Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn by Anne Janzer, Summary

Introduction: Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn by Anne Janzer

Subscription services have been around for centuries. And now it’s more mainstream. Personalization is driving the adoption of subscription businesses. The subscription shift is both personal and organizational, so it’s likely to impact many industries and niches. People are looking for instant access to services. How many services do you subscribe to? I’ll bet if you reflect on that for a minute, you’ll discover that it’s many. The subscription economy uses transactional business models.

“Subscription businesses shift their focus from the point of sale to the long-term, ongoing customer relationship. The subscriber remains a prospect, deserving ongoing engagement and nurturing.”

It’s good to take care of the customer. Subscription Marketing by Anne Janzer is one of many books on the topic I plan to read. I’m building out the content for my membership site, the Art or Learning. But I also want to learn how to increase the number of subscribers. At this point, I don’t have many subscribers, so it’s important to learn about things like reducing the churn rate and increasing the lifetime value of a customer.

To do these things, it’s important to take care of the customer, let them feel like they’re part of something bigger. How do I do that? The answers are embedded in the pages of Anne Janzer’s book and other similar books. I’m reading many books on the topic because I want to create strategies and tactics based on what I discover.

Summary of Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn by Anne Janzer

When you look around you, there are many examples of subscription models. And if you want to incorporate the model into what you’re doing, it’s unnecessary to follow what your competitors are doing. Because you have so many other types of businesses to choose from. For instance, newspapers and magazines have always used the subscription model. Do you subscribe to Microsoft Office 365, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Shopify, or Netflix? These are modern-day subscription businesses.

1. How do they succeed in the industry they operate in?
2. What can you learn from them?
3. How do they market their services?
4. What makes the leaders in various industries stay on top?

These are excellent questions. And I hope to find answers in Subscription Marketing by Anne Janzer, and the other books that I’m reading on the topic. I found the following priceless for subscription marketers, and it’s telling about what to do and not do.

• Leads are fine. Relationships are better.
• Large marketing budgets are helpful. Creativity is priceless.
• Interrupt-driven tactics, like advertising, deliver inconsistent results. Adding value always works.
• Chasing sales is exhausting. Creating value is energizing.

I find the old ways of doing things very exhausting. And I think Janzer is on to something with the above points.

Definition of Subscription Marketing

“Subscription Marketing is two-way communication between your company and customers in a subscription relationship, with the purpose of sustaining the value of that relationship for both parties.”

What Kind of Businesses are Subscription Services for?

Many business owners think that the subscription model won’t work for their businesses. However, based on what I’m learning, you can expand your business model by adding online subscriptions. You can build recurring revenue streams for your business. Think about your business. Is there a service you can offer that will bring in recurring revenue?

Why would a customer subscribe? What additional value are you providing? And what’s compelling about your offer? Although I have a membership site already, these questions are still important for me to consider.

The Customer Journey

Existing customers are critical to subscription revenue and business growth. The initial sale is just the start of the customer's journey. Who you attract as subscribers to your business matters. You want to attract people who will remain loyal customers. You should also examine your most successful customers, and then change your marketing methods to attract more of them.

Trust and Value

Focus on how you can build and sustain trust and value in your subscription relationships. Create great content and tell engaging stories about why your business is unique. You can use these skills to get the right subscribers to sign up for your service. This makes a lot of sense, but what happens when there are zero customers? You find customers through thought leadership and lead generation.

Subscribers trust that you’ll do what you promise to do, keep their billing information safe, and don’t misuse their personal data. You expect the subscriber to act in good faith, sticking around long enough for you to recoup acquisition costs. Storytelling, brand perception, and authentic values help you earn initial trust. As far as value is concerned, your product/service must be valuable to subscribers and subscribers must value your business. Customer value increases over time if the customer values the experience of being a customer.

After someone subscribes to your product/service, the following are very important.

1. Sustain the trust that the subscriber has granted you.
2. Nurture and support the customer’s perception of value, so they continue to renew, and perhaps increase their spending with you.

Value nurturing turns customers into loyal or repeat customers, and successful customers into advocates. Marketing after a sale is just as important as marketing to get a sale. Value nurturing is customer success executed at scale. It takes place after lead generation, lead nurturing, and customer conversion. It is the next logical step in subscription marketing. This validates the customer’s belief that subscribing was a sound decision.

Help Customers Create Habits

One of The Art of Learning’s goals is for subscribers to develop the habit of consuming Bookish Notes every day to develop a body of knowledge that they can use to creatively solve problems as they arise. Rohit Bhargava calls this consuming “brainful” content. According to B.J. Fogg, a behavior is the product of three factors:

1. Motivation: Does the person want to do the behavior?
2. Ability: The easier the behavior, the greater the chance of it becoming a habit.
3. Prompt: Something must trigger the action.

You have to figure out the motivation, ability, and prompt. Getting subscribers to change a habit is not easy to do. Create incentives for new behaviors and remove barriers. If you have the ability, add gamification to encourage adoption and loyalty.

Incorporate great training to improve the economic value to customers (EVC). EVC is the sum of the tangible and intangible values perceived by the customer. Training helps your subscribers to effectively use your product and service, which will help them to get better results. This enables them to see the value of your solution. The training should match the customer’s needs.

Four Fundamental Rules

1. Value starts with the customer: Your business must meet the customer’s needs for long-term success. The customer is at the center of the story.
2. Be human, but consistent: People want to interact with people. Be consistent with your interactions.
3. Handle mistakes with grace: Accept responsibility and make it right when you make mistakes.
4. Don’t be creepy: Let customers know when they’re interacting with a real person or a bot. Be transparent with your customers. And before you do anything, remember it’s a privilege to serve your customers, so treat them with respect and care.

Things to Think About for Your Subscription Business

There are lessons here for start-ups pursuing rapid growth:

1. Growth isn’t always a good thing if you’re losing money with each customer and don’t have a solid strategy for turning that around.
2. It’s always easier to add value than to remove it.
3. Trust is the bedrock of relationships and long-term success for subscription businesses.
4. The price must sustain the business, offsetting the cost of customer acquisition and covering ongoing service delivery while leaving room for profit.

Conclusion: Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn by Anne Janzer

I found it worthwhile to read Subscription Marketing by Anne Janzer. And I look forward to incorporating the information with other books on the topic. Some of the things I’ve heard before, but there was a lot of good information. I looked at the questions I wanted this book to answer, and I realized that I got the answers I needed and much more. And I want my membership site, the Art of Learning, to be one of my main income streams, so that’s why I’m so serious about learning as much as possible about subscription marketing.

I have to continue adding value to readers with the content I create. And I have an onboarding video, but after reading this book, I realized that I needed to add more information to ensure the success of subscribers. I love the Manifesto, and I plan to use it to keep myself on the right track.

Next Steps

1. Buy and Read Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn by Anne Janzer
2. Join the Art of Learning Membership Site

If you want access to Bookish Note Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn by Anne Janzer, which has more information than the above summary, please consider joining my membership site, the Art of Learning.

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