Demand Curve - The Growth Newsletter #151

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The Growth Newsletter #151

Reverse Trials. Don't overwhelm DTC subscribers. 230k subs in 18mo.

Happy holidays one and all. I hope you have a chance to unplug and recharge for 2024.

I have a feeling it's going to be a big year. Rumor has it, it's going to be 366 days.

And fear not—because I know this is your biggest fear this holiday season—we will continue to send the newsletter during the holiday break.

Today: Reverse Trials. Don't overwhelm DTC subscribers. 230k subs in 18mo.

Let's dive in 🎶

– Neal

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1. Use "Reverse Trials" to boost sales + engagement

Insight from Elena Verna.

The typical SaaS playbooks:

1. Pay me or else. You can't use it without paying.
2. Free trial. Sign up now and get X days for free, then switch to "pay me or else." 7-day free trial found to have the highest conversion.
3. Freemium. The same as #1 or #2 with a free tier involved as the initial entry point. People need to upgrade to unlock more features or usage limits, and that upgraded plan is either fully gate-keeped or has a free trial.

And then there's the lesser known: Reverse Trial.

That's where your initial entry into the app is with a free trial of the premium tier. After it ends, you get downgradde to the free tier.

You start out with all the abilities of a premium user, but you have it taken away. You've tasted the good life. And thanks to Loss Aversion, you don't want to lose it.

Here's Elena illustration of these concepts:

According to Elena she's seen reverse trials lift freemium conversion rates by 10%~40%.

And lastly, she suggests offering free trial resets every so often (time based or engagement based). Just because it didn't work last time doesn't mean it won't work again after they've had more time on the freemium tier.

2. Stop sending too much product

Insight from Ben Fisher.

Imagine you're like nearly every tech person and you listen to Andrew Huberman.

Naturally, you become convinced to buy Athletic Greens. You sign up for their monthly subscription for 1 arm and 1 leg per month (plus tax and shipping).

But you're not as disciplined as Huberman and you end up forgetting to take it around 10 days per month.

After 3 months there's a whole unopened bag in your cupboard.

After a year you have 4 unopened bags of AG1 🤬.

Overwhelmed and running out of cupboard space you cancel your subscription.

There's a 99% chance you never subscribe again. Instead, you buy a different greens powder from Costco (after you it takes 6 months to get through your supply of AG1), or never buy it again.

The worst part is that subscribers for DTC products spend 3x more on average.

So, do whatever you can to keep them.

Do that by offering flexibility. Let subscribers:

• Pause at any time.
• Configure how often they get it. A 30 day supply may take them 45-60 days.
• Change the cadence after they subscribe.

You can use something like Rodeo to email/text to check on their supply before sending.

If you overwhelm someone you may lose them forever.

3. Grow your YouTube channel with Google Search

Insight from Contact Studios and Learn with Shopify.

Our friends at Contact Studios grew Shopify's "Learn with Shopify" YouTube channel to 230k subscribers in 18 months (now at 435k with 411 videos).

They did this by taking advantage of SEO content. 

We're not talking YouTube Search. We're not talking Google Search going directly to a video.

We're talking regular ol' Google search to a website.

They did a combination of two things:

1. Create videos for already ranking content

For anything Shopify had previously written that was ranking well in Google Search, they created a video version and embedded it into the page.

2. Create videos and articles targeting specific keywords/topics

For anything Shopify didn't already have written, they identified topics with decent search volume and attainable difficulty (which for them is nearly everything).

They then created a written article and a video to go along with it.

Why this works

• A percentage of visitors will watch the video.
• Some will watch another video.
• Some will hit the subscribe button in the watermark or the video page.
• Enriching the article with video likely improved the page's SEO performance.

For context: The topic of "what is dropshipping" has a traffic potential of 70,000 visitors per month (which Shopify is the top result for and has a corresponding video with 677k views).

And that's just one of their keywords/topics. 

This strategy helped scale their YouTube channel to 435k subs and over 22M views. Obviously, it was way more effective due to their notoriety and 763M backlinks, but it's a strategy that can be used on a smaller scale as well.

Quick question: You are a...?

Your response will help us personalize the content you receive from us :)

News and links

News you can use:

• YouTube creators can now give away 10 free memberships each month.

• Google Ads is testing a conversions account level diagnostic tab.

• YouTube added more formats for Video Reach Campaigns.

• OpenAI buffs up safety measures to ensure risky AI isn't released.
• Figma's $20B acquisition by Adobe was thwarted by UK regulators.
• Apple has to stop selling the Apple Watch Series 9 due to a patent disupte

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Something fun

And because I mentioned Elena Verna...

What did you think of this week's newsletter?

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We share high-quality, vetted, and actionable growth content as we learn it from the top 1% of founders and marketers.

How we can help you grow:

• Read our free playbooks, blog articles, and teardowns—we break down the strategies and tactics that fast-growing startups use to grow.
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See you next week.

— Neal and Justin

Neal O'Grady

Justin Setzer