Speaker 1: 0:00

So you want to launch a subscription box and don't know where to start? Girl, you are in the right place. I'm Julie Ball and I'm Renee Gonzalez, your host here at Subscription Box Basics, a podcast for new and aspiring subscription box entrepreneurs wanting to avoid overwhelm. So grab a coffee, some pen and paper and let's have some fun. Hey everybody, I'm welcome back to Subscription Box Basics. I'm Julie Ball, your head coach, and today I'm joined by a very special guest. I have Jennifer Klein from Subsummit.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Hey, jen, hello, thanks so much for having me excited to talk today.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Yay, and you've been on the podcast before, and so I want to welcome you back. We're going to be talking about the Subsummit today, obviously, and I'm really excited. We go to this year after year. It's that one non-negotiable event for us that we're like okay, we're going to put that on the calendar. So we're going to talk about a lot of different things. Before we jump into there, why don't you tell everybody just a little bit about your background if they're meeting you for the first time?

Speaker 2: 1:04

Sure, so I am Jennifer Klein, director of marketing at Subsummit. I've been with the company since 2020, but worked with the founders of the organization on and off for about 15 years. I am a huge advocate for content data. How do you do things very like grassrootsy? How do you get tenacious and think differently and outside the box? And so a lot of the research and the work that I do is to push business owners to think differently. So we're going to talk about some of that today.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Oh, you're a datadork, aren't you? I love data.

Speaker 2: 1:32

I can look and do Excel sheets, google sheets, all day long. Let's do it, but you've got to get meaningful insights from it, right. It's not just numbers, it's like humans.

Speaker 1: 1:40

It's important because so often I don't know about you guys as you're listening like sometimes business gets personal and we make decisions based off of our gut instinct, and I think that's good in a lot of places, but in a lot of places it's got to be data driven. That's a great idea, no doubt about it. Okay, so for anyone who's not familiar with SubSummit, why don't you just give the basic rundown of what it is?

Speaker 2: 2:07

SubSummit is the largest gathering of subscription and membership brands in the entire world. This year, we are hosting it in Dallas, texas, june 17th through 19th, and so if you're working in subscription, thinking about subscription, maybe you just have a product and you want to add a membership component to it. This is the place to be. This year we're going to have more than 2,000 attendees, about 180 speakers. We have tons of new features. It's three days, jam-packed, nonstop, a beautiful experience, lots of lessons learned from that.

Speaker 1: 2:38

It's so fun too. I don't think you mentioned that Like. This is a big event. This has all the people that you would want to meet and shake hands with and discuss business with. That's one of the things too. I've had a lot of experience in different business models, but the subscription and membership model is just so different than regular E-com or other types of business and these people get it. The people that you're going to meet at SubSummit they get it, which is just such a breath of fresh air.

Speaker 2: 3:11

The industry is all relationship-based when you think of that consumer partnership, mutually beneficial relationship, and so the people behind the scenes are so human-oriented and you could talk to somebody in a completely different vertical than you that has a subscription component and learn some beautiful tidbits that you wouldn't even have thought of or you didn't even think of. Oh, I should go talk to this cat subscription brand and I am a lifestyle subscription brand. You could probably, and will, learn something from that conversation.

Speaker 1: 3:39

They're all willing to share it there, agreed, and the caliber of people that you guys attract to this event are their good people, their generous people, their fun, their smart, and so they always say to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you and they'll help you grow.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 4:00

Yep, okay. So let's talk a little bit about data. I know you guys launch a report at every SubSummit. That is all about data. It's about the must-know trends and insights for everyone working in the industry. You guys call it the subscription commerce industry outlook. So tell us some of the trends that you're seeing in this year. It changes from year to year, so what are some of those trends you're seeing right now?

Speaker 2: 4:27

Yeah, behind the scenes just to add some more context to this. Last year the report was more than 40 pages. We quoted more than 40 sources. We talked to experts, we do case studies. We really try to pull together that. You have to know these to be successful both as a business and a solution provider in the space.

Speaker 2: 4:45

This year, the focal point for the conversation is creating the frictionless experience. We've always known that subscriptions need to provide value, both the monetary value that comes through your products and then the lifestyle, complementary type of value of the community, the Facebook groups, the downloads. That's perfect the way to frame that, the experience. But now it's really taking that relationship and that frictionless experience to the next level. So two big things that go into that, one being the subscription relationship. It ebbs and flows. It's not a linear line of I start the subscription, I end the subscription. It's I start the subscription and maybe I pause it. I start it again and maybe I'm on it for six months this time and I love it so much. Now I want to gift it to somebody and now I've paused it again. And how do you make sure that it's more of a circle or like a spider web?

Speaker 2: 5:38

One data point that really surprised me as we started doing this research is about 60% of marketers are going to be increasing their investment and influence their partnership marketing. We knew that this was important anyway. We didn't realize it was going to be 60%. And the use case for subscription is maybe they've turned away from your product. Let's use the dog box example again here for a second. I was on the subscription. I loved it. Didn't need the product so much anymore, for whatever reason, I turned away. But now I'm on my favorite Instagram dog channel. They are using partnership influencer marketing. I see a little ad for them and I'm triggered to re-engage with that brand and be a new subscriber. Or maybe I am in that dog subscription. I love it so much and I want to gift it to somebody and become an advocate for that brand.

Speaker 2: 6:28

So we looked at Panera, for example. They did an entire PR campaign last holiday season about gift subscription. How easy it is. What you have to do? Like the value proposition. They were on tons of media and even if you're a smaller company, you don't have to go that big. I know we're not all the Paneras of the world, but just make it known that you have that gift option that you do love the advocates and be everywhere to everyone that matters to you.

Speaker 2: 6:55

You don't want to stretch yourself too thin, obviously, but where are the relationships and how can you nurture them in a really unique, authentic way? Related to that, we are seeing some changes with the laws and so the ebbs and the flows of that relationship. You can't make it hard for people to unsubscribe. The Federal Trade Commission is proposing new laws and I want to quote this very specifically because the language is incredibly important but the companies need to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one.

Speaker 2: 7:26

So we used to live in this world of maybe it was hidden on the website to unsubscribe, or maybe you had to pick up the call or you're talking to a chat robot and it's really difficult to get to that cancellation Realistically, especially as you're starting out. You're not thinking about that ease of unsubscribing. You want to keep them right. You don't want to make it easy for them to go away, but that commitment can be really hard for them and reduce them wanting to be committed to the brand in the first place, and now the FTC is looking at this and thinking that they might apply some new laws to it. So there's a legality you need to be sensitive to.

Speaker 1: 8:00

I'm glad about that, honestly, and I won't name any names. But I have a massage subscription, like a membership, and I did try to cancel that and I had to submit a request and then they had to come to me with paperwork and then I had to give it back to them in person and I was like what this is? I felt like I had to jump through hoops and you know what it did. The process of canceling took longer and another renewal came through while I was in the process of canceling and I was like I see what you did here.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Yes, now you never want to go back there, right? You're totally scared off from the experience.

Speaker 1: 8:47

It definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and it got me to thinking. As a person in the subscription box industry, I was like, huh, they can do this, but so it sounds like some of that stuff is changing.

Speaker 2: 8:59

Yes, yeah, it's in the works. They just had a public hearing last month and there's a lot of things government we have to get through to make it an official law, but they've already started lawsuits with companies like Amazon that they're very obviously doing unethical things that maybe aren't necessarily against the law at this time, but probably will be in the next few months or a year, and so getting proactive in overcoming those challenges now is gonna be really beneficial to businesses. On the authentic front, we're seeing a change on preference on social media. We went through this phase of everything had to be so polished, so cut, so beautiful, and that was absolutely against what the point of Instagram was in the first place. That was supposed to be behind the scenes, raw, very.

Speaker 2: 9:44

What is your brand and who are you? So we're seeing consumers are favoring that again. They want that behind the scenes taste and who is the brand and do you truly support who I am as a human and what I care about? And so, as they ebb and flow through that relationship with you, keep providing that content and be in all of the places and just be a good brand, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 10:07

I'm glad to hear that when I was running Sparkle House of Grow Renee and I always noticed that the raw is that a word the raw the more raw that we would give them behind the scene, like legit me in sweats and a t-shirt in my warehouse packing and I'd show, okay, I've got a documentary on while I'm packing boxes, maybe drinking a drink, like when I showed the actual what's happening, they would engage with it way more. They would have real engagement too, like comments, not just a like. When we would share about our travels, when we would share about our challenges oh, you guys, the products late this month. This is how we're getting through it. We promise we're working on it. When we shared that stuff, we always got higher engagement, so I'm glad to hear that's now becoming widespread and the norm. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:02

If you look at some of the bigger brands that are rapidly growing out there, that's really what they focused on, even as the trend was that polished energy. They kept authentic and now you can just see their gross curl mix is one of my favorites right now. It is a hair care product for the black community, and everything's behind the scenes, like she will tell you her whole life why she does what she does. They're doing a crowdfunding campaign right now to get investment in the company, and she every day is updating like we hit this. We're doing this. My email server just crashed, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 11:33

And so you just care about her as you invested and what she's doing Like emotionally investing.

Speaker 2: 11:39

You're so emotionally invested and now you're gonna be financially invested because you believe in everything and she's hustling. It has this beautiful, huge manufacturing plant and you see all of that, you know exactly what's going into the business and you feel so connected to it.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Yeah, and there's a bit of transparency in that too, so you can see the quality, you can see what she's putting into it, that she actually cares. It's not just another factory turning something out. So I like that a lot and I think that's important. That doesn't mean that if you're listening, that you're gonna skip over. Like quality product photography you still have to have quality product photography for your website and can be used on socials, but Give them a touch of the real, like what's going on behind the scenes.

Speaker 2: 12:23

Yeah, and it's helpful, I think, to think about where you're going to play with that stuff too. Right, social can maybe be a little bit of the raw, more of the raw stuff, and then the website's more of the polished stuff. But how do you intertwine the two? In the both avenues? It should be, again, balanced and making sure you're presenting all of the things that you people really care about.

Speaker 2: 12:45

Yeah, and the second trend that we're really seeing is a shift in consumers' relationship with the word subscription. So if you look at the data on Google Trends, for example, in early 2020 until about Q3 of 2022, the words membership and subscription were used somewhat interchangeably. Equal searches ebbed and flowed between the two, but now the data is very much showing that people are more heavily searching for the word membership. There's more of a negative connotation with subscription and we're starting to see that language shift in the bigger brand. So it's auto shift or auto replenish, or membership, or join our paid community. And so what language really makes sense for the people that you're going after? Do they have a history a negative, potentially history with subscription and that fear of commitment? And what is the value that you're providing them If it's convenience, if it's that auto ship, auto replenish mindset, then maybe that's the language that you should be using.

Speaker 2: 13:48

But you can use Google Trends, you can use some Google Keyword tools there's other free tools out there to look at the keywords, look at what other brands are looking at, to understand how you're talking about your product in a way that doesn't scare away customers and helps them really understand. This is a relationship. We're in this together. Netflix isn't a good example on that one. We know they're a subscription service. They talk about themselves being a subscription service, but if you go to cancel, it's canceled by membership. If you get an email from them, it's thank you for being a member, and so they very heavily used it interchangeably before and now it's very much leaning on the membership side more than the subscription side.

Speaker 1: 14:25

That's interesting and there's so many other words you can use, so don't, if you're listening this and you're like what else am I going to call it? There's so many other things, like you said membership, community, something of the month, it could be a club, it could. There's just so many different words and you can even lean into your subscribers to help rename it. What do you consider this? Do you consider this a community? Do you consider this your favorite membership? Don't stress if subscription is built into your name. Just think about okay, what other words could I use?

Speaker 2: 15:04

Yeah, absolutely. And while you're doing it, don't be misleading, of course, because I've seen the situation of join my community. Oh, it's a paid community, you weren't clear on that. Join the membership model there's some confusion in the consumer world right now of loyalty versus membership, which one's paid, which one's free. Target, for example, is looking that you have the circle membership and they're thinking about potentially a paid membership model, and so I'm sure, if they do launch that, it's going to be very clear of what that is, what you're getting for, what you're paying for. So just be conscious of that, as you're kind of embedding this into your brand.

Speaker 1: 15:39

That's good advice, okay, so, as your team does the research for this report that we've been talking about, and you're talking to potential speakers for the event, you're talking to service and solution providers that will be at Sub-Semmit. What are some areas that subscription box owners need to be focusing their efforts on, even before we get together in June for Sub-Semmit?

Speaker 2: 16:02

I know that it can be somewhat overwhelming to come to Sub-Semmit and see all of these really big, fast growing, shiny brands and these amazing speakers, and I want everyone to come into this understanding. We create this content in a way that it can be applicable to all business sizes. We have sessions that are specifically dedicated to the smaller brands or that are highlighting bigger brands that have been through it before right. So one thing that you should be doing before Sub-Semmit is starting to look at your data collection and how are you using it now. All of these things that I'm going to go through here is really putting pen to paper. These might be things that is already in your brain or you've got some dirty notes on it somewhere in a notebook that you lost, but come to Sub-Semmit with this stuff like I know this stuff because then we can help you get it to the finish line or to the next step or understand what your opportunities are. So, with the data, what are you collecting now? What do you want to be collecting? What are you collecting and using? What are you collecting and not using?

Speaker 2: 16:58

Some simple things like when are people's birthday can be a huge aha moment for brands. Last year at Sub-Semmit we talked to a caribou that is not owned by Mattel, it's a video calling kids app. When they went to market, they were like parents are a target audience, they're going to be who we need to promote to. But then they looked at their data and they found grandparents were actually the purchasers and had a bigger value per customer, and so just the simple thing of collecting the birthday they leveraged to completely revamp their marketing campaigns.

Speaker 2: 17:32

Another thing you could be looking at if you have a newsletter is how many newsletters do they get before they subscribe to my product, or how many products do they get before they leave my product? Any type of data that you can collect. It can be in Excel or Google Sheet, just to start out, and that can help you start getting to the cohort analysis of understanding buckets of people and how they're behaving. Getting to that point can seem like a stretch, especially when you're a smaller company maybe one or three people on the team, right, but that's the good foundation for you. So, data management document all of the things that you know about data. Document all the things that are your gaps.

Speaker 1: 18:09

And if you're not collecting any data, start now so you have something to look at when you get to Sub-Semmit and you can start applying things to what you've collected since then.

Speaker 2: 18:20

Absolutely Great point. We're going to have speakers that have started with that Google Sheet. They worked their way up to a CRM, which was a lot of fancy automation and tracking, and now they've gone up to the point of they have their own custom dashboards that can tell you such fancy things of this Facebook ad resulted in X dollars. That's the dream. We all want to get there, right? But start with something simple and start collecting data of nothing else before a Sub-Semmit.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Yeah, and there's a free way to do that with Google Surveys. You can just sign up for that and send out a survey with five questions to your audience. That is how easy it is to start collecting data. If you're at a point where a budget is tight and you don't have staff to do this, you still have options here. Yes.

Speaker 2: 19:09

Yeah, I'm just pinging something in my brain if you got extra product from a previous box that they didn't get, throw them a little bonus item in the future box because they did the survey, and then it's even more of a shiny experience and they feel the love from you Exactly, ahh. So then the next thing I want y'all to be looking at is your inventory management in your supply chain. We know COVID pandemic changed everything in supply chains, especially if you're getting from overseas. Yeah, prices change, inventory changes, so start documenting.

Speaker 2: 19:43

What is your biggest pain point here, what is your biggest expense here, what is your biggest goal here? Even if you're just starting so small and I'm sourcing from my friends for this crafting box, okay, but where do you want to get to next? What is your next ambitious here? If you come to SubSummit with those insights, then our experts can help you think about. Maybe you do want to go really big and go globally We've got the global experts or maybe you just want something simple. And how do I reuse those previous box inventory pieces and cut my costs? They'll talk about a lot of those things and how you can practically enhance that whole process.

Speaker 2: 20:24

And then another thing we need to be thinking about is AI, and I think for some people, this is an overwhelming thought of like the robot doing the thing, and what can the robot really do? For me, and we hear a lot about AI can support businesses, but what does that mean really? So some questions that you can ponder to yourself are what is taking me a lot of time? What is something that I want to be doing as a brand? Maybe I don't have the time to do it or the skill set to do it. What are other brands experimenting with or I've seen on their social or on their website that I want to play around with? What are some missed opportunities in your business?

Speaker 2: 21:02

You don't need to connect these questions to AI yet, but just document them and think about them, and then we're going to come with some real resources of how businesses are using AI. Simple things of personalizing the emails to how do you connect at mass on social with people using AI. It should be a way to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of your business, and if you have a small team, you can use a robot to support the things that you're trying to accomplish here in a really meaningful way, while still keeping that human connection. Think of all the time saved if a robot was doing some other things so you could talk to your people more. Talk to your members and your subscribers on a really human level, so it can support you to do that.

Speaker 1: 21:48

I think that AI is one of those things that I can speak for myself but I bet some of my listeners can relate to this is you don't know what you don't know. So the resources that you guys are going to provide hopefully you may have some speakers on it too I think we'll just open our eyes to what are the possibilities and how to use this in our business. Like I said, there's so many things that I didn't know that AI could do, but then I'll see a colleague do like sharing about it and I'll be like, oh my gosh, I didn't even thought about that. So I'm looking forward to seeing what those resources around AI are going to be.

Speaker 2: 22:23

Yeah, I think everyone needs to play with it a little bit. If you go into it, it freezes you for a second of where do I start? You start typing and doing things and then it like puts out this amazing stuff. That's often just the foundation and you need that filled on it, but it's the brainstorming and the legwork that some people try to step away from. It helps you do that and then you can make it even better and amazing.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Yeah, one of the things that I love for it the most is so I don't have to start with a blank page. Sometimes that can be the most overwhelming thing. Just get me started with something, and so that's how I use AI a lot in my business. Okay, so there's always a lot going on at Sub Summit. You guys jam-pack the entire event with lots of great events, but let's talk about the Pitch Competition and the Cube Awards for a minute, because they're super relevant to my audience here that's listening. So let's start with the Pitch Competition.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Pitch Competition is your chance to win $10,000 in cash. No strings attached, crazy Activity in the business, $10,000 cash money. We're looking for businesses that were founded within the last two years, that are actively seeking funding and can genuinely tell us what they're going to use the money for. Even if you're coming to us with an idea, you haven't launched your brand yet that is fine. You have to be able to tell us what you're going to do with the money and what your growth strategy is and how it's going to support those things. So you can be in the idea phase or you can be in the launched business phase. The applications are open for that right now and my biggest advice here is just don't be scared, just do it. Just do it. Be helpful, go.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Do the thing? Yeah, okay. So where can they find out the app or fill out the application for that one Sub-Summitcom slash Hitch Perfect? Okay, so we'll make sure that we put that in the deadline in the show notes. So if you're thinking about where am I going to get funding, if you're actively pursuing other type of funding elsewhere, there's no reason why you wouldn't apply for the Pitch Competition as well. Are you doing it like you have in last past years, where there's a couple of different rounds of applications and pitches?

Speaker 2: 24:33

Yeah, Great question. So this year it is application, post a quick video on LinkedIn and tag us so we know that it's there, and then the finalists four of them are going to be pitching live in Dallas. So no more virtual round, but I don't want that to scare people away. We're still here as a resource. There's still going to be coaching sessions behind the scenes, little meet and greets to prep them, and so when they get to Dallas, they'll have the very clear expectation of what we're expecting of them. They'll have a rubric of how they're being judged. We can do practice runs with them beforehand, and so there's a lot of support throughout the entire process. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 25:07

I love that. Okay, shall we talk about the CUBE Awards.

Speaker 2: 25:12

One of my faves.

Speaker 1: 25:12

I'm so excited about this it's like wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, jen. Do you see if you're watching the video? Guys? Do you see what that is? Right there? It's, that's all it is. It's a community choice CUBE Award that we won for sparkle hustle grow a couple of years back, so this topic has a very special place in my heart. So tell us about this year's CUBE.

Speaker 2: 25:33

Awards yeah, deserved award there. We were proud to give that to you because you have an amazing community with you. Cube Awards is honoring the industry's best, and so we've got multiple categories. We've got best new subscription, best marketing campaign. To find more information on this, you can go to subsummitcom slash CUBE and so you can nominate your brand. You can nominate another brand, you can. You don't have to nominate yourself multiple times. One nomination is good. The public vote will be open after this round, and so it will be for the People's Choice, which is the rebrand of the Community Choice Award. People's Choice is really going to matter if you have a huge community behind you, like you just, and you want those people to be now voting for you. After you've made it into that round, we will let everybody know who those nominees are and who the voting is open for, and then your subscribers can go and give you a vote. And then that event at subsummit there is just a full experience. It's a plated dinner, it's red carpet, it's a party, it is a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 26:38

It is. I can speak to experience there. We look forward to it every single year, and it's towards the end of the event. You've put in all this work, you've met all these new people, you've taken pages and pages of notes, and this, then, is an opportunity to relax, have fun and be a part of this bigger event honoring the best of the best, and so I really encourage you guys to check it out. Go nominate your favorite brand, nominate yourself. It's no shame in that game. Just make sure that you do that before the nominations close.

Speaker 2: 27:14

Yes, Huge PR opportunity here. Right, you walk away with an award and then you can add a shiny badge onto your website. You can do a press release. We're going to have journalists and media there covering this, so get your brand out there.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Love it, so fun, okay, so what are some of the other aspects of the conference that attendees can look forward to?

Speaker 2: 27:35

Every year, we're trying to think what is going to really provide extra value, what is the most requested thing from our attendees, what gaps can we fill? And so I'm really excited about some of the stuff we're launching this year. First one is table talks. These are 45-minute discussions with six to eight people talking about a niche topic. Example women and subscription. If you're a women of subscription, you might have unique challenges or opportunities and you want to talk to other women like you. As you are signed up as an attendee for a sub-summit, you will then get an invite to sign up for table talks. Any attendee can express interest in these. You can look at the options for the topics that we'll be talking about. Maybe retention techniques for 2024, or maybe we're talking about proactive retention or the ultimate reason for churn. Those are possible topics. We're still ironing out what those exactly are going to look for, but if there's something that you're really passionate about and you want to get together with other people talking about this topic in a room, that's what we're organizing here.

Speaker 1: 28:33

Love it.

Speaker 2: 28:34

This is something very requested from our community if they want more of these tight-knit conversations centered around something very meaningful. So you really have no idea what you're going to walk away from this conversation with. You're going to be talking to companies the same size as you, maybe companies that haven't started yet, and maybe companies that are making a billion dollars a year. So great opportunity to connect with others that are facing the same challenges and opportunities that you are so cool. I love that concept. Next thing that we are it's going to be different is our hosted meetings program. This is a program that we've had for a long time, but the new thing this year is that anybody can apply to it and be eligible for it. Versus last year, you had to have a minimum of $500,000 in revenue. This year, even if you're starting off, you could potentially get a free ticket to subsummit and potentially up to $750 of travel reimbursement Wow.

Speaker 2: 29:28

Your commitment with this is to meet with solution providers that can help you improve your business. Earlier you were saying you don't know what you don't know, but the same thing is true for solution providers that can help you grow your business. Maybe you are to that point of you need a CRM and you don't know where to get started with it. This is a one-on-one conversation With those. You'll have some quick 15-minute meetings throughout the conference and then your experience is free and you get to come hang out with us for those three days. So definitely recommend you apply to that one so you can go to subsummitcom for that. And then we're going to do a welcome reception with Julie and Renee.

Speaker 2: 30:04

This year. This is another thing that's been requested. If you're a newcomer or if you're coming solo to the event or you don't really know how to make the most of the experience, we're going to provide a ton of emails and the website and the app to support that experience, but to really meet human to human. This is what that's going to do for you. Do you want to add anything on that?

Speaker 1: 30:23

Julie. Yeah, I think it's super important that if you're going by yourself or if you're going for the first time, you've never been to an event like this or you don't know anyone there. Obviously you know us, we're going to be there, but this is just an opportunity to find a person or two that you can do the event with. It's great for accountability, it's great for sharing the experience and a lot of times people don't get that experience until maybe the event's halfway over, because they've sat down at a lunchtime with someone or they met someone in one of the networking receptions. So this is an opportunity at the front end of the event to meet other people in your same situation.

Speaker 1: 31:09

And, fun fact, renee and I met at a business event where we didn't know anybody. I traveled across the country to be there. So I'm in North Carolina, this event was in San Diego and I didn't know a single person there and she and I met, hit it off, bonded over, talking about our daughters and having tacos at the food truck. So you just never know what will come out of meeting someone at an event. So highly recommend this first time or meet up. I'd love to meet you personally, so make sure when you get there, you come up and introduce yourself.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Yeah, and everyone is welcome to that. We're all going to walk away with a new friend. Yes. The other thing that we've done it before, but we're going to take it to the next level this year our Women in Subscription event, and so that event is a little over an hour long networking. Everybody's welcome, not just women. It's a great time to ask questions, to do more of those meet and greets, and we're going to pull in some of the speakers that are speaking on track sessions and on the main stage to be in that, and so it'll be able to take their talks offline and behind the scenes so you can really get access to talking to them about the things that matter the most to you. So I'm excited to work on that one this year.

Speaker 1: 32:28

That sounds great. I appreciate that you do a Women in Subscription event, because there's just something about it when you put a bunch of ambitious women in a room, right. So I'm looking forward to that event. Ok, let's move on. Let's talk a little bit about the speakers, because you're planning for about 180 speakers this year. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 32:48

More than we've ever had before. We are talking to lots of people right now.

Speaker 1: 32:51

It's so fun so who are a few that we should get excited about.

Speaker 2: 32:58

So I'm a marketer, so I'm a little biased here. But my two favorite that I'm looking forward to are Nick Sharma and Nancy Harhutt. You could listen to them each for five minutes and walk away ready to do something on your business, like applicable tidbits that you could do right now. You could be sitting in your chair making updates to your website. Honestly, they're both renowned experts talking to a ton of conferences very practical insights, a lot of experience with Ecom, with the psychology of business, how consumers think. So must attend both of those speakers.

Speaker 2: 33:31

So other ones that I'm really excited about we've got the head of brand and creative from PreyLitter. They were actually sold in 2021 for $1 billion. It is a cat litter subscription. How simple does that seem? A billion dollars. So she's coming with tons of thought of how to make your brand very presentable and shiny and creative and engaged with your audience.

Speaker 2: 33:54

We've got the senior vice president of brand marketing for diaper I feel like this under talked about brand that are doing amazing things to connect with their customers. Diaper subscription brand again a simple concept, but it's really about that human relationship and making sure that you're taking care of your customer even beyond when they need your product. So diapers only last so long in your life, but now they have a credit card that you can get through them. That is going to help you invest in your child's future. Oh, wow, wow. That just blows my mind. So it's thinking creatively of how you present your brand continuously to your customer, because now you're supporting your child's future with this brand and if your friend's having a child, I'm going to buy the diaper brand, right? Yeah, I am so into this brand at this point.

Speaker 2: 34:48

Very cool, we've got the co-founder and CTO of Centbird. It's a free grants subscription. They have more than 500,000 Instagram followers. Lots of engagement, tons of community building. He is in the trenches with their team, learning the ins and outs of the challenges day to day, so he's got really good insights and growing that community and making sure that you are continuously providing that value. Tons of other speakers I could go on all day. Subsummitcom slash speakers is where those are being highlighted. We are updating that page probably twice a week with new speakers, so definitely check that out and keep an eye on it as we're rolling out new speaker announcements.

Speaker 1: 35:30

Oh cool. I think, too, you guys have an email newsletter that you're sending out updates and stuff too, so go check that out. Subsummitcom we have to mention too. Renée and I are doing a live podcast. We've been doing that for three or four years now, and it's so fun to do a podcast with a live audience. It's just such a different vibe and different experience. So you guys are all invited to come listen to that, and we have some ideas on our topic. We haven't nailed it down yet, so feel free to DM us with any ideas. You know we love to talk shop in our DMs. We're at subscription box basics. What else do we need to cover here? We've covered so much, jennifer. We've got lots of speakers, we've got pitch competition, we've got Cube Awards, the report so much going on leading up to and at the event in June.

Speaker 2: 36:21

Yeah, my words of wisdom are keep an eye on everything and sign up fast, because if you're not going to do the hosted program, the tickets are the cheapest right now that they're ever going to be. If you are going to do the hosted meetings program, those seats are no are going to fill up. I think we're at like 25 percent full right now. Okay, so we do have a cap with how many people we can get into the program to get that free ticket, and so just go on the site, explore. This is a no brainer if you are in this industry, all right.

Speaker 1: 36:49

I'll make sure that we put all the links and all the important dates in the show notes, including I think you guys have a block at the hotel too, right?

Speaker 2: 36:56

Yes, great point. Discount room block. That filled up pretty quickly last year, so get your room quickly as soon as you become an attendee.

Speaker 1: 37:03

Yeah, renee, and I always like to stay right there because you can pop up to your room if you need a break and it just makes it super convenient having your room right there and the events in the space downstairs. All right, we'll make sure we include all the information Everybody don't forget to apply to the pitch competition before March 5th I know that's right around the corner. We helped out some of our boot campers in the past, just giving them a little bit of advice. So if you're thinking about it, email us, message us, whatever, if you just need a little pep talk or if you need a little advice when it comes to pursuing that pitch competition. So, jen, thank you so much for joining me again today. It's always so much fun to hear what's next, what's new for this event that you've been doing for how many years now? Is it like nine? This is our ninth year.

Speaker 2: 37:51

Yes, we're so excited. We're growing every year and this is the biggest one yet, and I'm so excited to see you and so many others this June.

Speaker 1: 37:59

Yay. Likewise, Hopefully that if you're listening, you're thinking about going to the event again. Ask us any questions you want. We have been there multiple years and we can let you know what to pack in your suitcase. We can let you know how to prepare for it. So hopefully you've taken some good nuggets out of this. You're going to take some action, start collecting some data, get the details at subsummitcom and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye Meanwhile, thank you for watching and see you later.