Ask any circulation manager where the money is and they'll say renewals. A new subscriber costs a lot to find. Keeping the ones you've got costs far less, as long as the renewal notice goes out on time, to the right people, with the right price.
That's harder than it sounds with several titles, mixed payment methods and a database that changes every day. Avio's renewal management is built to make it routine.
The auto-renewals console
The console is where bulk renewals happen. Filter by:
- renewal date window;
- renewal status (renewed or not yet);
- subscription type;
- order and payment status.
Then review the results and renew in bulk. Each row shows the status, dates, subscription type, the expiring product and total, the renewal product and total, whether it's renewed and the invoice company. That last bit matters when one company pays for a reader at another address.
Doing this by filter rather than by hand means nothing slips through. A subscription that expires on a bank holiday gets picked up in the same run as everyone else's.
Renewal batches you can track
Renewal notices and invoices go out in batches. Avio tracks each batch from open to despatched to closed, so you always know what's gone and what hasn't. Every batch can be exported for print or mail fulfilment, ready for your mailing house.
If you've ever had to answer "did the March reminders actually go?" by digging through email, you'll see why that helps.
A renewal series for every title
Not every title should renew the same way. A weekly might start chasing two months out. An annual directory might only need a couple of reminders. In Avio, renewal series intervals are set per product, so every title follows its own series.
What goes into a good series (how many efforts, when, and what to say) is a topic of its own. We've written it up in building a renewal series that works.
See what's at risk before it lapses
The dashboard shows lapsing subscriptions for the next 30 days, 90 days, 120 days and six months, each with the value last billed. Further down, renewals by month shows the year ahead with values. You see the money at risk, not just a count of names.
For corporate deals, the corporate dashboard has its own renewal pipeline of seats at risk. One lost site licence can mean dozens of readers, so it gets its own view.
Understand why people lapse
Renewal rates don't improve by guessing. Audience selection has built-in analysis panels for lapse profile and renewal window, so you can look at who's lapsing, from which titles and after how long. Turn any selection into an analysis report to break it down further by subscription type, year first ordered, organisation and more.
Saved selections can then feed workflows. A workflow runs on a saved audience and can split it into email and postal contacts, export each as a CSV or save it to an Avio list, ready for your next campaign. A suppression window stops people being contacted too often.
Clean data renews better
Renewal notices sent to a gone-away address are wasted postage. Reminder emails to a misspelled address never arrive. Avio's data quality scans, merge tools and gone-away flags keep the list in shape, so your renewal effort reaches real people. There's more on the cost of getting this wrong in gone-aways and why they cost you.
Who uses this
Circulation and subscriptions teams run the console and the batches. Marketing use the lapse analysis to plan win-back campaigns. Finance like that renewals sit in the same system as the sales ledger, not in a separate tool.
If you'd rather hand renewals over completely, our circulation and subscriptions bureau runs them for publishers using our own software. Or book an Avio demo and we'll run a renewal batch in front of you.
Questions
Can each title have its own renewal series?
Yes. Renewal series intervals are set per product, so every title follows its own schedule.
Can we renew lots of subscriptions at once?
Yes. Filter the auto-renewals console by date window, renewal status, subscription type and payment status, then renew the results in bulk.
Can renewal notices go to a mailing house?
Yes. Renewal batches are tracked from open to despatched to closed, and each batch can be exported for print or mail fulfilment.
How do we see what's about to lapse?
The dashboard shows subscriptions lapsing in the next 30 days, 90 days, 120 days and six months with the value last billed, plus renewals due by month.