As a publisher with a subscription model, delivering consistent value to your customers is mission-critical if you want to retain their business and maintain a healthy level of recurring revenue.
Acquiring new subscribers carries a greater cost than retaining your existing subscriber base, and although you should focus on both of these strategies, the former is especially important. Missteps can impact even heavy hitters like Netflix, which saw a decline in U.S. subscribers for the first time in spring 2019.
Media organizations’ challenges don’t end with simply holding onto their subscribers. Recording the recurring revenue you generate can also cause headaches. In this article, we’ll unpack how to ensure the process goes smoothly.
Avoiding cumbersome legacy technology
In today’s rapidly changing media landscape, publishers with legacy systems are placed at a disadvantage because they don’t have a clear picture of their revenue for the day, week, month, or year. Problems arise when an outdated solution can’t take a snapshot of daily revenue or make future predictions. This forces publishers to build or buy additional software outside of their subscription systems, then try to piece these calculations together.
For example, your subscribers likely start contracts at different times, and you may be trying to forecast assuming these subscribers will remain customers for a certain number of months, but you need to consider your churn rate. Without a system that offers robust forecasting and reporting capabilities, this level of detail is difficult to achieve.
The media industry’s focus has begun to shift from advertising revenue alone to the revenue generated by audience teams. Many established media companies have gotten better at understanding subscription revenue and how important it is to their bottom lines.
3 ways to streamline the process of recording recurring revenue
Modern technology
You must mine your data regularly to understand how much revenue your organization will bring in. With a modern solution like Lineup’s Amplio subscription software, you can easily generate all of the necessary snapshots of your recurring revenue.
You’ll know exactly where you stand each day, and how much your company is making per subscriber and per product. You’ll also have the ability to view reports on all of your packages to identify which ones are performing well and which may need adjustments.
Internal collaboration
Even the most cutting-edge tech won’t solve all of your recurring revenue woes. Your finance department must play a key role inside of a system like Amplio, whether that involves approving the packages that are being built, or other tasks related to discounting and general ledger reporting.
It’s crucial to have checks and balances in place for other system users like your audience team and ensure your finance team understands how recognition is occurring on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Driving predictable revenue
Helping to generate stable revenue over long time periods is also key to alleviating the headache of recording recurring revenue. Producing quality content is the cornerstone of this strategy, and will give you your best shot at keeping your subscribers hooked.
It’s also worth your while to develop highly customized user journey maps, which you can then use to create experiences that will turn first-time readers into loyal subscribers. Companies that invest in user journey mapping can reduce their service costs by as much as 20%, according to Appcues.
With Amplio, you can build nurture journeys to help prevent subscriber churn. The solution offers churn rate analysis functionality, which enables you to flag packages with a high churn rate and create reporting dashboards your team can use to optimize those packages.
Future proof your media organization
Subscriptions have taken multiple industries by storm, and for good reason. In the software-as-a-service industry, which is known for its subscription business model, subscription revenue increased 12% even during the Covid-19 pandemic. By developing subscription offerings for your media company and implementing a recurring revenue model, you can improve your ability to weather challenging economic times.
The benefits of subscription models don’t end with generating predictable revenue. Subscription offerings also enable publishers to collect a higher volume of audience data over a longer period of time to better understand subscribers and their preferences, fine-tuning their content and packages as a result.
Increase your subscription revenue
Amplio helps publishers identify new ways to grow their subscription revenue by enabling them to quickly and easily create high-quality products and offers backed by rich data insights. The solution also provides detailed revenue forecasts so you’ll always know exactly where you stand, so you can say goodbye to the guessing game.
