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 May 27th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.  

1. Branding: Beyond the Customer Experience 

HBR.org offered some fresh ideas to consider as you think about brand development.  No time to read the entire article? Here’s a summary:

The article asserts that branding has evolved from objects (logos) to ideas (taglines and mission statements) to experiences (what we deliver to a customer) to relationships. How is this relationship branding different?

Where an “experience” is one-directional (the company provides the experience to the customer), “relationship” branding brings true give-and-take to the mix by creating a community among the buyers and makers of a product.  They cite Uber, Virgin Atlantic and Airbnb as examples of such community creation.

My take? While not all businesses lend themselves to relationship branding, the subscription industry is a natural fit. How can you extend your brand from a good customer experience to a true relationship?

Change the way you think of your roles. Instead of gaming website/player, think party host/guest or even the equal relationship of co-creators. Instead of information services provider/user, think investigator/client or teacher/student.  Use this change in perspective to develop two-way communications, products, and experiences.

2. “Lead Ads” Among the Newest Options on Facebook

A recent Kissmetrics blog lays out some of the best ways to market on Facebook, including the recently-launched Lead Ads. This campaign type allows you to collect lead data without a landing page, directly through a form, without the user leaving Facebook.

Some early advertisers found Lead Ads to result in a 4x reduction to their CPL (according to Facebook).

Example Lead Ads experience on mobile

3. It Wasn’t Until I Read this Article that I Realized . . .

Worth a quick scan is this post by Mequoda on the art of the marketing story, the classic example of which is quoted below:

While nearly a century old, using this tactic to build email and other marketing headlines continues to result in higher customer engagement than many other methods. 

4. Gamification Not Significantly Influencing Buyer Behavior

The results of a recent survey conducted by Research Now and reported by eMarketer do not spell out good news for gamification as a marketing strategy.  Even the market most targeted by such tactics, 18-to 30-year-olds, doesn’t seem swayed. Only 21% of them said they are more likely to buy products from a company awarding badges and performing other types of gamification marketing.

5. Influencer Marketing: How Do Smaller Subscriptions Compete?

While there are few surprises in this AMA post, it does provide some hard numbers to reinforce the benefits of influencer marketing.  Moreover, it emphasizes that you don’t have to engage LeBron James to endorse your product.  In fact, less-famous individuals might even be better.

Either way, marketing-via-influencer is on the rise, and subscription businesses should be taking advantage of it.  

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Diane