Annual subscription business models can provide stable cash flow, generate long term customers and minimize administrative costs in-house. By locking in customers for a year at a time, you can better predict business income and reduce the amount of time spent processing payments. The benefits are obvious, but it can certainly create some hurdles for your company as well.
Depending on the value of your service or product, the annual cost could be relatively high – with it not being uncommon to see some annual subscriptions in the thousands of dollars. This means that your new – and renewing – customers are more likely to do sufficient research and take careful consideration prior to paying up for a full year with your company.
This certainly can be done, but means that your marketing strategy and execution needs to be planned and managed properly.
If you already have a few hundred or few thousand subscribers, you don’t need to look very far for marketing ideas. All business professionals know the “it costs five times as much to attract a new customer, than to keep an existing one” rule, but so many seem to ignore it.
Marketing to Current Customers
If you want to improve subscription rates and get customer to renew for a second, third – tenth year, you need to realize that marketing to existing customers requires a different approach than driving new leads. First and foremost, providing high quality service with annual improvements to your subscription will go further than anything else you can do.
But that doesn’t mean you can ignore marketing to current customers beyond providing promised services 
and just expect them to renew.
Yes, you should email your customers when their renewal date is around the corner, but following up with custom printed postcards that remind them to renew are likely to have more impact. Emails are easier to delete than postcards are to throw away. Use similar messaging for both to complement, and serve as reminders for each other to improve annual subscription renewal conversion rates for years to come.
Attracting New Business
Of course, not everyone is going to renew, so you can’t ignore new customer acquisition either. Prospects aren’t as familiar with your company yet, so you need to build authority and provide a more complete story to sell your subscription. Cheap booklet printing allows you to have a complete marketing piece ready for presentations, promo materials at trade shows you attend without a booth, or to send via mail. Happy selling!