A subscription model can provide you with a consistent and predictable stream of income. However, for it to be a success, you need to know how to acquire and nurture your subscribers.
This is where technology – particularly data analytics – can come in handy. Using such technology, you can track trends and automate tasks to help attract and retain subscribers. This post delves into a few examples…
Understand the demographic of your customers
When attracting new customers, it can be useful to know exactly what types of people are likely to subscribe to your business. Using data on your customers, you may be able to work out exactly who your key audience are. When getting people to sign up to your service, consider collecting data such as their address, gender and date of birth – this will give you an idea of the average location, gender and age of your customers. You can then create more focused marketing strategies for this demographic. For example, Facebook allows you to target certain locations, genders and age ranges.
There are many other types of data you may be able to collect during the sign-up process such as asking where customers discovered your business (to give you an idea of the most effective marketing strategies). Alternatively, if customers subscribed through your site, you may be able to track their journey using website analytics to see which website they arrived from or even which search terms they entered to arrive at your website.
Use website pop-ups strategically
Website pop-ups telling people to subscribe are a common way to convert subscribers. But you need to consider when to trigger them. Activating a pop-up as soon as people land on your website could result in few new subscribers. Instead, it’s often better to let visitors look around your website so that they get the information they need and activate pop-ups only after they’ve spent a certain amount of time on your website or clicked on a certain number of pages.
Some website tracking tools allow you to trace the digital journey of visitors so that you can get a better idea as to when to trigger pop-ups. Are visitors more inclined to subscribe after visiting a certain page? This could be a good place to activate a pop-up. A/B testing could be another way to test the effectiveness of pop-ups – this involves trialling two different pop-up strategies simultaneously and comparing results to see which works best.
Determine when customers are likely to unsubscribe
Not all your customers will stay subscribed forever. You could find that many eventually unsubscribe. It’s worth tracking data on this to work out exactly when customers are most likely to unsubscribe. For example, you could find that many customers unsubscribe after 6 months or unsubscribe in January. Using this data, you can then come up with strategies to help combat this.
For example, you could send out gifts or discounts to your subscribers in January or after 6 months. Alternatively, you could advertise customer referral scenes, competitions to upcoming products/changes to encourage customers to stay.
Reward long-standing customers
Your most loyal customers need to be rewarded to keep them loyal. Offering discounted rates to customers who have been subscribed for several years could be one way of doing this. Alternatively, there may be unique gifts or services you can offer. Using data on your subscribers you can track these long-standing customers.
Loyal customers can also be turned into advocates for your business. They can often provide the most glowing reviews of your business, therefore consider sending emails to these subscribers asking them to kindly leave an online review. Customer referral schemes may also be most effective when targeted at these subscribers.
Automate payment reminders
Using data on customer payments, it’s possible to set up automated payment reminders. This could include email reminders a couple days before a payment is due. Such reminders can reduce late payments by giving customers time to prepare their finances. Such reminders are particularly worth sending to customers who pay annual or quarterly instalments.
You can also automatically track when customers fail to pay you and send out automated late payment reminder emails. This is easier and more professional than manually chasing up late paying customers.
Track and react quickly to chargebacks
Customers that pay by credit card can request a chargeback on transactions. When this happens, their money is returned and you are charged a fee. Subscription-based businesses are more at risk of chargebacks than many other companies. It is important that you take action to prevent chargebacks – especially fraudulent chargebacks in which customers make false claims such as subscription boxes not arriving or software not working.
There is software you can use that alerts you of chargebacks and allows you to quickly dispute these chargebacks. Reacting fast is often key to a successful dispute.
Outsource support managing subscriptions
The internet can be a great tool for connecting you with companies to outsource. This includes services that could be beneficial to your subscription business such as accounting, marketing or subscription box fulfilment.
The companies can provide you with progress data so that you can still oversee these areas of your business without having to handle them yourself. Just be wary of the fact that you have to pay extra for every service you outsource.
Conclusion
Tech plays an essential part in managing a subscription business. Using demographic-targeted marketing and strategically-placed pop-ups, you can attract more customers. Through carefully-timed rewards and incentive schemes, you can then maintain these customers. Meanwhile, further tech can help you to keep subscribers paying on time and reduce chargebacks.
Subscription management software may be able to provide you with many of the above features such as sending automated payment reminders and tracking each customer that unsubscribes. In other cases, you may have to explore other tools such as website analytics tools or chargeback management software. Take your time to explore different software options so that you choose the best-suited one for your business.