CASE STUDY

How Dwell Grew Their Membership 400% in 2020

By Andriy Rudnyk • May 27, 2021

Platform & Tools

Industry

Direct-To-Consumer Monthly Subscription Box

Projects

Site Design Overhaul
Email Communication
VIP Shop & Portal
Churn Management

Core KPIs

• 4.84 Membership Review Rating
• 66% Annual Returning Customer Rate
• 405% Membership YOY Growth (2019/2020)

The Story

In 2017, two sisters Vera & Natalie founded Dwell Differently. Dwell creates monthly bible verse designs to help their members memorize and meditate on scripture passages in their daily lives.

Dwell monthly membership kits started with temporary tattoos, 5x7 prints, and keychain tags, and now expanded in to Dwell stickers, print-at-home designs, accessories, and premium prints.

As Dwell membership grew, they began looking for a reliable partner to handle the technical side of their Shopify subscription business.

The Challenge

Dwell hired Good Subscription Agency in August of 2020, and here's what we helped with:

Site Design & Sign-up Overhaul: In 2020 Dwell started investing into social marketing. With increased website traffic, they needed a website redesign to better match their brand and improve their conversion rates.

Optimize Email Marketing: Dwell's team was spreading themselves thin with daily and weekly posts, blogs & podcasts. Due to success of other channels, email marketing wasn't their top priority. They needed a way to better utilize their email for promotions, and brand communication.

Member Onboarding, Loyalty Perks, and Churn: While Dwell membership continued to grow, the Dwell's support team was starting to feel the strain. Members kept contacting Support for membership management, and the team need a better way to onboard & train new members. Members also we asking for more Dwell products and other Dwell accessories, so the website needed a way to better reward active members. And finally, after the busiest BFCM ever, churn of pre-paid gift subscription needed attending to.

“

We don't know all the ins and outs of the apps we use in our Shopify store, nor do we have time to learn how to thoroughly plan and build the features we want. Working with GSA gives us such peace of mind.

”
The Breakdown

‏‏‎ ‎

Mobile-First Theme Setup & Design

We speak to numerous store owners who get frustrated getting the quality of their website to match the quality of their brand.

After analyzing Dwell's traffic sources by device, we've noticed that over 80% of browsing was done on a mobile phone. Hence, we selected a premium Shopify theme which was built and optimized for mobile experiences, with built-in sticky Thumb-Navigation Menu, sticky cart & checkout elements, and snappy page speeds.

Good Subscription Agency also setup & launched Member Purchase Reviews, which flooded the website with hundreds of glowing reviews, earning them a 4.8+ Rating, and finally made Dwelldifferently.com "feel like a real website".

We also worked with Dwell to improve Add To Cart rates by configuring free shipping and making it highly visible on the site.

Results:

• 41% Increase in Add To Cart
• 105% Increase in Conversion

Tips:

• Analyze current visitor data & map out the Customer Journey
• Determine key theme functionality you're site needs to improve visitor engagement, click through rate, and reduce site exits
• Shopify Theme Store Tip: ignore the visual Theme previews and focus on Theme functionality. Theme fonts & colors are easily changed, but Theme functionality is hard to add
• Look for key Theme functionality that fits your customer journey out-of-the-box, to minimize theme customizations needed

Recommended themes developers: Archetype / Out Of The Sandbox

Designs & Store Upgrades

Free consultation before every project.

"Good Subscription Agency not only helped us make a beautiful website that feels like us, but made our business more effective and streamlined."
- Jordan Cayer, Co-Founder of Never Better Coffee

Learn More

Klaviyo Implementation

Nobody likes spam, especially when you are building a community. Dwell wouldn't have been able to do this without Klaviyo.

Klaviyo's integration into Shopify and Bold Subscriptions gave Dwell tools to segment & personalize emails they send based on actions members take. This has proven crucial in identifying member cohorts based on their sign-up data, number of orders, their subscription status and more. As a result, we were able to customize welcome emails to new members, reward loyal members with exclusive promos, and reach out to members at risk of churning.

This level of personalization is what separates spam from relevant emails. Only send email your members actually appreciate.

Results:

• Member 30D Overall Open Rate: 91%
• Member 30D Overall Click Rate: 18%
• 16X increase in revenue from email

Tips:

• Personalization is what separates spam from relevant emails
• Only send relevant emails
• Membership cohort ideas:
• "Founding Member" - a particularly long lasting memberships, top 5% percentile of membership length
• "VIP Member" - top 30% percentile of membership length
• "True Fans" - cohort with highest email/order rate
• "Unengaged" - active members who haven't opened your emails recently
• "Risk of Churn" - unengaged^ + under average Predicted CLV

Email Marketing Automation

Free consultation before every project.

IS YOUR EMAIL BRINGING YOU AN EXTRA 15-20% IN REVENUE? BECAUSE IT CAN.
Automate & personalize your email by segments & flows with Klaviyo. Its time to stop spamming your entire list with the same email, and provide your customers with truly valuable content & notifications personalized to them.

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Onboarding, VIP Portal, and Churn

"You want your membership experience to adapt over time, and you want to provide your members with increasingly personalized experiences" - R.K. Baxter, Membership Economy

We implemented an Onboarding Sequence for new members from time-of-purchase to their first "WOW" moment, which aimed to boost account activations, self-serve support, and reduce churn.

We utilized Bold Subscription membership management portal to further streamline Support, as well as reduce churn with Bold's Cancellation Flows. We made sure that before cancelling, members were reminded of all their membership benefits and were offer options to pause first.

To further improve member experience, we've also built a VIP Member Portal. This is a member exclusive part of the site where active members can access additional membership perks like free digital downloads, purchase previous kits not available to the public. We also implemented extra discounts for members which stack with regulars promotions during sales.

Results:

• 350% increase in One-Time Item sales
• 48% CLV increase
• 62% to 35% Risk of Annual Churn reduction

Tips:

• Find out what key actions separate your Super Members from the rest
• Reward new members for performing a Super Member action within their first 28 days of signup
• Brainstorm One-Time items which would benefit your members alongside their regular memberships
• Offer complementary one-time items as loyalty rewards for membership milestones & referrals
• App Recommendation: Bold Subscriptions + Klaviyo

Subscription Onboarding & Churn

Free consultation before every project.

An Onboarding Sequence focuses on new member experience from time-of-purchase to their first "WOW" moment, before they even receive your product in the mail.

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Result Summary

By hiring a subscription management firm to solve their technical bottlenecks, Vera and Natalie are able to dedicate time and focus on their members and their team, which is what ultimately what keeps driving their success.

• 41% Increase in Add To Cart
• 105% Increase in Conversion
• 16X Revenue From Email
• 350% Increase In One-Time Item sales
• 48% CLV Increase
• 62% to 35% Risk of Annual Churn reduction
• 405% Membership YOY Growth (2019/2020)

“

Our team seeks out help/expertise from Good Subscription Agency in all parts of our business, and they continually deliver care, creativity, and worthwhile solutions! We really love these guys!

”
FOUNDER

Andriy Rudnyk

I started Good Subscription Agency to lead a life of curiosity, honesty, and openness to change. My hope is that our work at GSA gives you some freedom as well.

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