Getting a new subscriber is hard work and usually expensive. Keeping one should be easier. Yet plenty of publishers still treat renewals as a single reminder email sent a week before expiry, and then wonder where everyone went.
A renewal series is just a planned sequence of reminders, starting before the subscription ends and carrying on a little after. It isn't glamorous. It is one of the most valuable things a circulation team runs.
Why a series and not a single reminder
People don't ignore renewal notices because they've decided to leave. Mostly they're busy. The email arrived on a bad day, the invoice went to someone who's on holiday, the card on file expired. A single reminder catches the people who were going to renew anyway. A series catches the ones who meant to.
In B2B, there's an extra wrinkle. The person who reads the magazine often isn't the person who approves the payment. Your series needs to give the reader time to get it through purchasing.
When to start
Start earlier than feels natural. If your first effort lands the week before expiry, you've left no room for a second, let alone a purchase order. Many publishers begin a few months out for annual subscriptions, with the gap between efforts shortening as expiry gets closer.
There's no magic number. The right timing depends on your frequency, your price, how your readers pay and how long their organisations take to approve spending. Test it rather than copying someone else's.
How many efforts
Enough to give people several chances, not so many that you're paying to chase people who've clearly gone. A typical structure has a few efforts before expiry, one around expiry itself, and one or two after it.
That post-expiry stage matters. A subscriber who has just lapsed is still far more likely to come back than a cold prospect. Some publishers send a "grace" issue or two after expiry to keep the relationship warm. If you do, be clear in your records which issues were grace copies, because they may not count the same way for audit purposes.
Mix the channels
Email is cheap and quick, so it does most of the work. But it isn't enough on its own:
- Post still works, especially for B2B titles where an invoice or letter on the desk gets passed to accounts. A printed renewal letter or invoice is easy to forward internally.
- Phone is expensive per call but very effective for high-value subscriptions and corporate accounts. Save it for where it's worth it.
- In or on the magazine: a wrapper message or a reply card on the last couple of issues reaches people who never open your emails.
A good series uses each channel where it earns its keep, rather than everything for everyone.
What to say
Keep it plain. The reader wants to know three things: that their subscription is ending, what it costs to carry on, and how to do it in the fewest steps possible.
A few things that tend to help:
- Lead with the date. "Your subscription ends with the March issue" is clearer than "Don't miss out".
- Remind them what they get. One or two specific things the title has done for them recently beats a list of adjectives.
- Make paying easy. A pay-online link, a clear invoice with bank details, and Direct Debit or continuous payment as an option.
- Change the tone as you go. Early efforts can be relaxed. Later ones can be more direct. The final one can say plainly that this is the last issue.
- Don't discount by reflex. If you train readers to wait for the cheaper offer in effort five, they will.
Stop when they renew
It sounds obvious. It's often missed. Anyone who renews should drop out of the series straight away, and anyone who cancels should stop getting reminders. Nothing annoys a loyal subscriber like a "final reminder" two weeks after they paid.
That needs the renewal series to work from live data, not a list pulled a month ago.
Auto-renewal and continuous payment
Subscribers paying by Direct Debit or continuous card payment don't need chasing to renew, but they still need telling. Let them know their subscription is about to roll over, what they'll pay, and how to change it. It's the fair thing to do and saves a lot of awkward refunds.
For these subscribers, the "renewal series" is really about failed payments. Expired cards and cancelled mandates need their own short sequence of reminders.
Corporate renewals are different
A corporate licence with twenty named seats isn't twenty renewals. It's one negotiation, usually with someone in procurement, and it needs to start early enough to get through their budget cycle. Usage data helps here. If you can show how many seats are being used, you're in a much stronger position. In Avio, the corporate dashboard shows the renewal pipeline of seats at risk.
Controlled circulation has renewals too
If you run a free, qualified title, your "renewal" is re-qualification: asking readers to confirm they still want it and that their details are right. The same principles apply. Start early, use more than one channel, make the form short and record the new request properly. There's more in controlled circulation explained.
Measure each effort
This is where most series fall down. You should be able to say, for each effort, how many people renewed in response to it and what it cost to send. Use a different campaign code on each effort so responses can be traced back.
Once you can see that, the decisions get easier. If the final postal effort costs more than the renewals it brings in, change it or drop it. If an extra email before expiry lifts responses, keep it. Small tests, one change at a time, and look at the results across a few months rather than a single batch.
What the software should do
You can run a renewal series on spreadsheets. I've seen it done. I don't recommend it.
What you want is a system that knows each subscription's expiry, runs efforts at intervals you set, drops people out when they renew, and records which effort brought each renewal in. In Avio, renewal series intervals are set per product, so every title follows its own plan, and renewal batches are tracked from open to despatched to closed and exported for print or mail. In Adeptis, the renewals desk groups readers into chase buckets by issues remaining and time since lapse, with print-ready renewal letters and one-click renewal.
If you'd rather we ran the renewals for you, that's part of our circulation and subscriptions bureau service.
Want to see how either product handles it? Book a demo and bring your current renewal plan. We'll happily pick holes in it with you.
Rob Sherwood is Managing Director of Adept Data Services. He has spent his career in subscriptions and circulation, at WDIS, Optima and CDS Global before founding Adept.