Music, Cars and Apps

This is entertaining summary of MindMeister’s growth from nothing to 4M users. There’s the accidental deletion of the customer file! There’s Google suggesting a strategy and then penalize them for it! Something about their experience with a freemium model. And a cautionary tale of the SaaS Growth Ceiling, where  churn rates catch up with the rate of your customer acquisition and flattens out your growth. Something for everyone!

Is Apple Music retention good? Bad? Ugly?

The good news for Apple was it was very easy for them to get 3-month trial customers. They had customers already with their iTunes/iOS integration. They had their credit cards. So simple easy opt in and OFF you go. As those months pass, what is the usage rate? Is it 52% as MusicWatch says? Or 79% as Apple insists? Did 61% really turn OFF auto-renew? And if so, can Apple expect a 39% retention rate? And is that good given how easy Apple made it to try? These questions—and many others—will be answered in the next episode of Apple Music.

Forget music retention. What about cars?

Gotta say, this survey showed that UK car buyers have very little loyalty to their brand. The question is: who would buy your car brand again? The highest? Audi but only with 61%. That means 2 in 5 of current Audi owners will not but an Audi again. Low end? Fiat, where 22% would buy again. Ugh. Tells me that cars are becoming more like commodities. Me? Show me a car that will drive itself and I will be ALL OVER THAT.

Some tips for you! This time with subscription-based mobile apps

Well, there’s “targeting the right users.” Get the right onboarding. Test subscription plans. And some concrete advice to deal woth “lapsed” users. “On the gaming side, 30 days is basically the best timing to re-engage a lapsed user, and that’s because gaming is so competitive,” says Tim McCloud, Director, Mobile Marketing and Analytics at PlayKids, which makes apps for kids and their parents. “But, for subscription-based apps, it’s a little bit longer, maybe 60 or 90 days.”

Software is almost all subscription now. See even installed software like Adobe and Microsoft Office. Then there are razors! And clothing. And even manufacturers like GM and Schneider Electric. Why? Two things investors love: financial stability and forward visibility.

And it wouldn’t be a newsletter about customer success without data…

A lot of information is good reminder. Interestingly, a Gigaom study from last year showed that email is the most influential digital-marketing tactic for retaining customers, followed by social media and content marketing. Would like to see where non-digital tactics like phone calls and face-to-face meetings stand…