It is another beautiful day in New York City and conference participants and sponsors are enjoying the program at the beautiful Convene conference center at 225 Liberty Street. Day 1 concluded with a cocktail reception in the exhibit hall, hosted by BillingPlatform, where participants and sponsors met and mingled with old friends and made new connections.
Day 2 welcome from Kathy Greenler Sexton
Subscription Insider CEO Kathy Greenler Sexton welcomed everyone to Day 2 of Subscription Show 2021 which featured a wide range of sessions, including keynotes, fireside chats, briefings, best practice discussions, 1:1s and networking. In today’s introduction, in addition to naming sponsors, Kathy gave descriptions of what each of the sponsors do.
Subscription Show keynotes, sessions and briefings
Keynote: Isaac Sacolick, President, CIO and Author, StarCIO: “Accelerating Transformation: Driving the Next Wave of Customer Experiences with Differentiating Tech and Analytics”
Session: Darryl Hicks, Founder and CEO of Flexpay, and Kirk Drake, CEO of Ongoing Operations LLC: “Recurring Payments Ecosystem: Solving the Hidden Cause of Customer Churn”
Session: Brian Dingman, BillingPlatform: “Subscription Model Innovation: 8 Ways to Monetize Your Products at Scale (That You May Not Have Thought Possible):”
Session: Erich Franken, Vice President, VISA; Paul Larsen, Managing Partner, Paul Larsen Consulting LLC; Violet Jin, Senior Director, Global Seller Solutions, VISA; Collette Bednarczyk, Senior Director, North America Merchant, VISA; Mark Woelfe, Senior Director, Dispute Processing Products, VISA; Laura Gilstrap, Senior Solutions Manager, VISA; and Natalie England, Visa Direct Global Risk Lead, VISA: “VISA Fireside Chat”
Session: Baldo Besich, Director, Small Merchant Acquisition, American Express; Kerri Ryan, Director, Small Business Services, American Express; and Sharon Gross, Director of Client Success, Paul Larsen Consulting LLC: “American Express Briefing: Subscription & Recurring Billing”
Session: Patrik Bruce, Lead Product Manager, DigitalRoute: “Enabling the Usage Economy: Finding Revenue in Data”
Session: Amy Wilkins, Chief Revenue Officer, Smithsonian and Rob Ristagno, CEO, Sterling Woods Group: “How Smithsonian Uses Data-Driven Segmentation to Expand Membership”
Session: Alex Reynolds, Attorney, Privacy Compliance, Information Security and Data, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP: “Data, Privacy and Your Subscription Business”
Session: Jordan Salvit, CEO & Co-Founder, KitNipBox and John Sullivan, Partner, Paul Larsen Consulting: “Payment Optimization: How We Extend the Lifetime Value of Our Members”
Session: Edgar Chen, Senior Customer Success Manager, Recurly: “Subscription Marketing: 7 Best Practices for Managing Lapsed Subscribers”
Session: Emma Nicoletti, Vice President of Predictive Client Solutions | Data Science, Wiland; Kyle Fohlin, Vice President New Business Development, Wiland; and Stephanie Taylor, SVP of Acquisition Services, Belardi Wong: “The Science Behind Achieving Rapid (and Profitable) Subscriber Acquisition”
Session: Mark Stiving, Ph.D., Chief Pricing Educator, Impact Pricing: “Win. Keep. Grow.: How to Price and Package to Accelerate Your Subscription Business”
Extended Session: Lisa DuBrow, Attorney, Lisa B. Dubrow, Esq. and Marc Roth, Attorney, Cobalt LLP: “The State of Subscription and Recurring-Revenue Regulation“
Session: Jesus Luzardo, Head of Growth, Vindicia: “Recurring Bundles (“Rundles”), the New Subscription Business Model”
Session: Angus Macaulay, Chief Operating Officer, STAT and Bruce Rhodes, Founder, Thought Leadership Ventures: “Subscription Growth and Innovation in a Highly Competitive Vertical with a Small, but Scrappy Staff”
Session: Chris Marchand, VP Business Development, Verifi and Sharon Gross, Director of Client Success, Paul Larsen Consulting LLC: “The Changing Landscape of Subscriber Disputes and Chargebacks”
Session: Robert Skrob, President, Membership Services, Inc.: “Customer Onboarding Tear Downs”
Session: Brian Fisher, Senior Business Development Manager, Worldpay: “Payment Data: Your Strategic Lever to Better Acquisition and Retention”
Session: John Cozad, SVP of Operations, Gravy and Ben Madden: “Subscriber Retention: 4 Actionable Steps to Explode Recurring Revenue”
Keynote: Michael Joseloff, CMO, Fortune: “Digital Transformation: Fortune’s Digital Subscription Story”
Subscription Show extras
- Mobile App
- Meeting Concierge
- Exhibit Hall
- Roundtable Discussions
- Networking Opportunities
- Ability to watch replays and on-demand for any sessions you missed
For more highlights, follow us on Twitter. We’ll be tweeting throughout the conference. If you’re posting too, please tag us @SubInsider and use our Subscription Show hashtags: #SubscriptionShow2021 #SubShow21 #SubShowNYC
Key takeaways
- Successful transformation is driven by a single, highly strategic, business priority. Too many priorities make it hard for teams to know where to direct their energy.
- By 2025, over one-fifth of organizations will have part of their business conducted via subscriptions and recurring revenue rather than one-time sales.
- If you have assumptions about your customers and what they want, question those assumptions to see if what you believe is actually true.
- The top three reasons for renewal credit card declines: general decline, insufficient funds and temporary holds. These represent 72% of all renewal credit card declines.
- Optimize dunning processes by using alternative email messages, changing the tone and message in each one. Include a clear call to action and remind subscribers of the value your company provides.
- Treat customers like human beings. You never know when they may come back or whom they might talk to about their experience.
- Give consumers an easy way to cancel their auto-renewable subscriptions, and disclose when the subscriber has to cancel to avoid a charge.
- Avoid lengthy and confusing cancellation paths. You can still attempt to save the business but do so in a consumer-friendly way.
- Understand personas of free readers and paying subscribers, specifically who they are, what their challenges or needs are, and how you can be that solution. Build a product that puts the subscriber first.
- A positive onboarding experience in the first 30 days is a great opportunity to continue to resell your customers on the value your subscription company provides. It also helps them share your story with other people (e.g., email campaign, sales video).
- Bonus takeaways from Fortune CMO Michael Joseloff, the closing Day 2 keynote speaker: a) use legacy to your advantage; b) don’t be constrained by past practices; c) test, optimize, repeat; d) lead with the customer; and e) manage expectations.
For tomorrow’s agenda, visit SubscriptionShow.com/Agenda. Highlights include roundtable discussion groups and sessions about subscriber data, revenue infrastructure, recurring payment processing, a Mastercard fireside chat, subscription marketing, KPIs, relationship building and more.
Tickets are still available – UPDATE
Tickets and day passes for this year’s Subscription Show are still available. Visit our Tickets page at SubscriptionShow.com to get your tickets now!
