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.
With circulations on traditional publications falling, and increasing competition for advertising, writes Carolyn Morgan, media owners need to think laterally about how to create more value from their content, expand to new markets, sell more service
Increasingly multi-national, resiliently prosperous and seeking out new growth: the UK business information sector has emerged as an altogether different beast after a turbulent few years. Joe Hames, business media manager at the PPA, looks at the fa
Despite all the hype, sales of digital magazines are still dwarfed by sales of print. But, critically, the digital channel is a growing one and, writes Jess Burney, publishers like Immediate Media are working hard to develop it further.
Amaury Group, one of the largest publishing houses in France, has chosen MPP Global Solutions to deliver a new payment, eCommerce and customer relationship management (CRM) system.
Herald and Times Group is building on the growth of its digital subscriptions by releasing a new TV campaign aimed at inspiring both current and potential audiences.
News UK has agreed a clip rights deal with Aviva Premiership Rugby - rights released by BT Sport, the live broadcasting exclusive rights holder - to give members of the online and app offering of its titles access to post match clip packages.
The Financial Times Group achieved profits of £55m, an underlying increase of 17% year-on-year.
Motor Sport is the first publisher to join the 2014 Media Innovation Awards shortlist. Carolyn Morgan looks at the success the publisher has enjoyed with its magazine app.
The ABC figures for regional newspapers were published yesterday.
Global healthcare knowledge provider BMJ today announces BMJ Innovations - a new quarterly online journal, in collaboration with All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Aspermont Media, a global B2B publisher for the mining industry, has completed its migration to Abacus e-Media’s ADvance audience development platform.
Described as “The New Way to Read”, Readly announces its official entry into the UK today.
The Financial Times today unveils its largest global campaign to promote FT Weekend, its Saturday and Sunday edition. The campaign includes a standalone FT Weekend subscription.
Local Media Group, Inc. (LMG), which operates community publishers across the US, has chosen MPP Global Solutions to deliver a centralized customer relationship management (CRM), payments and eCommerce platform to house customer data for both free an
The Times and Sunday Times have announced a strategic partnership with Spotify that will offer - from Sunday February 9, 2014 – a year’s free Spotify Premium to annual subscribers of The Times and Sunday Times’ Digital and Ultimate Packs.
