Highlights from Subscription Sessions: Get ahead of what’s next

On November 12, Subscription Sessions:Get ahead of what’s next, reunited professionals from leading brands like AllTrails, Beatport, CNBC, Worldpay, Avalara, and more to discuss the latest trends and innovations driving the future of subscriptions. 

Watch the event on-demand now, or keep reading to get the highlights of the event.

What’s next: The future of subscriptions

We kicked-off the event with an enlightening discussion about the subscription industry. Dylan Hoeffler, Recurly's Vice President of Product Marketing, and Niraj Naik, Recurly’s Vice President of Product Management, shared emerging industry trends: 

• The shift to retention: Brands are now focusing their attention on keeping existing customers. The future of subscription businesses will be determined by those leading the way in fostering lifetime value, personalization, and innovation.

• The role of personalization: When subscribers resonate with certain content or products, it enhances their connectedness with a brand. Personalized journeys provide insightful clues on customer preferences, allowing brands to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

• The power of hybrid experiences: In an era rapidly turning digital, companies must meet subscribers where they are. Blending online and offline experiences is  the essence of a holistic consumer journey.

So, really, subscribers expect this seamless and hassle free experience really from from start to finish. And that convenience, the value, and personalized experience, creates the full picture for how the subscribers can interact with the brand. Right? So convenience means it's easy to sign up.

It's intuitive. The billing process is smooth and predictable and easy. Is there anything that can reduce friction and save time? Right?

They they they want access to content and products and service all to be the effortless across different devices, and they wanna be able to pick what options is it auto renew. And, like, they they expect it to be easy. Right? And the value and the key to maintaining that loyalty is is the value.

And subscribers need to feel like they're getting more than what they're paying for. And then this can mean maybe it's exclusive content or products or services, premium features, discounts, or added benefits that they can only get once they're once they're a member. Subscribers are they're quick to assess if a service really justifies the price and consistent value.

Watch the full session here.

Convenience, value, and personalization are key to a seamless subscriber experience. Subscribers cherish effortless sign-ups, smooth billing processes, and easy access to products. However, delivering value at scale can be challenging.  

Niraj Naik suggests the application of a composable commerce approach as a solution, which allows businesses to cherry-pick the fitting solutions for their operations. Plus, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance decision-making and business productivity.

Straight from the source: What subscribers really want

How does the digital consumer think? What buckets are their subscriptions falling into, and what triggers them to evaluate the list? These, and more questions, were addressed in a vibrant conversation led by Mary Rosberg, VP Growth Evangelist at Recurly.

Joining the panel was: 

• Mallory, a Data Scientist with a passion for art from Northern England

• Lauren, an administrative coordinator at the Texas A&M University School of Medicine

• Robin, a Fractional Chief Revenue Officer and avid traveler based in London 

• Elliot, a padel aficionado who works at a tech startup in the advertising industry

When asked about their favorite subscriptions, panelists offered diverse responses, ranging from storage to fitness-tracking apps— but the key to subscribe was convenience and exclusive content. Lauren mentioned Christmas and New Year’s is when she vets the services she hasn't used as much, while Mallory keeps a close eye on her subscriptions right after being charged, assessing if they provided value in the previous time frame.

Flexibility of kind of payment and frequency of that service. So for I'll give you a very quick example. For my subscription for The New Yorker magazine, I would actually like it if I could tweak how often I got the magazine. So let's say there was a period where I didn't have as much, you know, money to spend on it.

It's quite expensive. You you pay for it kind of yearly. You know, being able to say, actually, I wanna receive the magazine every other week. That could save me from canceling it completely.

So I think flexibility of kind of frequency of the the product. Probably harder with the service, but flexibility of of it.

I think I'm mirroring on something Elliot had spoken to and I guess the one of the last questions we had. But I think for me, having really good customer support, I'm really willing to be more patient with any issues on our platform if if I have that. So I think prioritizing that because it really helps to build trust and loyalty.

I agree. I'm just saying, Lauren. Sorry. I would say definitely consistency in listening to your customers and your audience when they tell you that something is not necessarily working or when they tell you something is really working. Please don't take it away. So definitely consistency in listening to your audience for sure.

Watch the full session here.

Moving on to the must-haves and nice-haves, Elliot mentioned payment and billing  personalization. Robin highlighted the effectiveness of speaking to human customer support, considering it as an essential facet of user satisfaction. Lauren pointed out that reading reviews extensively before subscribing helped her gauge the value proposition.

From acquisition to adoption: Driving subscriber engagement

During our next session, Sarah McCredie, Recurly’s Director of Product Marketing - Segment, led an exciting panel about strategies for user engagement, retention, and conversion. Joining the stage were: 

• Danny Peterson, Sr. Director, Direct to Consumer Marketing at CNBC

• Tammi Miller, Director of Lifecycle Marketing at AllTrails

• Dhruv Sondhi, Director of Subscription Growth at Beatport

Our industry leaders shared their expertise on  how to ensure a seamless experience across platforms. It all starts within the first few days, and how it influences engagement. The experts discussed actions aimed at helping users find value faster—such as creating watch lists, integrating portfolios, or even registration walls and personalized content to drive engagement during onboarding.

Beatport is focused on attracting the right subscribers. Distinguishing their target audience into established and beginner DJs, they offer diverse plans and features to appeal to their needs. Like AllTrails, they use techniques such as in-app messaging, emails, and push notifications to guide their customers through the journey.

We actually saw our first month conversion rate go up by twenty five percent when we rolled out our new onboarding program.

So definitely a huge win and something we're continuing to optimize for sure and focusing on that that early feature adoption.

Danny, what about for you at CNBC? Oh, yeah. That I mean, well, first, you know, being at a legacy company and really starting to focus on subscriptions in twenty twenty one, Our product roadmap is quite full of things, we wanna get done to help that engagement early on. But we've kind of, you know, in a way, we've tried to find ways where we can MacGyver onboarding together, utilizing vendor tools, email, obviously.

So there are certain traits users take at at CNBC that lead to a subscription. Obviously, those newsletters I mentioned, but also, you know, downloading or creating a watch list of stocks to follow, which led to us actually developing a new feature within CNBC Pro, which was a pro portfolio tool where people can actually integrate their portfolio into our service so they can track and get related content to all the names, involved. So we wanna basically, our effort is really to personalize their investing experience and make things easier for users.

Watch the full session here.

AllTrails and CNBC emphasized simplification and personalization. By prioritizing key actions, AllTrails revamped their onboarding process, leading to a 25% increase in conversions. CNBC successfully integrated personalization into their strategy, encouraging users to adopt features leading to subscriptions.

The complexity of pricing was another key issue discussed—emphasizing transparency on price changes to maintain the brand's trustworthiness. Keeping the messaging and empathy consistent throughout the subscriber journey was stressed, including in dunning emails.

Going global: How to expand into new markets

We finished the day with an interesting conversation about global expansion. Stephanie Johnson, Recurly’s Director of Global ABM, reunited with: 

• Daniela Aguiar, Sr. Director Partnerships Technology and Operations at London Business School

• Riley Macdonald, Director of Strategic Expansion at Worldpay

• Jayme Fishman, EVP, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Avalara

The group discussed the complexity of international growth, and how businesses can equip themselves to thrive. 

Jayme Fishman touched upon the importance of tax regulations, exemptions, and reporting requirements that vary across countries. He emphasized that ensuring customer data privacy—like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union—must be mandatory.

Riley Macdonald remarked on the importance of localizing operations, highlighting the need for tangible local representation and providing local language support. She stressed the significance of tailoring content and brand identity to each region and addressing the potential challenges stemming from data localization requirements.

So, I think there is a continuum between two extremes, you know, adaptation and aggregation.

While adapting to local conditions, you can boost your revenues and market share, maximizing local relevance.

For example, for an entertainment subscription service, how much how much local content or locally tailored content can you offer on a regular basis?

If this is the most prominent approach, you might need a country centered organization.

On the other extreme, the aggregation is exploiting an existing standardized product as is, delivering economies of scale, grouping, development, and production.

If this is the approach, then it will suffice when running, global business units or even managing from headquarters.

Then independently from your approach, your product will be competing with a different set of products in each country, and it will be positioned in relation to them. So companies, need to figure out the best actions and partnerships they should pursue to convey the right message and brand associations.

For example, are you the most flexible product or the one that offers the lowest price or the one with the biggest library?

What is more, in each country, you may require a different set of features that customers are willing to pay for more or features that don't matter to them depending on, of course, their income and and access to technology.

Watch the full session here.

Taking the conversation forward, Daniela Aguiar highlighted the importance of having local knowledge and tools in place. Aguiar underscored the significance of being adaptable and agile to the changing methods of payments and regulations. She insisted on understanding the market, questioning one's assumptions, and developing a strong business case. 

Get more insights and future-proofing strategies

As the market gets more crowded and customers more discerning, subscription businesses must seek new ways to stay competitive. All the experts agree that personalization is key to driving lifecycle value—locally and globally. 

Get all the insights and best practices you need  to refine your growth plans and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.