Planning your retention strategy is one of the most valuable and important things that anyone in a renewal-based business can do. You can take my word for it. I’ve been on the front lines.
Early in my career, when I was working in enterprise-level sales, one of the products I worked with was a subscription-based service. As a rep, my primary task was to hunt new business, but I was also responsible for maintaining a set of renewals. Continue reading
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It’s time to celebrate! Break out the streamers and champagne! Today’s episode is the 100th installment of the Success in Business Podcast. That’s a major milestone, and worthy of a little reflection.
Today, we’re taking a look back at the 99 podcasts in our rearview mirror, and showcasing our favorite moments. Join host Tom Ryan and producer Jason Pyles as they revisit the show’s greatest hits. Continue reading
If you want to boost your membership retention rates, you need to understand the motivations of your subscribers. A bit part of this is simply asking current members about what they value about your service, and asking returning members why they came back. The more open and comprehensive the dialog, the clearer the picture becomes.
Of course, not every subscriber will be strongly motivated to share their feedback freely. In that case, you might need to create an incentive to encourage participation from a wide range of customers. Even something like a free month or a discount on their next renewal can be compelling. Continue reading
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Ryan Klinger
In this final interview segment, host Tom Ryan and producer Jason Pyles talk with Ryan about the entrepreneurial lifestyle, maintaining a healthy work/life balance, and much more.
• Introduction and recap of the interview
• What would Ryan do differently if he was starting GoWorx over? Continue reading
Once your business reaches a certain size, it becomes impossible to know each of your customers personally. There are simply too many of them to keep track of. Instead of tracking the movements of individuals, the more reasonable approach is to keep track of groups of customers with common traits like age group, gender, or income range. We call these “segments,” and they’re incredibly useful for things like creating targeted marketing campaigns.
But when it comes to the highly personal stuff of understanding customer motivation, segments simply aren’t intuitive enough. If you want to understand why a subscriber or customer acts in a certain way, it helps to give that segment a face and a name. The result is called a customer avatar. Continue reading
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Ryan Klinger
In this episode, host Tom Ryan and producer Jason Pyles talk with Ryan about reaching influencers, hitting the ground running with crowdfunding, the entrepreneurial benefits of a background in design, and much more. Continue reading
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Ryan Klinger
In this episode, host Tom Ryan and producer Jason Pyles talk with Ryan about founding GoWorx, pivoting the company, and the company’s new position as an REI-like retailer for all thing GoPro. Continue reading
When you have a membership or subscription-based business, one of the most valuable sources for information you will ever have are those people who tried your service, but didn’t renew. There was a failure of alignment between what they needed or were looking for, and what your business provided. It’s not always possible to connect with those folks, but there is a subgroup within those canceled memberships that can provide an even better level of insight: Returning subscribers.
Those are people who were once members, later dropped their membership, and then ultimately returned. Not only can they shed light on what’s not working with your product or service, but they can give you great feedback about how to retain more of your subscribers in the first place. Continue reading
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We’ve frequently talked about work/life balance on the show, but what does it really mean? How do you know what that optimal balance is? For that matter, how do you even what your overall capacity for work is? Instead of focusing on the high-level overview of work/life balance, in this episode we roll up our sleeves and get to work looking for some tangible information.
Host Tom Ryan is a serial entrepreneur, a business coach and a Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneur in Residence. He’s joined by producer Jason Pyles. Continue reading
Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/
Inevitably, some of your subscribers will leave. That’s the nature of any subscription-based business. But if that retention rate really starts to slip, you’ll need to be proactive about making changes to your member communication, your value proposition, and even the specifics of your service or product. Continue reading