Last week, we held our ‘Subscriber Retention Special – Q&A’ webinar, in which the eight contributors to the Subscriber Retention Special we ran in the March / April issue of InPublishing magazine answered questions.
There were lots of useful insights – I have picked one from each of the panelists below:
- Touchpoints: publishers should track which touchpoints correlate to higher LTV and then try to steer users towards those touchpoints. For Newsquest, the best retaining cohorts are those that use the app and those that post comments. (H/t Susanne Kinnaird, Newsquest)
- Segmentation: It shouldn’t be static; subscriber behaviour changes constantly, so your segments need to evolve with it, otherwise, you miss those early warning signs where engagement gradually starts to drop off. (H/t Will Perkins, CDS Global)
- Automation: when looking to automate aspects of your renewal operations, it’s best to approach it in two distinct phases and to do it in the right order; the first phase should look at operational efficiencies and the second should look at more strategic areas like predictive churn modelling, smarter segmentation, dynamic designs etc. (H/t Rosa Sherwood, Our Media)
- Saving cancellations: offering a discount should not be the default position, because it might not address the cause of the problem. If, for instance, the complaint relates to delivery problems, offering an alternative subscription delivery method such as retail vouchers might work better. (H/t Mike Halstead, HH&S)
- Make time for your agents: publishers should put themselves in their customer service agents’ shoes. How well do they know your brand? Do they understand what they’re being told? They’re on the front line, representing your brand, so make sure they are properly briefed. (H/t Claire Ruzicka, Air Business Subscriptions)
- Step-up pricing: for subscribers who have come in on a discounted rate, avoid large price hikes. Instead, introduce a smaller interim price increase at the first renewal. Whilst it will take longer to get them up to full rate, you will improve your retention. (H/t Emma Robinson, New Scientist)
- Involuntary churn: publishers tend to underestimate how much revenue they are losing. Taking a focused, proactive approach (alerting subscribers when their credit cards are about to expire, optmising payment retries etc etc) will make a significant difference. (H/t Tracy Larner, William Reed)
- Content value: for B2B information providers, the key question their subscribers will be asking is, ‘will this information improve our performance in a way that my organisation cares to measure?’ It’s important to speak to your subscribers to establish whether or not that’s the case! (H/t Andy Burden, Substribe)
In over one hour of in-depth Q&A, there was loads more advice and insight, which you can catch by watching the recording. (You will need to fill out the registration form and then you’ll be directed to the recording.)
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
