Boosting Your Membership Retention: Renewal Starts On Day One

IMG_2329Planning 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

Ep. 100 – Celebrating 100 Episodes of the Success in Business Podcast

300x300new_resizedIt’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

Boosting Your Membership Retention: Incentives and A/B Testing

SIBP-2If 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

Ep. 099 – GoWorx’s Ryan Klinger on Finding a Work-Life Balance, Part 3

Ryan Klinger

Ryan Klinger

Like every entrepreneur, GoWorx founder Ryan Klinger has things he would do differently if he had to start all over again. What advice does Ryan have for other industrial designers who are considering starting their own companies? “Gather a great team as early as you can.”

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

Boosting Your Membership Retention: Customer Avatars

IMG_2329Once 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

Ep. 098 – Kickstarter Lessons Learned: Ryan Klinger of GoWorx, Part 2

Ryan Klinger

Ryan Klinger

As the founder of GoWorx, Ryan Klinger has learned plenty about adapting and pivoting a business. Nothing in his background as an industrial designer prepared him for the challenges of creating a Kickstarter campaign, for instance. With every roadblock he’s encountered, however, Ryan has picked up great insights and experiences that have helped him grow his brand.

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

Ep. 097 – Staying on Top of Industry Trends: Ryan Klinger of GoWorx, Part 1

Ryan Klinger

Ryan Klinger

As an industrial designer, Ryan Klinger worked on everything from Vans footwear to Hasbro’s Nerf line. But something about the consultant lifestyle didn’t fit with him, so he ventured to Steamboat Springs, CO, in search of outdoor adventure. Along the way, he encountered a new kind of camera called the GoPro. The camera was great, but it needed a handle, and Ryan had just the right set of skills to make one. Thus, GoWorx was born.

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

Boosting Your Membership Retention: The Value of Returning Members

SIBP-3When 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

Ep. 096 – Accomplishing Your Optimal Work-Life Balance, Part 1

SIB-Blog-1We’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

Boosting Your Membership Retention: Getting Feedback

Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/

Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/

If your business relies heavily on subscriptions or memberships, you face a unique set of challenges when it comes to creating sustainable success. Not only do you need to master the art of making the sale, you also need to create a customer experience that continues to deliver value. As a result, your subscriber retention rate is a huge indicator of the health of the business.

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