Subscription Show Recap – The Latest and Greatest in All Things Subscriptions

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Subscription Show, it’s one of the only vendor-neutral conferences designed to educate current and future subscription businesses on the ins and outs of building and growing a subscription business. There are 7 tracks – Market Trends & Dynamics, Business Growth & Optimization, Subscriber Retention, Subscriber Acquisition, Recurring Payment Optimization, M&A and Validation, and Solution Provider Demos. Just like all the other conferences right now, it was virtual. It spanned 6 days over 2 weeks.

As our Vice President of Marketing, my job was twofold – get the latest and greatest information about subscriptions and see how we might be a sponsor for the show next year. I got a wealth of information and am happy I was able to participate remotely. In this blog I outline some of the key things I learned.

COVID is Forcing Changes and Agile Businesses are Adapting and Thriving

There were numerous examples throughout the conference about businesses adapting to COVID and the positive results they have seen with their customers. From Fender Play expanding their 1 month trial to 3 months to Resy moving from online reservations to takeout, online capacity monitors, and reopening updates to Six Flags membership pause and upgrades, businesses are adapting and growing.

We are seeing this as well with our customers, as they shift their offerings and packages. Since March we’ve provided guidance to many of them on adapting business models. Across industries, the most agile businesses found ways to complete digital transformations, that would have previously taken years, in weeks or even days. As everyone experiences the “new normal” in their own ways, expectations and needs have changed, making subscriptions and consumption-based services a powerful option.

COVID has shown the importance that businesses have the right agile billing solutions in place to future-proof their businesses and be ready to adjust as their customers need them to. Systems need to be highly configurable and able to accommodate any number and combination of pricing models. They need to be able to easily test new offerings and pricing models. They can’t require subject matter experts or major systems changes.

Subscription Metrics are a Bit Different

Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) and Lifetime Value (LTV) were mentioned multiple times throughout the show, highlighting that subscriptions are not just about the initial sale, it’s important to have the right onboarding experience, engagement, and renewal experiences. Multiple companies talked about their onboarding survey to optimize the customer’s experience from the service and emailing subscribers at optimal times for onboarding, after certain activities, and as part of the renewal experience.

You need detailed and frequent data to get ahead of the right subscription metrics and provide the best customer experience. Usage-based data provides rich insights into how your customer is using your product and service. It becomes even more powerful if you can get insight into the rated data, which adds costing data as well. Gotransverse has standard reporting with over 120 standard reports, interactive reports, and dashboards. We also have Premier Data Access, an easy way to combine your Gotransverse data with other data sets and use with your preferred reporting and analytics tools.

More Businesses Should Adopt Consumption-Based Business Models

I was quite surprised, and I think this is an opportunity for next year, at the lack of consumption-based, usage-based, and pay-as-you-go discussions at the show. Forrester did a study that showed that of businesses that adopted usage or consumption-based billing models:

• 71% had lower barriers to adoption of products and services
• 63% were able to offer more products and services
• 53% used customer insights for better relationship management

This is an ideal time for businesses to lower the barrier to entry even more and adopt a pricing model that only requires customers to pay for what they use. I’m hoping that we can bring that message to the show as a sponsor next year and highlight the successes our customers are seeing. Hopefully by then, the show will be in person again and we can discuss with attendees that are interested in learning more to expand their horizons.

To learn more about the Gotransverse platform, we invite you to take a tour of the Gotransverse platform today. Then, when you’re ready, call us to schedule your complimentary, personalized demo.