There’s an unspoken agreement when a customer signs on to a subscription. The customer chooses to place their faith in your product for an indefinite amount of time rather than make a one-off purchase.

They’ve made this decision to subscribe because they believe that you are an ongoing solution, not a temporary one. It’s an agreement that states "If you keep providing value, I’ll keep paying you.". Companies are beginning to realise that focussing their efforts on not just upholding this agreement, but going beyond being a solution, benefits both parties tremendously.

Pause, touch, hold, Engage

Creating value on a constant basis can be summarised by one term, engagement. 

Devoting yourself to adding value to your customer’s experience creates an engaged and loyal customer base. Loyal customers become ambassadors and spread the news of your service to their network. A recommendation from a friend will always trump a well-placed advertisement because like the relationship you uphold with your customer, trust exists.

In this together

Take The Guardian’s subscription banner campaign for example. No mention of the 'you’ and an avoidance of the usual ‘Subscribe' call to action. Instead, a statement inviting the visitor to ‘Become’ a subscriber and ‘Support’ The Guardian, like a true fan.

Feeding the fanatics

In an attempt to draw fans closer to the club, Manchester City's 'City+' programme offers exclusive content to its fans, for a monthly fee. It has clear value to a fan and many clubs have since followed suit to offer their fans a similar experience.

One of the niche differences between a sports club and conventional commerce business is unconditional loyalty, sports fans will not switch to a different club because theirs is underperforming.

With the competitive element removed, this is a clear example of how repurposing and attaching value to a (relevant) subscription model can be made beneficial to create a more personal relationship with your customers.

Extra Time

For a long time, established news publishers and other media outlets believed their products were safe based on their reputational advantage. Enter the internet and interconnectivity that allowed smaller outlets with fewer overheads to compete with the big fish. Publishers have since learnt their lesson and have begun to steadily adapt.

One such adapter is The New York Times (NYT), whose subscription website is an example of the ways companies can be doing a lot more.

For those that weren’t aware of the value of subscribing, their first page labelled ‘Why The Times?’ walks the visitor through the paper’s values. This process of educating the customer is accompanied by colourful visuals and demonstrations on how The NYT benefits your life.

From virtual reality, podcasts, and a historical database of all their previous editions, The NYT devotes a separate page highlighting the seemingly endless benefits to its recurring readers. The point that it’s trying to get across to its potential readers is that it's much more than just a newspaper. It’s your daily source of expertly curated journalism that ‘delivers more than you expect’.

Substituting complexity for Limio

At the end of the day, however, this is extremely complex logic. As a company you can brainstorm a million methods to keep creating longstanding value to your customers, however, it becomes extremely difficult combining it with subscription mechanics. The NYT will have a whole team working on the subscription logic itself and implementing it.

Yet, startups and a vast amount of corporations will not have the capability to fuse subscription functionality while putting customers at the heart of their campaigns. Well, until Limio came along...

For three years we have been busy experimenting and perfecting a subscription management platform that is motivated by making the marketer’s life easy without ever sacrificing customer experience.

We offer you the only codeless solution, allowing you to try new things without breaking any subscription operational logic. Our native analytics also inform you where your subscribers come from, what the cost of acquisition was, and what their lifetime value is.

Get in touch with us today and begin your subscription journey with a free 14-days trial and find out how Limio delivers more than you can ever expect.