So here’s my favorite retention tactic of all time, as executed by Aweber (but which every subscription site should be using if they can).When a subscriber’s credit card is due to expire in 30 days or less, Aweber creates an on-site reminder that asks subscribers to update their credit card number. This is great because people are already on the site — there’s no need to click links or log on or call anyone.Click to enlarge the screenshot below of Aweber’s on-site reminder.
As many psychologists and user experience designers will tell you (not to mention efficiency expert and author of Getting Things Done David Allen), cuing for desired behavior in the right context is the key to achieving any desired outcome. On-site reminders are much more effective than email notifications (although Aweber sends and email in addition to their on-site notification).However, when I spoke to Aweber, they told me that the coding was done in-house and relatively complex (albeit it only required 10 lines of code).For that reason, and others, the best method is still to use Account Updater and similar services, which getting around asking the subscriber to take any action whatsoever. But, as we’ve written about before, Account Updater is not available through every payment processing platform, nor for every merchant. On-site reminders are definitely the next best thing.
