Executing strategy and technology for success

Assuming you have an idea and you know what your product or service is, developing your sales and marketing strategy as an integrated process and symbiotic relationship is the starting point for business success. This is the difference between guessing what you need and having a roadmap for your progress, which in turn will inform what you want your technology to be able to do in order to help you deliver on your customer experience and ultimately your business goals.

Before you start selling 

Begin the first phase of your business strategy by conducting thorough analyses, such as PESTEL and SWOT, to gain a complete understanding of your market and its various segments before launching. This foundational research is crucial for effectively putting your insights into action and crafting a strategy that resonates with your target customers.

When you start selling

Once you know who you're marketing to, where and how, you need the platform, processes and product details to make that happen.

That means: 

• Establishing your product catalogue so that it can be tailored easily by your sales team to each target market.

• Tailoring pricing to each customer segment.

• Providing smooth shopping and checkout experiences. 

Crucially, for a subscription business distinct from more traditional businesses, you also need a customer portal so that your customers can enjoy supported autonomy, seeing, managing, adjusting and communicating with you. This will help you to address their specifics for their subscription and how they want it to adapt over time and as their needs change.

Building business momentum

As your business grows you want to attract new customers. Two powerful ways of doing that are to explore promotions marketed at different customer segments so they see what you want them to see, as well as marketing through different channels. 

A big part of reaching different channels for subscription businesses is working with partners who sell on your behalf. To maintain control over this whilst giving partners everything they need to sell easily and effectively, a purpose-developed partner portal is the most effective tool you can have.

A partner portal allows for effective, individual communication with partners, observation of their actions, as well as the dissemination of information to groups of partners as you roll out new products, packages, options and services.

Retaining customers long-term

Customer retention is one of the hallmarks of subscription businesses as well as one of the most challenging aspects. 

That retention begins the second you engage with customers for the first time, understanding who they are, making sure they purchase the right product for their needs. It then continues as you maintain the relationship, developing your understanding of them as they grow and evolve so that the product or service you provide remains in accordance with their needs. 

That level of customer understanding means having effective data and analytics in place to understand customer behaviour and potential pain points. Conversely, retaining customers also means having an effective cancellation journey in place so you can address any issues positively and possibly change the course of the dialogue if needed.

Experimenting with new ideas

You won't, and can't, know exactly how every idea will be received without testing it, so the ability to test new ideas, product launches, pricing and so forth without rolling it out to your entire customer base is essential. 

You don't want to upset or annoy people, you don't want to make costly changes that don't work in reality, and sometimes you don't want one customer group to see the same messaging as another. Your tech needs to give you the ability to test ideas and scale your commercial team with centralised technology and control for the future growth of your business.