As the curator of the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), I’m constantly keeping an eye out for bite-size information that will help you develop and scale better subscription products. Here’s my “Five on Friday” compilation for January 1st, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.
1. Make Native Ads Accessible in Front of the Paywall
Mequoda offers solid tips on maximizing the value of your advertising offers. One good tip: place your sponsor’s native ad in front of your paywall, so that non-subscribers can see and interact with it. Advertising can also be promoted on social media, newsletters or email, further increasing the value to your sponsor. If you display an ad only as a special advertising page in your online magazine or journal, visibility is limited only to your subscribers.
2. Hubspot Proactively Cancelling Opt-Ins a 2016 Trend?
When are “a lot” of opt-in marketing subscribers too many? Hubspot takes on this question in an article I would recommend reading in its entirety as it’s full of specifics as to how they went about reducing their (marketing) newsletter subscribers by nearly 50%. This clear-eyed decision, in my opinion, is a precursor of things to come as companies proactively reduce wasted communications both in terms of volume and reach. I’ll be watching this trend closely in 2016.
3. Managing Uncertainty Requires You to be Fast, Focused and Ready
A good Harvard Business Review article recently laid out some responses to uncertainty that are pertinent to subscription businesses. In short, they include:
- Learn faster than your opponent. In other words – iterate thoughtfully; make sure everyone understands what went right, what went wrong, and figure out why.
- Focus guidance on bigger issues. In other words – leave decision-making in the hands of those with the most knowledge once they are aligned with and able to execute on the general strategic direction of the business. Customer service is a great place to begin.
- Be ready to exploit surprise gains. In other words – be ready to take advantage of a good review or unexpected endorsement.
“. . .the aspiration in uncertainty is not to reduce the chances of failure, but to minimize its costs, and the odds that the same failure recurs.”
Jonathan Berman, Harvard Business Review
4. Marketers Continue to Miss at Understanding Customers
According to Direct Marketing News, we are still in the dark about our customers in spite of the ever-increasing need to speak to them as individuals. Their research shows that, although almost 90% of marketers agree that personalizing the customer experience is critical to success, nearly 80% of customers surveyed stated that the average brand doesn’t understand them as an individual.
5. Biggest Bandwidth Hogs Include Video Subscription Services
It’s probably no surprise that Netflix and YouTube are responsible for an enormous amount of the internet traffic in North America, but how much overall may indeed raise your eyebrows.
In fact, according to this article and graphic from Business Insider, 70% of all bandwidth during peak hours was taken up by video. Does that mean a lot of people are watching cat videos when they should be working?
Happy New Year, everyone! And remember to send me your subscription-business resolutions for next week’s “Five on Friday!”
Diane
Diane Pierson has deep experience in product management and marketing, having delivered results to companies including Dun & Bradstreet, LexisNexis, American Lawyer Media and Copyright Clearance Center. She has built products & services that have delivered over $100 million in revenue and knows what works, and what doesn’t, when executing product plans and strategies. She is also a contributor to Subscription Insider. (Read Diane’s full Bio)
