I was wondering if anyone has data on what the typical retention rate is for online subscription services?

I just started one and I'm curious how I'm doing. I offer a 3 free day trial and am retaining about 70-80% of the people into paying customers.

The one thing I do notice is 90% of the people who cancel, do it almost immediately after ordering. I can only assume they are only freebie-seekers who wanted to come in, download a few things and "poke around" for free.

Can anyone share some data on similar projects or point me to any studies with comparable numbers? I've heard everything from 40% retention to 80% is "normal".

Thanks for any info that can be supplied, I know there are some experienced marketers around.

I don't have any stats, I'm sorry. I can say though, that the litmus is quality. The price has to be worth what I get, and I have to get ample fresh material on a regular basis.

I've seen a tremendous lack of that in the things that I've signed up for lately. In fact some of them (including Yanik Silver's stuff) have been absolutely laughable. It's a real disappointment because especially for someone of Yanik's reputation, I expected a lot more. What I received was simply an embarrassment!

Anyway, I digress. Offer plenty of high-quality material, with fresh stuff often, and you'll have high retention rates.

Bailey

There are a lot of variables in "free trial" offers and so many people have received all sorts of results. Off hand, without seeing your website - I would say 80% retention is fabulous. It might be time to increase your prices.

Here are some I've witnessed over the years that I remember now:

1. Salesforce.com generated 160,000 paying members in one year by offering a "One year free" trial offer. When people got hooked to their services, they started paying up. Salesforce.com service is like hosting - very sticky. People can't unsubscribe once they start using them. So salesforce.com had fabulous results with their free one year offer. But salesforce.com stopped their one year trial offer and now only offer a 30 day trial offer because they are a public co. and one year offer brings with it short term cash flow problems.

2. Trial offers without accepting credit cards result into dismal results (unless you have a sticky product like hosting or crm). A marketing friend of mine offered a 30 day free trial for his $197 a year membership site. He did so without getting people to provide their credit cards first. And less than 12-15% paid up after the first month was up.

3. Here is a trick that might help you in increasing your retention rates. Offer to send an added bonus to people the day after they pay up. I started doing this when its time for people to resubscribe to a paid newsletter - and this works very well.

4. Surprise bonuses are the best way to make sure people stay with you for longer durations. But I don't know why, many internet marketers claim on their salesletters itself that people will receive "unadvertised bonuses" when they subscribe. This mention of unadvertised bonuses kills the surprise.

In the fundraising industry, they AIM for an exact 70% retention rate. It's said that if your churn rate is less than 30%, you aren't doing enough outreach for new donors, and if your churn rate is more than 30% you aren't doing enough donor retention. Not sure how scientific these figures are though.

That's a good point.

I think there are 3 reasons for that:

1. There isn't that much "new" in the way of Internet marketing. They are just re-hashing stuff.
2. You have some folks that are trying to take the "easy road" and live off their reputations.
3. They have their hands in so many pies they don't have the time to do a decent job at all of them.

hmmm...

Not trying to second guess or do any mind reading, but could this be the reason why Armand Morin is taking a new route with his marketing?

Perhaps he's trying new his new "country music marketing", because he's tired of the old ways of doing marketing?

-- interesting.

I will definitely give Armand credit for at least making an attempt at paving new avenues for us all.

When an "expert" marketer does this, he (or she) is doing "everyone" a big favor!

PC,
I don't think I'm qualified to answer your question concerning numbers, but I think a great way to increase member retention would be this:

1. Put most of your energy into making everyone an "affiliate" of your membership.

2. Help your affiliates get their first or second sale.

This way they are now getting their membership for FREE.

Whether they are great affiliates or not, they will be less likely to cancel, knowing that they are getting their membership for free.

This would do two things:

1. retain more members.
2. grow your list.
3. create "extra exposure" for your membership.
3. make you more money.

... just something to think about.