Sinking subs-criptions

A considerable portion of my professional work is with B2B information services companies; helping define and execute growth strategies. However, the pandemic has refocused attention for many firms away from growth towards revenue protection and ‘battening down the hatches’.

As revenues tend to come from selling subscriptions that confer access to content, expert time and digital tools, the two most important metrics are renewal rates and new business sign-ups.

And the pandemic has hurt both. Many firms are experiencing a steep decline in the number of customers renewing contracts and uncertainty has frozen new purchasing decisions, making it harder to cover renewal losses – running fast just to stand-still is proving challenging.

However, innovative firms are adapting their operational and business models to enhance value to target segments, finding pockets of opportunity to grow, while also preparing their businesses for structural changes they are likely to face post crisis.

Here I summarise, some of the common initiatives I have seen gaining traction.

Parallel universes

For most B2B information businesses, editorial rigour and the content production process are sacrosanct. Not to be meddled with and never to be bypassed. However, the crisis has led to an acceleration of speed and expansion of volume of new information.

To address this change, customer-focused firms have developed dual editorial streams; one for traditional flow and another parallel stream that gets new information out fast, provides early insights and summaries, often utilising data visualisation techniques to ease consumption.

The benefits of this approach are that customers get a significant proportion of their information from a single, trusted source – rather than fragmented across vendors, which requires time and effort to verify and integrate. The additional content thus helps drive engagement – a key leading indicator for renewals.

Busy social lives

Related to dual editorial streams, firms are also reacting to changes in behaviour; working from home has led to an increase in social media engagement, consumption of more multi-media content and time to interact with digital tools.

Innovative firms are therefore adapting content for social (tweaking tag-lines, improving summaries and visualisations), producing relevant video and audio content and holding more webinars that bring people together online (compensating for restrictions in face to face interaction).

Opening up the gates

To make up for loss of new business, firms are stocking up on new leads. In some cases, tenfold their normal numbers, often positioning free trials as supporting potential customers in this time of crisis and thereby creating valuable goodwill capital.

This helps both mitigate lower conversion rates and also prepare businesses for when things do eventually pick-up.

In addition, some firms are making all of their corona related content freely available publicly - increasing awareness (particularly through traditional media pick-ups) and distribution.

Adjustment Bureau

While firms are casting their new trials net wide, they are being laser focused when it comes to where to focus development efforts. Firms are finding that smaller institutions with less bureaucratic procurement processes that are still able (and willing) to make purchasing decisions during the pandemic, should the right proposition and deal be presented.

An analytical mind

Operationally, firms are taking this disruption to normal business to enhance capabilities. In particular, investing to enhance the level of sophistication of metrics used to manage the business.

In normal times, the sales and content production processes have a level of slack that can be accommodated – not every lead is converted, nor every piece of content highly valued. But in challenging times it becomes imperative that businesses run as efficiently as possible – which means having timely, accurate and insightful information on what is working well and minimising effort spent in areas that do not yield positive results.

So firms are investing in and enhancing the analytics they use to track overall health of business, ensuring sales professionals and account managers spend time in the right areas and with the right customers, and editorial teams have information and feedback on customers areas of interest and engagement with content, to direct there research and production processes to the right areas.

This often triangulates data and information from multiple internal and external sources to provide a rich tapestry.

Strength in numbers

Firms are also partnering up to enhance their offerings. Traditional content producers are partnering with innovative technology companies to enhance existing, or in some areas create new offerings and services – improving content value, delivery, usability and interactivity.

Meanwhile firms that were traditional competitors are working together to share operational infrastructure, market insights and editorial ideas to lower costs and maximise value.

Bolt-ons

While core services are currently at risk, the nature of the crisis has created opportunities for bespoke and niche services that help customers navigate short-term challenges.

To address this opportunity, nimble firms are offering bespoke services such as one-off custom projects, data and analytics services or summary digests to service specific needs, generate revenue and potentially seed future product opportunities.

Persona grata

The unique challenges of the pandemic have left both vendors and customers in the same boat – often working from home. Counterintuitively this has made it easier to engage with customers now – through video or audio-conferencing technology.

Strategic businesses are using this time to learn more about their customers through interviews: developing a deeper understanding of needs, pain-points, use cases – enriching their customer personas.

In addition, this time is being used productivity to develop new product ideas – constructing mock-ups and validating value with target customers, and also fast-tracking soft beta launches.

The pandemic has led to a business as unusual dynamic. For some businesses, the reaction has been panicked and reactive. However, sinking subs need not be a sign of failure and unusual times can be used as an advantage to innovate, engaging in new value-added activities that are not often possible in normal times.

Moreover, there is no guarantee that the post crisis usual is the same as the one that came before. Firms that are able to use this time effectively will find themselves better positioned through this period and for what comes after.