VLOG Starting My Sticker Subscription Box Business
I'm falling way behind. And the video's stuck at two minutes and three seconds remaining for the rendering. This is great. I went to go edit my thumbnail and I went to open Lightroom to, you know, adjust the color and stuff, and then it just crashed. But at least the video is rendering. Now there's only 35, 34, 33 seconds remaining. All right, I'm just going to go eat lunch and hope that when I come back, it's going to be all fixed. Oh my God. It's fixed.
Typical luck of today. I am out of stock of all my new April succulents stickers and was not able to fulfill all my orders and do not have time to print out more stickers today, or at least not right now, but maybe I'll get to it later. Let's, let's go have lunch for real this time. [Inaudible]. I took a whole 10 minute lunch break because I was like, Oh, I'm falling behind. Let me try to catch up and work.
As soon as I finish eating and I'll start designing the thumbnail for my YouTube video, because now the videos uploaded it's processed. So I just need to do the thumbnail. Photoshop won't work. It won't open. It won't do anything.
And I it's so bad that once Photoshop is open, it won't even let me close the program. So the only way to close the program is to restart my computer. So I found a lot of different things to solve this issue online, and nothing is working and every single time I have to restart my computer to close Photoshop and reopen it. See if I can try something new. So now I have uninstalled Photoshop and I'm reinstalling Photoshop, but an older version. And we'll see how this goes.
And let's not even talk about the fact that the video that I've spent all morning editing is 30 minutes. And it's part one of a two-part series because I didn't want a YouTube video to be an hour long because God knows if that video was an hour long, we'd be like hours and hours from now just discovering these issues. So far today, uh, Lightroom hasn't worked premier pro hasn't worked and Photoshop. Hasn't worked.
So I'm going to assume Adobe's having some sort of issue today and it's affecting every single thing I do, which is just lovely. I did have some cover design stuff that I planned on doing today. Probably won't get to it. Thank you, tech issues. And now I'm talking to a virtual person for customer service.
I just want to make my thumbnail. Hello, Mand, I'm glad to help you in resolving program error. May I know the version of the operator system? Oh god, as if I know what that even means. I found a section on my computer that gives all the information of like the processor Ram, um, and all of that. So I copied and pasted all of that ridiculous information in, and then the person just responded. So you're using windows 10, right? And realized that's all they were asking for.
They just wanted to know if I was a Mac or PC. And if I was a PC, which windows version I was using. Now, I just wait and hope they solve. things. [inaudible]. The videos uploaded.
It's live. I haven't really shared it out. Like I normally would. Like normally there's a big, long checklist of all these things I have to do. Uh, but I was just going through to update, uh, to update my planner too. Cause I was like, there's no way I can get everything done today. And I realized one of the things in my planner was to print all of my tax documents because we have an appointment with our accountant today and I totally, totally forgot about it. So I have even less time than I thought. Um,
but with that said, let's take a break and let's take the puppy for a walk. Did you guys know the. Entire point of this video is to tell you guys about my new sticker subscription service and give you a little bit of a behind the scenes access. And instead it turned into a video of everything that can go wrong in one day when you're trying to just publish your stupid YouTube video. Yeah. So yeah, this is my way of saying that my subscription service for stickers is officially launched or as I'm calling it, it's a soft launch. I'm not doing like a big to do for the launch because it's not like in my head, I wanted like to have three months worth of stickers ready.
And that's just not the reality of the situation. Um, I have two months, uh, April and may, which isn't bad. Uh, and I also say soft launch because I anticipate there possibly being like an issue or two. I'm not really sure. Um, but I won't know until I try it out. So let me tell you guys what I've done so far.
So I've actually downloaded an app onto my Shopify store. Shopify is how I host the book launch planner store. And even I'm like thinking of eventually changing the store name from the book launch planner to something more generic because originally it was supposed to be just the book launch planner. Um, and I had a plan to like just do writing stickers. I never really planned on doing these decorative stickers, which I have enjoyed. Oh, so much. I don't know, maybe one day,
I guess I'm just saying one day the URL of the store may change. I really have no clue. Um, but let me, let me tell you about what I've done. So I've created the product, uh, for the monthly subscription service, which is called stick together monthly.
It's it's an adorable name. I know. I even designed a logo. Here's the logo right here. It's simple. Yeah, that's all. So right now I've downloaded an app onto Shopify that allows me to do monthly, um, like subscription service. And I set it up to only be for this product. Um, it allows you to do it for a bunch of different products, but I only want it for this specific product and the nice part about it.
At first, I thought this was a bad thing, but the nice part is that it doesn't auto bill customers. So I'll never get angry emails from customers saying they forgot they were subscribed and now they want their money back. So like the way it works is that if you sign up for this sticker subscription, stick together monthly, um, the first time you buy it, you will, you know, buy it like normal. And then a month from the day that you paid the first time, you'll get an invoice, uh, reminding you to, uh, pay for your second round of stickers. Um,
so if you want to get your second round of the stickers, you just go ahead and you pay the invoice and then I'll know that you want them and I'll ship them out to you. And if you want to skip, instead of, you know, how like, so I, I I'm signed up for Fabletics. I love Fabletics. But if you are signed up for their VIP program, if you don't want to buy anything that month, you have to make sure you go in by a certain date and hit skip. So they don't bill you. I hate that, but this is kind of the opposite where you only have to go in and do anything if you actually want to get something.
So if you don't want to get anything, you can just choose to ignore the email. At least that's how I assume it works. So I went ahead, I started the subscription service. I set up the product and the product page is a little bit more complicated. Um, then a typical product.
Cause normally I don't really put much of a description, but for this one, I kind of explain how it works. What's included in every subscription. So every subscription will include a calendar sticker, a decorative sticker that matches your calendar sticker and then a sticker sheet of your choice. So basically you get to choose from all of the stickers that are live on the website. So that's three stickers that get to you every month.
And I believe the price I decided on is $8.99 Plus shipping. And then of course on the product description, I had to explain how it works. So there's this little does it work section, uh, and then I also break down what are the stickers? So I explain what the calendar sheets are. Here's an example for February, February was Valentine's day themed. So we got all these little, uh, decorative elements and then on the weekly spreads, yeah.
Given these days of the week. So you can decorate your weekly spread as well. And they, of course, I designed them to fit the book launch planner, but they'll obviously fit a bullet journal as well. So the way it works, cause the one thing that I was having a hard time grasping my head around was how will people know which stickers they're getting for which month? Cause some people, if you live internationally, um, like right now it's the middle of March, but you may not get your stickers in time for April. So maybe you wanted to order the stickers for may rather than April. So that's when, um, I, the, a little drop down menu.
So you click on the little down and you see right now the options are April and may. And you're like, Oh cool. I can choose which month I want to get first. And that'll happen every single time you renew. So every time you get your little email reminding you to pay for your stickers, you click the pay invoice button or whatever the button is going to say. Cause I haven't gotten that far yet. Um, but basically when you go to pay,
you can choose which month you want to get that way. I always know what you want and you always know what you're getting. So then the complicated part that took me a little bit to figure out, and then once I figured it out, I'm like, Oh, that stupidly simple was letting you guys choose what the third sticker would be because I was like, how do I make this happen? How do I let them choose? And the subscription software, frankly, isn't that fancy. So I had to get creative. So basically every time you purchase the stick together, monthly sticker subscription, uh, an, a coupon is automatically applied to your cart.
So I designed this coupon. So it's, it's automatic to anyone who has the sticker subscription in their cart. They get a free sticker of their choice. And goodness, me, I felt so brilliant when I came up with it. But now looking back, I'm like, duh, that's like this, the simplest stupidest solution I've ever heard of, but it works. So, like I said, you get three stickers, a calendar sticker,
a decorative sticker that matches the theme for the month. And then the third sticker is a sticker of your choice. And you basically just go into the sticker section of the shop and choose whichever sticker meets your fancy. Now you can choose more than one sticker, just know it will be an additional cost.
So only one sticker is included with your subscription and the rest will be an additional cost. It was actually really, really hard to brainstorm all of this at the beginning because I, I thought that the stickers had to ship out at a specific time every month. Like the first Thursday of every month is when all the sticker subscriptions would go out. And it just became like this very complicated, confusing thing, which is why the whole process took so long. And then I just realized if I let people choose exactly which month they're going to get, then I can just ship them out as they come in, which I know. So mind-blowing. So to some people,
this isn't the like traditional subscription box that you're used to, but I'm hoping the product description page will make it as clear and understood as possible. Now I will say, I am, I'm almost done with this. Really. All I have left to do is finish designing the stickers for may. So then I have the option of people signing up for April or may. And I've already gone into the app I'm using in case you're curious is seals subscriptions. They have a free option. And right now I meet the, um, the qualifications for the free option because this is a very experimental thing. I have no clue what I'm doing. Um,
I'm hoping this works out really nicely, but right now I'm just kind of like winging it. But because of that, I didn't want to pay a monthly fee for an app for my store, if I wasn't going to be able to make my money back. So I, I, use seal subscription cause it's free.
And I was able to go in and set subscription rules. So the rule is that it only works for the, the stick together monthly product. Now, right now, all I really have left to do like back end setting up the technology wise is to customize the email that you'll get every month to remind you to renew your subscription. And basically me customizing that email is just reminding people that when they go and pay their invoice to make sure they go ahead and add an additional sticker into their cart.
Otherwise they'll miss that, um, free sticker of their choice. So I have to remember how to figure out how to do that. And then there is one other big to do that I forgot until just now. So the big to-do that I basically have forgotten about, I didn't really forget.
I like write it down and then forgot it was on my to-do list is, is kind of what I did. Uh, but included with every subscription. I just kinda wanted to make it cutesy, AKA, um, customize the branding and all of that jazz. So the goal is to have, um, not necessarily business cards, but little thank you cards that go in every little subscription order that says stick together monthly and has a cute little message or something like that. And then I also want to put in a piece of paper,
um, that's just like, here's, what's in your box this month and it's not technically a box. They're just like flat envelopes because they're stickers, not anything like three-dimensional. Um, but you know how subscriptions have that? When you get a subscription, you get all the goodies and then there's a piece of paper that explains what your goodies are.
So basically every month I want to have a little piece piece of paper. That's just like this month's theme is succulents, which is the theme for April. And then the theme for may is, um, I don't know if I've come up with the exact name yet, but it's basically bees and flowers.
So like some sort of cute name I'll come up with later. But obviously the theme for April is cutie little succulents. So that's stuff I want to add in down the line, as well as the fact that whenever I package my stickers, they go on this little plastic sleeve to make sure that water doesn't damage them when they're on their way to my customers. And I like to seal that with this cute little sticker right now, I use the book launch planner sticker because it's just what I use when I package everything. Um, because that's the name of the store, but for the sticker subscription, I would like a custom set of stickers that say stick together monthly. I think that would just be cute. And again, these are,
that's what I mean by like soft launch. So there's going to be like this little testing phase where I figure out these things. And honestly it'll probably last a month. And as far as you guys go, the only difference you'll see is the branding. So the first month, like if you order this month, you'll you might just get more book launch planner, branding rather than branding that specific to the sticker subscription, which isn't a big deal. Your stickers will still be fine, but this is something that I need to do as a business because I've been talking about the sticker subscription for so long and like, I'm, I'm ready, but like there's these nitty-gritty details that aren't quite ready yet.
Plus some of these nitty gritty details, I won't figure out until I've kind of test run things for a little bit, which is why I'm doing this soft launch. And I've done a soft launch quite a few times. I do it almost all the time with my stickers, where, when I launched new stickers, it's not like this big to-do where I tell every outlet I'm aware of. So I don't email my newsletter right away. I don't always post on social media right away. If I wanted to do a big to-do for a launch, I'd have a YouTube video go out while also having it go out on social media while also having it go out in a newsletter while also talking to my affiliates about promoting it, whereas a soft launch, usually for a soft launch, I might just do an Instagram post. And in fact, um, I did an Instagram post recently where rather than show what the stickers look like exactly.
I just announced the theme for the April stickers. And I was like, the theme for April is succulents. If you want to buy stickers, they're out now go to the store to check them out. But I didn't actually show what the stickers look like, but I still got some orders that day because people were just so excited in general. I'm sorry. The sun is coming out and is making my whiteness even worse.
Oh my God. Why didn't I feel like this the whole time. I'm sorry guys. I'm just sure you loved that stark contrast, but anyhow, I love soft launches. I love how you can experiment with things. Obviously I'd never do a soft launch for a book launch, a book launch.
You want to have a big shebang because when it comes to like your ranking on Amazon, it's kind of a big deal. So, um, but for stickers, I'm just my own website. It doesn't matter. I can choose how I want to feature everything. Um, and yeah, soft launches give you an opportunity to experiment with stuff and see what works. All right, enough blabbing. I'm going to go ahead and get back to work. It is 4:00 PM.
Right now I have an appointment at six to do my taxes. So we got to get as much done and. Quickly as possible.
[inaudible]. Now I'm trying to create a little business card and I'm trying to make this little business card a catch all for like a thank you for ordering, uh, a motivation to post on social media as well as the, this is what this month's theme is. So on the back of the little business card is going to say something along the lines of win a free sticker, uh, share your unboxing on Instagram, using the hashtag stick together monthly, and you'll be entered to win our monthly drawing for a free sticker sheet. So that part is pretty straight forward. I'm pretty sure that something that I'm going to do, the part that's not straightforward is the front of the business card right now. I have set to be just the logo, but I'd love to make it.
So I have a space to write what the theme of the month is because the more I think about the more complicated that little like insert to say what the theme is. Um, and it's just as simple as saying something like for April, the theme is succulents. Like it's nothing super fancy. Um, but it would be expensive to hire someone else to print because the only time printing stuff like that is cheap is when you buy in bulk. But I probably won't need a ton, at least not at the start because I need an individual design for every month. So if I'm ordering, say, I don't know, 20 of these little cards that say what the theme is, it's going to be stupidly expensive and I could print it myself, but it's also, it's just a pain to print stuff like that every month.
And the quality is not nearly as good. Like if I wanted something that like was business card ish, the quality just isn't as nice as if I have someone else print it. So I was thinking on the little business card that says how to enter the giveaway on the front. I could have a spot where I could put my own little sticker, cause I'm really good at making stickers. And the sticker that I stick to the business card says what the theme is for the month. Um,
the only problem with that is that I still want a spot to put the logo of the subscription and it just, I can't figure out a way to make it work. But tomorrow is my mastermind that I have every week with some other writer, friends. And it's my week, meaning that I am the one who gets to a brain dump and then they give me their advice. So I'm hoping during that mastermind that they'll have a really great idea to figure out how I can put that monthly little subscription thingy in there. While also keeping it cost and time effective because really that's the only issue. It's either I'm wasting my time or I'm wasting my money. And now of course, and much rather waste my time than my money.
But you get the idea. Any who I am going to wrap up this vlog now because I have to finish printing out tax documents for my lovely tax appointment. I hope you guys all enjoyed this video and if you're watching this, the subscription should be live. So you can go ahead and subscribe.
If you're interested, I really have high hopes for this little sticker subscription service. Let's see where it goes. If you enjoy videos like this and be sure to let me know in the comments down below otherwise I'll see you all next week.
2021-03-25 17:16
