Subscribed

Borrowing from the retail sector, they score every one of their readers on the multiple of three factors: recency (when did they last visit?), frequency (how often do they visit?), and volume (how many articles have they read?). Low scores indicate churn risks

The takeaway is pretty clear: the ability to solve for a broad range of customer problems, with a broad range of solutions, increases retention.

In today’s world, you have three new imperatives: acquire more customers, increase the value of those customers, and hold on to those customers longer.

whole concept of one-to-one marketing, emphasizing individuals and personalization. But here’s the thing—there is no better demonstration of “one-on-one” marketing than a subscription service because that’s exactly what a subscription service is—a one-on-one relationship.

According to McKinsey, if a software company grows less than 20 percent annually, it has a 92 percent chance of failure. Because at the end of the day, it’s grow or die.

To an entrepreneur, any business process that is universally hated, hopelessly complex, and massively expensive constitutes a huge opportunity.

Once you establish a secure identity with a customer that includes things like purchase activity, payment information, perhaps some demographic details, or maybe some location alerts, then you can do amazing things.

In a perfect world, these stories are actually heard in a sequence—the 100,000-foot-high business transformation story, followed by the marketplace story, and only then the product story.

You can create intuitive subscriber journeys that take customers from good to better to best, with relevant incentives and tipping points along the way. And when your pricing model maps to that subscriber journey, this is when (click!) your business model locks into subscriber relationships, and a valuable company is born.

today you communicate your brand through experiences, not ads. The best sales pitch for Netflix is binge-watching a great Netflix show. The same principle applies to buying glasses from Warby Parker. Or conducting a Google search. Or looking up a prospect on Salesforce.

Sadly, lots of companies still depend on customer neglect in order to sustain their zombie business models. So what’s changed about the monthly subscription services today? Well, the smart ones realize that if they really want to retain their subscribers, they need to focus on building a great service, without relying on lame tricks like hiding the cancel button.

Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of The Membership Economy. “Make it easy for customers to leave if they want to. You can certainly ask them why they’re leaving, or try to win them back, but don’t get in their way—the digital equivalent of blocking the exit with a hulking security guard.”

It’s also a much happier business. Why? Because subscriptions are the only business model that is entirely based on the happiness of your customers. Think about it—when your customers are happy, then they’re using more of your service, and telling their friends, and you’re growing. You get to start every quarter with predictable revenue. You get to make smart, data-driven decisions. You get to benefit from your own customer insights, which are a huge competitive advantage.

The key is to realize that if you are selling in an English-speaking country, you are selling to all English-speaking countries.

there is nothing more dangerous than profitable mediocrity.

Instead, they want to hear about two things. First, what are the broader implications for my job and my business if I go with you? Second, and perhaps more important, what are other people out there doing?

“Relationship” is kind of a strange word to use in a commercial context. Are you really entering into a “relationship” with Netflix? Well, you do, don’t you? Sometimes you have great evenings together, and other times you may wonder whether it’s all worth it. Look at all the ugly breakups people had with Uber.