1. No more feast and famine
     Subscription payments spread your income, so rather than getting big months when term starts, and quieter months the rest of the time, you income each month becomes steadier.
  2. The power of inertia means you earn more over time

People are busy and when you are reliant on customers re-booking every term or every block, you can naturally lose customers if they forget to re-book or are unsure about re-booking for any reason. With a subscription, most businesses will see the lifetime value of a customer increase, as the default setting is always that the subscription continues, even if they forget or are unsure.

 

How do Subscriptions work in Book That In?

It takes less than 5 minutes to set up a subscription booking option in Book That In. See how here.


Once a customer signs up to a subscription with you, they can cancel at any time from their Book That In account. This saves you admin time, as you don't need to manually process the cancellation, and it also gives your customers peace of mind when they book that they have control over their subscription

 

Here are some other things you can do with subscriptions in Book That In to give you some inspiration:

 

  • You can create free trial periods to encourage people to try before they buy. Payments kick in automatically after the trial period has ended.

  • You can set specific starting dates for subscriptions. So you could start selling subscriptions now for a term that starts in April, and set the start date as 1st April – then no one pays anything until that set date, when all the subscriptions start together
     
  • You can create ‘private’ subscriptions, hidden from your branded booking widget, but accessible on the Book That In website. These means you can offer upgrades or private subscription options, without all customers seeing them on your website.
     
  • Once you have some live subscriptions, you can view them all, much as you do a class/event attendance register. You can keep track of your subscriptions here and check for any payment issues. You can also export your list of subscriptions.
     
  • You can set up different subscriptions for different membership levels (e.g. Gold, Silver and Bronze) and you can transfer your customers between subscriptions. This allows you the possibility of letting your customer upgrade or downgrade their subscriptions with you.

 

You can see answers to Subscriptions FAQs here

 

In conclusion…

 

All in all, we think subscriptions are pretty cool. They’re definitely not right for every business, so you should think carefully before implementing them – but they can bring a lot of benefits to many businesses. It’s definitely worth considering whether there’s a way you could use subscriptions to enhance your business.