Dhar Mann, CEO of LiveGlam, will be presenting at Subscription Show 2019 leading an informative session in our ‘Subscriber Acquisition’ track on ‘Referrals, Affiliates And Influencers: How We Grew From $600 To $20m In 3 Years’. Subscription Show 2019 is the conference to be at to stay on top of the latest trends impacting your recurring-revenue business and connect with the people and companies that can help both you and your business grow. Get the preview of Dhar's session here.

Like many legacy publishers, the 160-year-old McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), the owner of 31 media companies in 28 U.S. markets, is doing a major transformation, moving aggressively over the last several years to become a digital-first company. Instead of fighting a changing tide, McClatchy is making sweeping, long-term changes that are beneficial to the company but also to its readers.

In the summer of 2012, Liz Cadman knew she had a problem. She was addicted to subscription boxes, and she wanted more. She couldn't find the information she wanted online, however, to make smart buying decisions, so she started a blog to talk about subscription boxes. The blog grew into My Subscription Addiction, a full-fledged website dedicated to the discussion of subscription boxes. In four years, the site has exploded in popularity, and she has added additional features including swaps, a discussion forum and more. Learn how My Subscription Addiction started and grew into what it is today.

How can you combine a wholesale book business and a passion for children's literacy to get more books in the hands of kids? With the subscription box model. That's how founder Eric Shmuely made his dream become a reality -- by creating a subscription book service for children.

This week was nothing short of amazing, as we wrap up our very first Subscription Show. Thanks to our sponsors, keynotes, speakers, vendors and attendees for making this conference both useful and fun, chock full of great ideas and techniques to grow our subscription businesses. Here’s what else is happening in the subscription world: Amazon will earn close to $10B in net digital ad revenue this year, Dropbox is making its file transfer service available to all users, Netflix says it is compatible with certain Roku and Samsung devices, Apple plants seeds for subscription growth, and Hubspot shares social media marketing tips.

  CNN to Create Digital News Subscription Service

CNN is stepping into the subscription game by adding another app to their portfolio. The AT&T-backed company currently has CNNgo, which allows you to log in through your cable provider to access the 24-hour cable news network on the go. Their stories are also available on voice-controlled devices, Samsung and Apple devices. Their newest venture? Adding a subscription news platform to allow users access to CNN stories at their…

  Taking a break from the MLS conference semi-finals, the World Series or the kick-off of the NBA season? We’ve got some interesting subscription features for you. McClatchy lays off 30 employees as it continues its digital transformation, Meredith Corp sells the MONEY brand to Ad Practitioners LLC, and American Press Institute shares examples of how publishers have successfully retained subscribers through engagement. Also this week, Netflix is raising $2 billion in debt to pay for content, and the Financial Times adds consultancy to its list of services to help other publishers learn from their paywall success.    

Last week, in an email to staff, McClatchy president and CEO Craig Forman outlined big changes coming to the organization as it continues its digital transformation, reports Poynter. The changes include leadership shifts and changes to functional areas (News, Finance, Customer and Product, and Operations). They also include layoffs of about 30 employees, or 1% of staff. None of the layoffs will come from reporting positions. …

We are busy preparing for our big Subscription Show next month, but that didn’t stop us from preparing a feature-filled Five on Friday for you. This week, Delta Airlines gets into the subscription business, Scribe launches a subscription greeting card service with the help of artists, EU regulators have concerns about Apple Pay’s possible anticompetitive behavior, Hulu adds like and dislike buttons to personalize suggestions and, everyone’s favorite feature, LinkedIn shares top subscription jobs.

The new California privacy law (CCPA) will bring with it a need to get far more sophisticated about your data collection practices. The risk in ignoring this law is real.

There is a private right of action for any security breach, and consequently, it is time to address your company’s data security procedures. In addition, the CA Attorney General will have the right to take action for any violation of the statute. The law is effective on January 1, 2020, and although the AG has agreed not to enforce the law for six months, that will not stop class action attorneys from acting sooner if there is a security breach. In this privacy how-to, we cover: Does the statute applies to you?, CCPA is being amended, should you wait to comply?, and, Will you need to revise your online privacy policy to comply with CCPA?

Tina Adolfson, Data Innovation Lead at Survey.com, will be presenting at Subscription Show 2019 leading an interesting session in our ‘Subscription Product Strategy’ track on ‘How to Get Recurring Value Out of Your Data’. Subscription Show 2019 is the conference attend to stay on top of the latest trends impacting your recurring-revenue business and connect with the people and companies that can help both you and your business grow. Get the preview of Tina's session here.

How-to manage lapsed subscribers, how-to manage subscription customer service, how-to manage payments: these are just some of the how-to topics we covered in 2018. Here are the six most-read how-to articles from 2018.

Does your CFO always say no to your budget requests?  Learn what your CFO needs to hear so you can secure budget for your Subscriber Retention Initiatives.   In this on-demand seminar, get inside the mind of a CFO, understand how they prioritize expenditures and learn how to convince them to loosen the purse strings for your engagement and retention programs.

After much anticipation, Disney launched its own streaming service – Disney+ – on Tuesday, but the service was plagued with technical difficulties on its first day, reports Recode. Frustrated subscribers turned to social media (#DisneyPlusFail) to air their concerns with “unable to connect” messages, slower-than-anticipated speeds and other problems. Some subscribers were understanding, as big technology launches almost always have some bugs, while others felt like Disney should have anticipated the problem.

Dell (NYSE: DELL) hopes to make the lives of its business clients easier with the launch of Dell Technologies On Demand. This new set of offerings combines an end-to-end portfolio of consumption-based and as-a-service products that give business clients the flexibility and agility of the cloud, along with the control, performance and predictability of on-premises IT infrastructure. “The multi-cloud world is here and will only grow, which means customers need on-demand and consistent infrastructure that yield predictable outcomes across all of their clouds, data centers and edge locations..."

Meredith Corp (NYSE: MDP) reported decreases in revenue and earnings for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2020 for the period ended September 30, 2019. Total company revenues from continuing operations were $725 million, compared to $774 million for the same period last year. The prior year period, however, included $33 million in high-margin political advertising for the Local Media Group, which the company did not have this year. Earnings from continuing operations were $12 million, down from $16 million for the same period last year.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is getting into the fitness wearables business. The technology giant announced last week that it is buying Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) at $7.35 per share in an all-cash worth approximately $2.1 billion. The deal is expected to close next year, subject to regulatory approval, approval by Fitbit stockholders and standard closing conditions.

Learn subscription-specific payment trends that will eat into your profitability in 2019. The team at PLC, leading experts in "card-not-present recurring payments", will outline the key trends your business will need to stay on top of and the strategies you will need to implement in order to minimize their impact.

What you will learn:

Subscription payment trend data and impact on your profits from 2018. Understand how those trends translate moving forward in 2019. Tactics and best-practices subscription your business should employ to mitigate the negative impact on your profitability from these trends.

Marketing automation across many organizations is often filled with buzzwords, poor understanding of its full capabilities, and false expectations. As such, many subscription organizations are struggling with how to effectively choose, implement, and leverage the power of the marketing automation systems that they have invested in.

In this on-demand webinar, we discuss misconceptions, specific technology platforms, explode some truth bombs holding your company back, and provide you with a blueprint for choosing the correct marketing automation solution for your subscription company.

Does your CFO always say no to your budget requests?  Learn what your CFO needs to hear so you can secure budget for your Subscriber Retention Initiatives.   In this on-demand seminar, get inside the mind of a CFO, understand how they prioritize expenditures and learn how to convince them to loosen the purse strings for your engagement and retention programs.

How do you minimize the financial impact of subscriber complaints, refund requests, and chargebacks while keeping your subscribers happy? In this briefing, we will answer that question and also explore:

What is Friendly Fraud? How Do Chargebacks Impact Your Subscription Business? What Is Best Practice For Managing? What are the New Rules for Managing? With a recurring revenue business (especially with card-not-present transactions for monthly and annual subscriptions) getting complaints, refund requests, and chargeback is part of what you need to manage.

The banking industry is in the very early stages of exploring subscription offerings. However, there are both start-up firms and huge players making moves into this space. Odds are that the future successful offerings will cater to younger demographics, on fully mobile platforms, offering a wide range of substantial added value to make the subscription price compelling compared to current common free checking plans.

Interest in subscription boxes online is flattening, and the most recent data shows that traffic to subscription box sites is way down. There is still a lot of money in the industry, and a plateau is not a bubble, but a shakeout is coming. These three trends point to strategies that smart companies will use to survive.

Marketing a smaller business is unique. From budgets to what actually works and doesn’t work for acquiring subscriptions to your processes and tools for getting your marketing done. In this Subscription Insider STATPACK, we look at marketing trends specifically focused on small businesses.

More gamers are playing -- and paying -- for video games than ever. Gaming has even surpassed paid TV among millennials. In this golden age of gaming, the offerings are vast and many companies are trying out payment plans and options, especially subscription. The winning business model has yet to be determined.

Not all failed recurring payments can be “saved” with an Account Updater update. Failed payments can be for a variety of reasons from cancelled cards, cards opted-out of Account Updater services, or declined transactions due to credit limit issues. In this sample, we show three very different approaches to notifying subscribers about a declined payment and requesting updated payment information. (Plus, a bonus at the end, Subscription Insider’s own notice!) 

Are you receiving more alerts notifying you of expiring cards? We have and frankly, it’s no surprise with the increase in the volume of payment cards that been reissued. Without that updated payment information, subscribers and members will not get renewed successfully. In this sample, we show you real examples of payment card update notices from three separate companies, with three very different approaches to getting their subscribers to update their payment information. Plus, a bonus, Subscription Insider’s own notice!

ABC Mouse Early Learning Academy is an award-winning, subscription-based site/mobile app that uses email promotions to acquire subscribers. In this Sample, we walk through their promotional email campaign and offers. Are they sending too many promotions? Are they effective? You be the judge.

You may not be a sports fan, per se, but everyone plays games, whether it's chess, checkers or Thursday nights down at the local bridge club. We took a look at three sports-themed businesses offering subscriptions to see how well (or not) they are converting visitors into subscribers.

Understanding the difference between your most valuable customers and those that will not renew, is like separating out the wheat seeds from all the wheat chaff at harvest time. It will take the right tools and tactics to maximize renewal rates. Subscription Insider's Retention Workbook (Excel) will help you track the retention performance by key drivers in your business, turning your data into both a summary and a detailed retention report that you can use to manage your retention.

Does your subscription management or billing platform connect you to Account Updater — a service offered by Visa, MasterCard, Discover and more recently, American Express — that provides updated payment card information to help merchants manage involuntary churn issues? With this directory of 25 subscription management and billing platforms that support account updater services, you'll be able to create a short list of vendor contenders for your subscription business based on applicable industry experience, existing customers, payment gateways and processors supported, as well as pricing.

This extremely detailed subscription & membership financial model was developed as a tool for would-be subscription businesses who either are planning a new launch or an acquisition. It may also be useful for current publishers who are doing a minimum of marketing and who want to see how their cash flow might change if they ramp up marketing and/or ancillary product offers. Its purpose is educational and inspirational rather than strictly predictive . Everyone's business is slightly different, so it was impossible for us to create an easy-to-use model that would work with enormous accuracy for all. However, if you've not modelled this type of business extensively before, you'll learn a great deal from it!

Effective monitoring of subscriber retention is the result of understanding retention opportunities and trends, tracking attrition patterns, developing a tracking methodology, and applying those metrics in order to manage your retention business more effectively. Use this excel workbook to track and manage your subscribers and members.