Subscription Radio

Andriy Rudnyk, founder of Good Subscription Agency, has established himself as a top agency for Shopify brands. He’s learned that subscriptions are powerful—but only if they create value for the customer. In this conversation, Andriy and Ben unpack where brands go wrong with the customer experience as it relates to subscriptions and what to do instead.

Topics

• Understanding your business before deciding
• What are your jobs to be done?
• See yourself as a software company
• What "The Membership Economy" teaches us
• Why consumers love subscriptions
• Create a better CX without canceling
• Experiment with prepayment
• Three pillars of The Membership Economy
• Subscriptions: tried-and-true

Show Links

• Check out Good Subscription Agency
• Follow Andriy Rudnyk on LinkedIn
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Jack Rubin, Co-CEO at Purdy & Figg, knows how important strategy is to reducing churn. The top priority for every subscription-based company is keeping its customers. The lower your churn rate is, the higher your long-term gains will be. So, how do you convince subscribers to stick around? Jack turned his company’s churn rates upside down by changing his strategy around frequency and price. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Jack chat about his tips for reducing churn rate, which companies should (and shouldn’t) move to a subscription model, and what incentivizes customers to stick around.

Show Topics

• Hold on to your customers
• Create a subscription that makes sense
• Offer customers the right experience
• Don’t annoy your customers
• Analyze CAC to LTV
• Give customers community
• Pay attention to social media

Show Links

• Check out Purdy & Figg
• Connect with Jack Rubin on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Rick Watson, ecommerce influencer and strategy consultant at RMW Commerce Consulting, has helped many growing DTC brands navigate subscription strategies. It’s a challenging market because not all subscriptions are created equal. So, how do you create a subscription worth sticking around for? Give your customers access to something they can’t get anywhere else. The best subscriptions rely on variety to maintain their audience’s interest. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Rick discuss what products work best in a subscription model, why most brands can’t be subscription-only, and what questions to ask before moving your business toward a subscription model.

Show Topics

• When are subscriptions more hassle than they're worth?
• Should your brand be subscription-only?
• Don’t trick people into commitments
• Not all subscriptions are created equal
• Do you need a subscription model?
• Find out what people excel at
• What does it take to fulfill a product?
• Value consistency and focus

Show Links

• Check out RMW Commerce Consulting
• Connect with Rick Watson on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Matt Bahr, founder and CEO of Fairing, understands the importance of attribution. This is why he chose to focus his company Fairing, formerly EnquireLabs, on collecting data to help companies understand the attribution of their customers. The goal at Fairing is to bring speed and scale to survey data in an effort to help solve the issue of attribution. The company helps its clients design surveys that help them determine who their customers are, where they came from, and what will keep them coming back. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Matt discuss the importance of customer surveys, what questions to ask, and how to use those answers to your competitive advantage.

Show Topics

• How Fairing helps solve attribution
• Get a competitive advantage
• Increase completion rate
• Let people classify themselves
• Find out where customers are coming from
• Create surveys with ease
• Let people come back to the questions
• Build a profile over time
• Understand your customers’ motivations
• Ask more than one question

Show Links

• Check out Fairing
• Connect with Matt Bahr on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Subscriptions are your best source for recurring revenue. So, how do you keep customers from churning? The key is flexibility. Some people want their subscription to be as regular as clockwork, while others want to pause and pick up at their leisure. A flexible subscription model will help you keep both sides of your audience coming back for more. In this episode, Ben Fisher shares his experience as a serial entrepreneur, the importance of flexibility in subscriptions, and how convenience keeps customers happy.

Show Topics

• Spend money to save time
• Focus on returning customers
• Let people pause
• Offer flexibility
• Create a unique experience
• Give perks to direct buyers
• Build a middle ground
• Create convenience for customers
• Maximize LTV
• Give customers a happy medium

Show Links

• Check out PipeCandy
• Connect with Ashwin Ramasamy on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Mike Duboe, general partner at Greylock, is an expert on DTC trends. As a growth leader in user acquisition at multiple ecommerce companies, Mike has seen the evolution of DTC firsthand. Today, DTC is less of a category and more of a channel. Whether it’s a new subscription model or NFTs, if you want to grow your DTC brand, you need to diversify your channels. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Mike discuss what growth looks like in a DTC brand, the rise of NFTs in commerce, and how to build the best subscription experience for your customers.

Show Topics

• Growth differs depending on context
• Optimize for profit over growth
• Diversify your channels
• Understand the commerce NFTs enable
• Use NFTs for subscription loyalty
• Don’t force-feed subscriptions
• Increase your keep rate
• Build a subscription experience

Show Links

• Check out Greylock
• Connect with Mike Duboe on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Shawn O’Neill, founder of SpeedSense Web Performance, is a web performance guru who works with ecommerce brands at the enterprise level. If you’re wondering whether to optimize your website, Shawn is the person to ask. Because the faster your website is, the easier it becomes to hold the attention of your customers. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Shawn chat about how to speed up the loading time for a webpage, whether or not to go headless, and when to build a custom landing page.

Show Topics

• Make pages as static as possible
• Show the customer the page is working
• Load the most relevant content first
• Run analytics as early as you can
• Create a façade for videos
• Make up your mind on headless
• Know when to build a custom landing page
• Don’t make a monolith
• Be mindful of carbon emissions
• Own your site

Show Links

• Check out SpeedSense
• Connect with Shawn O’Neill on LinkedIn
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Matt Mullenax, Co-Founder & CEO at Huron, understands how important it is to be there for your customers. Since Huron carries personal care and skin care merchandise as a subscription, it’s crucial for customers to have enough—but not too much—product on hand. One of the challenges of a subscription model is knowing when your customers will need to order more product. But if you know how to manage shipment timing well, they’ll always have the right amount. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Matt discuss ways to manage subscription timing, the importance of an authentic brand voice, and the pros and cons of using Amazon.

Show Topics

• Manage subscription timing
• Use survey data
• Foster long-term relationships
• Focus on your core values
• Let your brand evolve
• Take advantage of opportunities
• Make the most of your channels
• Humanize your brand
• Keep moving forward

Show Links

• Check out Huron
• Connect with Matt Mullenax on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Tim Masek, founder of 1-800-D2C, wants to make life easier for ecommerce founders. Through his experience as a growth operator, Tim discovered the difficulty of making decisions about stacks for ecommerce brands. Many founders don’t have the specialized knowledge to be able to pick the optimal tools for their team. So Tim created a service to help ecommerce founders identify the best tools for their stacks. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Tim discuss how to pick the right tools for your stack, the benefits of a subscription-only business model, and how different brands are making the most of ecommerce.

Show Topics

• Fill in the gaps
• Help people find the right tools
• Trust founder interviews
• Be thoughtful about your choices
• Consider the subscription-only model
• Focus on one thing
• Innovate on ecommerce
• Take advantage of TikTok
• Unlock non-dilutive funding

Show Links

• Check out 1-800-D2C
• Connect with Tim Masek on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter

Matthew Barnes, founder of Proteus Digital Lab, knows how to help DTC brands optimize their conversion rates for subscriptions. A conversion isn’t just an event; it’s part of a larger customer experience. If you want to get a customer to commit to a subscription, you can’t just focus on the conversion point. You have to consider the entire life cycle of the customer. On this episode of Subscription Radio, Ben and Matthew talk through ways to sweeten your subscription services for customers, how to get past that initial growth plateau, and why going headless isn’t necessarily your best option.

Show Topics

• Use data to accelerate growth
• Sweeten the subscription offer
• Grow your website alongside your business
• Follow customers over time
• Think about lifetime value
• Use subscriptions where they make sense
• Have a clear interface
• Don’t disincentivize customers
• Don’t reinvent the wheel
• Know your customer’s needs

Show Links

• Check out Proteus Digital Lab
• Connect with Matthew Barnes on LinkedIn
• Check out Rodeo
• Connect with Ben Fisher on LinkedIn or Twitter