This week Super Tuesday, tornadoes and the coronavirus dominated headlines, all of which impacted subscriptions in some way, whether through news coverage or an impact on news advertising. In Five on Friday, we share The New York Times’ belief that panic and uncertainty about the coronavirus will impact its digital ad sales. We’ve also got features on Walmart’s bid to compete with Amazon Prime with its own delivery service, Rent the Runway’s new “2 Swap” subscription tier, customer retention strategies to try now, and top subscription jobs.

Walmart to Take on Amazon Prime with a Broad-Based, Paid Membership Program 

Walmart is working on a broad-based, paid membership program that could rival the Amazon Prime, the king of all membership programs, reports The Washington Post. Walmart currently has a grocery-delivery subscription service, Delivery Unlimited. After a 15-day free trial, subscribers pay $12.95 a month, or $98 a year, members get free unlimited grocery delivery service. The program launched last fall, starting in Houston, Miami, Salt Lake City and Tampa, and has since expanded to another 200 metro areas.

This new membership program – Walmart Plus – will be an additional offering, but it is not clear how this program will be different. Walmart is still working on the details, and while not sharing its plans, Walmart has confirmed that it is working on such a program, says Recode. The new membership program could launch as early as next month. Various media outlets have speculated what Walmart Plus might be. Recode suggests it could be discounted prescription drugs, a Scan & Go service or a rebrand of the existing program. We’ll keep you posted as Walmart reveals details about the new program. 

5 Customer Retention Strategies You Should Try Now 

Whether your subscription company offers streaming video, food delivery or subscription boxes, keeping a loyal customer is like gold. In fact, Hubspot estimates that keeping a customer costs anywhere between five and 25 times less than it does to attract a new one! Just having one or two retention strategies is not enough though. You really need a robust retention program that is tested and adapted as needed. Here are a few ideas from Sophia Bernazzani for Hubspot that you might try as part of your company’s program.

1. Onboarding:  One key to customer retention is making sure you onboard your new customers appropriately. Make sure they understand your product or service and how to use it or access it. Bernazzani recommends that onboard isn’t just a plug-and-play program, but one that is personalized to address specific customer needs.
2. Communication:  Regular communication is critical to keeping your customers happy. Have a communications plan in place that stays in touch with your customers to remind them about features of your product or service, explain new features or benefits, share promotional opportunities or upsell and cross-sell other products, services or subscription tiers.
3. Newsletter: An email newsletter is an affordable, effective way to share information with your customers and to stay in touch with them. Savor Beauty does a great job of this with their Savor Life Planner customers. Each week, founder Angela Jia Kim sends an email to explain different ways she or her staff have found to use the planner to remind them of beauty routines, self-care time, goal setting time, reflection, etc. This email serves as a reminder to customers (like me) how to effectively use the planner. Of course, they mention beauty products and the planners have beauty-reminder stickers in the back, but it is a soft sell – a subtle reminder that they offer other products.
4. Subscriber Feedback:  Design a system to get feedback from customers and for sharing that feedback with others in the organization and on your team. Find out what they like, what they don’t, what you could do differently and celebrate your successes. However you choose to use the feedback, do so consistently to maximize its value.
5. Loyalty Programs:  These are a great way to reward customers for doing something they want to do anyway. Panera offered us a great example this week with their new MyPanera+ unlimited coffee subscription. This is an extension of their loyalty rewards program. It may attract new subscribers, sure, but the real goal is to keep regular customers coming back and to make it harder for them to leave.

Read more on these strategies as well as examples of successful retention programs in Bernazzani’s original article “15 Examples of Customer Retention Strategies That Work” on Hubspot’s customer service blog.

Rent the Runways Adds “2 Swap,” a Third Subscription Tier 

What’s better than a subscription service that lets you rent clothing for special occasions? A clothing rental subscription service with three tiers that let’s you choose the plan that works best for you. Glossy reports that Rent The Runway is adding a third tier to its subscription program. The new tier is “2 Swaps” that lets subscribers rent four items at a time, choosing from more than 15,000 styles from over 650 designers. For $99 a month for the first month, subscribers receive monthly shipments valued up to $5,000!

This new tier joins the Unlimited Swap tier which is typically $159 a month, but is $80 off during a 60-day trial period. Subscribers to this tier also get access to four items at a time, choosing from more than 15,000 styles from over 650 designers, but their monthly shipments can be valued at more than $10,000. Need a designer gown for a black-tie event? Rent the Runway has you covered – literally!

Rent the Runway also has a “1 Swap” plan. For $69 a month for the first month, get access to four items at a time, choosing from more than 10,000 styles from over 400 designers. Their monthly shipments can be valued at up to $1,400.

Rent the Runway says they get over 75% of their revenue from their subscriptions. Their remaining revenue is from one-off rentals and the sale of clothing items, reports Glossy. Adding a third tier is a good compromise between the Unlimited a “1 Swap” plan in terms of price and value. It could very well boost Rent the Runway’s bottom line which could make up for some serious distribution issues they experienced last fall. We hope this means good things for the popular clothing rental service, and that they are prepared to meet higher demand.

The New York Times Co. Discloses Possible Impact of Coronavirus on Ad Sales to SEC 

The New York Times Company believes that the coronavirus will have a negative economic impact on advertising, according to a March 2, 2020 disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission. In that Form 8-K filing, president and CEO Mark Thompson of the company made the following statement, which he planned to later give at a Morgan Stanley technology and media conference.

“Like many companies, in recent weeks we have begun to see some economic impact from the coronavirus. Unlike many news publishers, our business is heavily skewed towards subscriptions rather than advertising. We’ve seen no adverse impact on subscription growth, or on the expected rise in subscription revenue, which remains strong and consistent with the guidance we gave in our most recent earnings call,” Thompson said.

“However, we are seeing a slowdown in international and domestic advertising bookings, which we associate with uncertainty and anxiety about the virus. We therefore now expect total advertising revenues to decline in the mid-teens in the current quarter, with digital advertising revenues expected to decline 10%. We remain broadly in line with all the other guidance numbers we gave in the call in early February,” he added.

The New York Times Company provided the following guidance for the first quarter of 2020:

• Total subscription revenues in Q1 are anticipated to increase in the mid-single digits. Digital-only subscription revenue is expected to increase in the high-teens.
• Total advertising revenues in the first quarter are expected to drop approximately 10%. Digital ad revenue is expected to decrease in the mid-single digits.
• Other revenues in Q1 are anticipated to grow about 15%.
• Operating costs and adjusted operating costs are likely to increase between 5% and 7%.

LinkedIn: Top Subscription Jobs

Subscription Operations Group Director
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Citrix

In the role of Subscription Operations Group Director, you will be responsible for building and unifying our sales and business operations, into a global operating unit, designed for optimizing on time renewal rates, customer retention and maximizing ARR, as we continue to accelerate our shift to Cloud. This position is designed to centralize and standardize our current GEO operating constructs and GTM methodologies, for both Perpetual Renewals as well as Cloud Subscriptions, into a single global structure designed for scale. You will work closely with the wider Business Intelligence teams to create one single source of truth and global governance for this part of the Citrix business. Read more.

Senior Product Manager – Subscription Boxes
Amazon
Seattle, WA

We are looking for an experienced and motivated Product Manager to own demand generation focusing on building the features to drive program awareness and product discovery. You will work directly with internal stakeholders (business owners, engineers, marketers, operations, and more) to build experiences that will help scale our already rapidly growing business more quickly. Subscription Boxes are an exciting new space at Amazon with the ability to disrupt product discovery and curation while creating long-term recurring revenue and new and different brand building capabilities for our selling partners. You will be responsible for building features foundational to our business and working across Amazon with teams to integrate into some of the most critical features to Amazon as a whole. Read more.

Subscription Manager
HarperCollins Publishers
New York, NY

HarperCollins Children’s Books is seeking a creative, organized, and dynamic Marketing Manager (Subscription) to oversee the strategy and day-to-day marketing needs for HarperCollins Children’s I Can Read! subscription box and developing subscription box programs. Duties include directing content creative, social media marketing strategy, and ongoing digital and advertising campaigns to promote the program. This will include creative copywriting, advertising and social media strategy development, and routing and organizing all materials for approvals. This role will report to Senior Director, Marketing for HarperCollins Children’s. We are looking for an incredibly detail-oriented, creative, proactive, and strategic professional who is a self-starter with a background in subscription box service marketing who can multi-task, set priorities, and manage a multitude of complex projects with several internal and outside parties on tight timelines. Read more.

Head, Social and Influencer Marketing, YouTube Subscription
YouTube
San Bruno, CA

As the Global Head of YouTube Subscription Social and Influencer Marketing, your main focus will be driving the social strategy for our subscription business. You’ll work hand in hand with the YouTube Premium Team and Music/Artist teams. You will develop and own the strategy for how YouTube talks about music across social media and partners with influencers to ultimately build awareness for YouTube Music and drive downloads, trials, subscriptions, use, and advocacy. You’ll be responsible for establishing YouTube Music as an authoritative voice in the global music conversation and the go-to source for new music discovery. Read more.

Product Analyst – Movie Subscription Service
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
Austin, TX

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is looking for a Product Analyst to help us expand our monthly movie subscription service, Alamo Season Pass. Our Season Pass subscribers love the program and use it to see way more movies. As we expand the program, we need help understanding how we can make it even better. In this role, you’ll provide the product manager and marketing team with insights pulled from data about our subscriber and guest behavior. You’ll help us understand who is subscribing, who isn’t subscribing, who is sticking with the program, who is leaving, who is using it the most, and who is using it the least, and most of all you’ll help us understand why. Read more.