How to Generate Extra Revenue Right Now

Generate additional revenue this month by offering a holiday gift box or a one-time box.

It’s November. That means we’re right in the middle of the holiday buying season! I’ve been talking to you a lot lately about the importance of focusing on revenue-generating activities during the 4th quarter. Why? Because there is no better time to bring additional revenue into your business than right now. 

You serve your audience all year long, sharing valuable content. Now is the time to serve your audience in a different way - by selling. Your audience is ready to buy. They want you to help them. They want you to make their gift-buying experience easier and more convenient. 

Your goal needs to be to bring as much revenue into your business as possible to end the year strong. If your business looks like mine and the other small business owners I know, this year has been filled with ups, downs, and unpredictability of all kinds.

I’m doing all I can to end this year strong with lots of sales. And I want you to do the same. Let’s talk about two ways you can serve you

Offer a Holiday Gift Box  

I’ve offered a Holiday Gift Box to my audience for the past five years. It has brought me a LOT of additional sales and has become something my customers look forward to every year. This year I actually sold out in 24 hours! And brought $30K in revenue into my business. In 24 hours! 

Check out this blog post for more about my Holiday Gift Box process.

Should you offer a holiday box? 

Whether you’ve launched your subscription box or not, a Holiday Gift Box can be a great way to generate additional revenue. 

If you’ve already launched your subscription box, a Holiday Gift Box is an easy way to get additional sales from your subscribers.  

If you haven’t launched yet but you’ve been doing the work building your audience, a holiday box is a great way to get your feet wet. If your audience responds positively and buys your box, you’ll have proof of concept. 

A one-time holiday box also gives you the opportunity to work out any kinks in your process as you source product, take and process orders, fulfill them, and finally ship them.

Planning a holiday box. 

When you plan a holiday box, don’t plan as many boxes as you have subscribers. I suggest planning a percentage of your subscriber number. You can also set up a waitlist if you have enough time and plan the number of boxes based on a percentage of your waitlist. 

If you haven’t launched and don’t have time for a waitlist, choose a fairly conservative number of boxes to plan.

When selling a holiday box:

1. Figure out how much you can manage and how much product you can get. 
2. Decide how many boxes you will make available for sale. 
3. Start planning what you’ll put in the boxes - curate an amazing experience. 
4. Research vendors from whom you can get product. 
5. Order enough boxes in the size you need. 
6. Set up a waitlist if time allows. 
7. Make boxes available for presale. Don’t do this until after you’ve secured the products. 
8. List your holiday boxes on your website. Include: 
   • Presale details. 
   • Description of the box (if it’s a mystery box keep it vague but give some idea of the contents). 
   • When the box will ship.

How I Generated $20k in Extra Revenue with a Holiday Gift Box

Your holiday box should be related to your subscription box. Your goal is to lead recipients to become subscribers. If they LOVE the holiday box, they would love the experience you provide each month. 

The holiday box should not be the same as your November or December box - or any past box. Some of your subscribers will want to buy holiday boxes for themselves, so make sure it is filled with items that are new to them.

Remember, these holiday boxes will be given as gifts on or near Christmas. They should not contain holiday-themed items. Instead, curate a box that recipients can enjoy in the new year.

Offer One-Time Boxes.  

One-time boxes are a great way to get rid of excess inventory sitting on your shelves. Your goal is not to maximize the profit on these items. Instead, the goal is to reduce the amount of inventory you have and recoup the money you spent on it. You’ll free up cash flow to reinvest in your business! 

When I plan one-time boxes, I pair product that has been sitting around with new items to create cute, curated boxes. 

You can present these one-time boxes to your audience as mystery boxes. Let them know the types of items they can expect, but not exactly what’s in the box. This allows you to create a number of different boxes based on the inventory you have.

Create Holiday Gift Boxes From Excess Inventory

I might create mystery boxes and tell my audience they contain a t-shirt and a coordinating accessory or a t-shirt and a tumbler, or a makeup bag and hair accessory. 

Mystery boxes can be themed - teacher boxes, teen girl boxes, sports mom boxes, etc. 

Listen to episode 98 of the Launch Your Box podcast for more about using Mystery Boxes to get rid of excess inventory. 

Make these one-time boxes giftable! This time of year, your customer needs you to make gift buying easy and convenient. Offering them a curated box in a cute box tied with a bow that is ready to give to someone on their list is a gift! They will love you for it!

Read this blog post for more ways to maximize revenue in the 4th quarter.

How to Use Mystery Boxes to Reduce Inventory before the End of the Year

For the rest of the fourth quarter, focus on revenue generating activities. Now is the time to show up and serve your audience by selling. Now is the time to make gift buying easy and convenient for your customers. Now is the time to bring in more sales - get to work!