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.
How publishers manage their subscription processes is critical to their long term success and profitability. We grab five minutes with Oak Software’s Robert Eyre to discuss subs management.
Centaur Media plc, an international provider of business information and specialist consultancy, has provided a further update on how its business is trading during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fashion magazines Arena Homme+ and POP have launched new digital editions in collaboration with archiving company Exact Editions.
The Big Issue has launched a creative campaign to call on the public to take on a challenge to ‘sell’ the magazine on behalf of the street sellers in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
The Independent has announced that it is participating in the Google News Initiative Subscriptions Lab programme, developed with FT Strategies and the International News Media Association.
The coronavirus has put a huge strain on newspapers but it has also brought home, says Oxford Mail Editor Samantha Harman, the reason she and others went into journalism in the first place.
The Guardian this week announced a strong rise in reader support. In March 2020 the Guardian had 821,000 recurring monthly supporters – a 23% increase over the past 12 months.
Perception SaS has announced the release of Version 10.0 of its cloud-based software and services for publishers.
Bauer Media has announced the appointment of Sam Gallimore (née Fitzgibbon) as Subscriptions Director and Managing Director of Women’s Specialist and Hobbies.
The winners of the WAN-IFRA European Digital Media Awards were announced on Thursday, 23 April - with 7 out of 9 coming from Nordic countries.
The coronavirus and the resulting lockdown have thrown up enormous challenges to the publishing sector. But there are opportunities too…
When it comes to magazine sales during lockdown, it is a tale of two halves, according to Reid Holland, chief consumer revenue officer for Hearst Europe, publisher of brands ranging from Cosmopolitan to Good Housekeeping.
Bloomberg Media has announced that every college and graduate student across the globe will have free access to Bloomberg.com for the next three months.
Centaur Media has provided an update on the measures it has taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Readly has chosen Australia and New Zealand as its next publishing markets, with the service launching yesterday.
