Every subscriber who leaves has to be replaced before a subscription business can grow, which makes retention the quieter half of reader revenue and often the more profitable one. The first renewal is the real test of whether acquisition brought in the right people.
Retention starts with habit. The publishers that keep subscribers longest engage them well beyond the welcome emails, and renew on the strength of the brand rather than another discount. A surprising share of churn isn't a decision at all. Expired cards and failed payments quietly lose revenue that can often be recovered.
Some brands are losing subscribers and hard-fought revenue that could be saved with some attention and effort.
Tracy Larner Our subs retention strategy: William Reed
When someone does want to leave, how it is handled matters. Understand why before offering anything, and make the exit easy, because subscribers treated well on the way out are far more likely to come back.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on subscriber retention and churn, from engagement and renewal pricing to payment failure and cancellation, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
Does your CEO know what your subscriber retention rate is? The chances are, probably not. But, according to Julian Thorne, author of our Guide to Retention Strategies for Publishers, this number should never be far from his or her (or your) mind.
A subscriber’s first 30 days are important to build habit but so is every day after, says Emma Robinson, head of customer experience.
You cannot improve a process until you have documented it, and you cannot achieve an objective until you have a process and system to support it, says Rosa Sherwood, head of CRM, engagement and loyalty.
It’s a well-known fact that engaged subscribers stay for longer, says Susanne Kinnaird, head of digital reader revenue.
It’s important not to lose subscribers and hard-fought revenue through involuntary churn, says Tracy Larner, subscriptions director.
It’s important to understand the reason for cancellation and to ensure the retention offer directly addresses the subscriber’s stated concern, says Mike Halstead, managing director of HH&S.
What determines pricing power is not only the category of need, says Andy Burden, founder of Substribe, it’s the stakes.
Making it super-hard to cancel a subscription does no one any favours.
The sale of national newspapers in the UK has traditionally been via the news trade. Over the years, though, a number of titles have experimented with various subscription models, and this trend appears to be gaining momentum. Are we now, asks Martin
With advertising revenues disappearing down the plug-hole, many free titles are seriously considering getting their readers to pay. It can be done, but, says Ross Sturley, your title must fulfil certain conditions and you must be prepared for a long
Getting visitors to our websites has been the primary focus for some time. Less attention has perhaps been spent on analysing what visitors do when they get to our site, and specifically what might cause them to leave prematurely before they’ve actua
As direct marketers, you all use the web as an acquisition source. But are you making it work as hard as it possibly can? Steve Price and Don Brown advise on how you can get more out of your web marketing.
This week, the FIPP World Magazine Congress witnesses the launch of dsb.net, what is claimed to be a "next generation" subscription fulfilment bureau.
Advertising-free publications are nothing new. Newsletters have been doing it for years, but they are unusual in the farming market where the big machinery manufacturers provide valuable revenue streams for many of the leading titles. Yet it was that
Are publishers missing millions through high opt-out rates? Permission marketing consultancy, Opt-4, conducted a survey at the 2009 Publishing Expo to test awareness amongst publishers of the negative impact of opt-out rates on millions of profitable
President Sarkozy recently announced a series of seemingly radical initiatives to revive the ailing French press. Will they work? Peter Preston places the measures in the context of France’s post war press settlement and concludes that they are extre
There are few people in the media with a genuinely global perspective. Rupert Murdoch is clearly one. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, is another. Ray Snoddy managed to catch up with Sir Martin, an achievement in itself, to get his views o
One of the country’s top selling women’s monthly magazines is celebrating the success of its business model after reaching a significant milestone in its donations to charity.
There is a customer service time-bomb ticking away under the magazine industry. These are some of the key conclusions from a major magazine customer care survey.
Perhaps the only good thing you can say about a recession is that it forces us to work smarter. The unrelenting focus on costs leads us to re-examine the way we do things and we strain every sinew to make our marketing budget stretch further. Angus P
Late last year, Dovetail undertook its second annual Subscriber Service Survey, which they opened up to non-Dovetail clients. As a result, 68,000 subscribers across 330 titles took part, responding to a range of questions regarding their subscription
First published in 1923, the Radio Times is one of publishing’s mega-brands. Its award winning editor, Gill Hudson, has had a busy few months, presiding over a reaffirmingly healthy Christmas issue and collecting the award for best magazine cover of
Regular, eye-catching promotions have become a feature for many newspapers as they look to lock in existing readers and tempt new ones. David Greene looks at some promotional dos and don’ts and also at what the future holds.
