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.
Many publishers are engaged in ‘partnership marketing’ although most would not know it. Few companies, though, are pushing hard at the boundaries of partnership marketing, exploring all its possibilities. One that is is Dennis Publishing. According t
The 12th of September 2005 saw the long awaited and heavily hyped relaunch of the Guardian in its new Berliner format. Tony Coad talks with senior managers at the Guardian to get their inside view.
Most of the nationals are now taking the internet very seriously indeed and are offering mixed packages of free and paid-for content and a variety of different online delivery methods. Andrea Kirkby assesses the state of play.
The web represents an alternative route to market – be it via digital editions or other forms of online content provision. However the print / online relationship is symbiotic with the primary source of subscription orders for many print titles now b
Despite their importance, many publishers adopt a mechanistic, almost minimalist, approach to renewals. Readers are informed of the impending expiry but little effort is made to resell the magazine. Anne Kottler shows how the new trend in branded ren
Our circulations are in decline, yet are we making full use of every tool in the marketing toolbox? Nigel Davis of Genesis DM argues that direct marketing techniques are being under-utilised by the regionals and that, if we want to retain (and even g
Irregular readers form a large and growing proportion of the circulation of our regionals. Developing a coherent strategy for them requires positive thinking, an effort to understand their needs and an acceptance that they are here to stay. Chris Bra
Traditionally, the relationship between circulation managers and readers could best be described as ‘at arm’s length.’ However, with the explosion of the internet and the, surely irreversible, arrival of multi-media platforms, circulation managers ar
Creating a successful strategy relies on setting the right objectives and utilising the best mix of media, list and offer. With the emergence of on-line techniques, the opportunities open to subscription marketers have grown substantially. On one lev
Nicking ideas is ok – we all do it. But too often, perhaps as a result of skill shortages, under-resourced subs departments or insufficient testing budgets, it is done uncritically, without any assessment being made as to its suitability for differen
What’s your response to a failed promotion? Try it again next time and fingers crossed? Or undertake a proper analysis of what went wrong and apply any lessons learned? Hopefully it’s the latter. Peter Hobday says that having “an open mind” is a pre-
On 18 May 2005, at the Westbury Mayfair in London, publishers and senior circulation executives gathered to hear speakers, including Euromoney’s Jane Wilkinson, CMP’s Diana Lomax and Haymarket’s Martin Durham, discuss the role of circulation in today
In the circulation building game, a high profile and instantly recognisable editor is probably the trump card. Not many titles have one. One that does is the Spectator, a title first published in 1828 and currently enjoying healthy circulation growth
Perhaps slow out of the blocks, the regional press has been frantically developing its new media offerings. However, too often, in the rush to go online, not enough thought was given to devising strategies to ensure proper synergy between the differe
Newspaper publishers are waking up to the potential of database marketing – and not just for managing subscription programmes. Tony Coad finds that publishers are now using the database to drive everything from editorial content to broadsheet-to-comp
