Invoiced Subscription

Five on Friday this week explores growing digital subscriptions, a new take on fantasy sports leagues, new product development, effective survey construction and customer service trends.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) and digital learning platform BenchPrep are partnering to add new personalized digital learning solutions to CliffsNotes study guides. Beginning with SAT® test preparation, the newest CliffsNotes guides will be subscription-based and available on desktop and mobile devices using the BenchPrep platform. Days before the announcement, HMH reported a $28 million loss for the third quarter of the year.

When determining marketing attribution, subscription marketers face a unique challenge in calculating attribution and value because the initial transaction is only a fraction of a subscribers lifetime value. Subscription Insider Guide to Customer Acquisition, Peter Figueredo, walks through the basics of marketing attribution and how to apply that to a subscription-based model.

Five-on-Friday this week explores the best app builders for subscription businesses, how to innovate inside large corporations, product innovation misconceptions, use of Snapchat Discover, and the continued rise of native advertising.

Time Inc. reports growing pains with its second quarter financials for the year. Total revenue only dropped $4 million, while digital advertising revenue soared and print advertising, subscription and newsstand revenues dropped. The Q2 financials come just weeks after Time Inc. announced a major realignment within the company which will include the loss of more than 100 jobs. Are these changes too little too late, or can Time Inc. still turn the ship around?

Its time to hire your SaaS or subscription-based companys first CFO. Your organization is in a position to warrant a professional executive in this role, and you generally know what youre looking for in a CFO. But, how can you be sure that the CFO youre hiring truly meets your needs? Subscription-based businesses require certain capabilities and expertise around process and structure to function properly. Denice Sakakeeny, our Subscription Insider guide to SaaS finance and operations outline the four key do's and don't of hiring your first CFO.

Involuntary churn for subscription- and membership-based companies are rising. Its not just due to EMV (chip cards) either. Now that its been a month since the Costco-American Express divorce, we are seeing an 18% increase in decline rates and expect declines to continue to rise in July and August.

Five-on-Friday this week explores reducing subscriber churn, how second screen behavior differs by geographic region, chat-bots and your subscription business, the subscription model and marketing agencies, and finally, the golden rule of content marketing.

Netflix and Comcast are the latest contestants on "Let's Make a Deal," signing an agreement that would put Netflix's streaming video subscription service on Comcast's X1 set-top boxes later this year. The deal is ironic, because the two companies have been at odds for years, with Netflix accusing Comcast of not adhering to net neutrality guidelines.

In a surprising move, Tribune Publishing has rebranded itself as tronc, Inc., launching a redesigned website and jumping ship from the New York Stock Exchange to NASDAQ. The changes are part of a larger company reorganization and restructuring which has media experts scratching their heads. In response, tronc offers a lot of buzzwords, but little concrete information for the rebranding.