In the real world tackling churn and increasing retention is one of the hardest problems a subscription business faces. It is a company-wide effort across multiple roles and requires a team to come together with a coherent strategy to tackle the problem head-on. In this episode, Andrew Michael, Business Intelligence Manager at HotJar and Host of the Churn.fm podcast, shares lessons he’s learned from his experience and discussion with growth marketers from HubSpot, Wistia, Basecamp, and more.
In episode 85, you’ll learn:
- Why churn is a big problem for companies and how to identify its symptoms
- How to align different teams to tackle the churn problem
- How retention is often more important than customer acquisition
Tweet Some Quotes from This Episode
If marketing's not bringing in the right customers through the door and they'd just acquiring as many as possible, that's going to create a churn problem. – @andrewmichaelsa from @GrowthToday podcast. Get the full podcast episode… Click To Tweet If you don't focus on retention, at some point, you're going to hit a ceiling in terms of how fast your company can grow into what level it's going to hit. – @andrewmichaelsa from @GrowthToday podcast. Get the full episode 👇 Click To Tweet It’s much cheaper to retain existing customers as it is opposed to acquiring new ones – @andrewmichaelsa from the @GrowthToday podcast. Get the full episode 👇 Click To TweetOur sponsor for this episode
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My Takeaways from This Episode
- Churn is a big problem, especially as your company scales. At some point, you’re going to hit a ceiling in terms of how fast your company can grow into what level it’s going to hit.
- It’s much cheaper to retain existing customers as it is opposed to acquiring new ones. That’s why reactivation campaigns are really interesting.
- If marketing’s not bringing in the right customers through the door and they’d just acquiring as many as possible, that’s going to create a churn problem. Make sure you’ve positioned your product in the best way possible and that you’re not over-promising and under-delivering.
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About Andrew Michael
Andrew Michael is the Business Intelligence Manager at HotJar. He is an entrepreneur with 12 years of experience in digital growth companies as a founder or senior manager with a focus on customer retention, product development, strategic planning, and marketing. Andrew is also the host of the Churn.fm podcast
Key Discussion Points
- 9:05 – How churn affects SaaS companies
- 14:52 – The importance of retention for SaaS companies
- 19:29 – Why you need to reduce friction and how that impacts churn
- 24:08 – How to improve churn metrics, customer acquisition, and retention
- 29:48 – How to align teams to tackle churn
- 34:25 – Andrew’s one piece of advice to marketers
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