Value Nurturing -- A New Edition of Anne Janzer's "Subscription Marketing"

Anne Janzer is continuing to nurture the value offered in her classic book, Subscription Marketing -- a Third Edition was just released (with a special offer of the Kindle edition for just 99 cents through February 7).

Her subtitle is "Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn" -- that to me is the heart of subscription businesses -- and of my related work on FairPay.

As she puts it:

Subscription Marketing is two-way communication between your company and customers in a subscription relationship, with the purpose of sustaining the value of that relationship for both parties.

While this book focuses on marketing after the sale (which I call value nurturing), those activities are part of a broader shift in the marketing discipline. Subscription marketing is marketing with a long-term perspective. It’s changing your mindset to focus on the relationship rather than revenue alone. It’s looking beyond lead generation to cultivating both trust and value, before and after the point of conversion.

Anne's new edition focuses more deeply on how that mindset is critical to success. Additions include:

• "a new chapter on trust and value -- the true marketing imperatives of the Subscription Economy"
• updated and expanded examples of value nurturing
• new chapters on startups, small businesses, and large, established businesses.

Anne and I are in full agreement on the vital importance of value nurturing. Several years ago she wrote a very nice review of my own book on FairPay, where she observed:

In many ways, the FairPay pricing model is the perfect complement to the practice of value nurturing outlined in Subscription Marketing. Organizations that adopt a FairPay pricing must work hard to nurture the customer’s perception of value, both within the solution and beyond.

Her book has been the perfect complement to mine -- with far more detail on the basics of that mindset, and the practice of value nurturing. Drawing on her background as a professional business writing consultant, Anne's new edition expands very nicely on that.

If you want to succeed in a subscription business, you should read Anne's book carefully. If you want to do more than succeed, read her book and mine.

Subscription Marketing: Anne Janzer Reviews FairPay

Anne Janzer's Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn is one of the best and most popular guides on this increasingly vital subject. Now Anne has applied her marketing insights and clear writing style to a review of my book, FairPay: Adaptively Win-Win Customer Relationships.

Anne observes that my work on FairPay (and its broader perspective on pricing and relationship strategies) is very aligned with her ideas on value nurturing as a core strategy for "sustaining the customer relationships that build long-term success" in the Subscription Economy. That alignment gives her a deep appreciation of how FairPay adds a new dimension that managers should be thinking about. 

Her review, "Disrupting Subscription Pricing: FairPay," provides a concise overview of FairPay and its motivation. Here is a sampling of her comments on why FairPay matters:

...it’s a natural fit for the evolving Subscription Economy... 

The model brings the business much closer to its customers... Instead of running “voice of the customer” surveys, you can see how people vote with their actual dollars. 

The pricing model itself is based on both trust and value... 

In many ways, the FairPay pricing model is the perfect complement to the practice of value nurturing outlined in Subscription Marketing. 

She concludes with a nod toward the unconventional nature of FairPay:

As soon as you start picturing this in your head, questions will pop up... But before you start thinking of the objections, ask yourself this: 

How would FairPay change the way you do business? 

How would your business operate today if your revenues were directly tied to the customer’s perception of value? What would you do differently in marketing, product development, or support? How would it change the way you think of customers, and of pricing?

I hope you will read her review, and then take a closer look at how FairPay works and why you should be thinking about its implications -- how you can make value nurturing include value discrimination. Even if you are not yet ready to go far with it, thinking about FairPay will change how you view your business. Details are in my book, and my blog (see the Overview, and More Details).

I also highly recommend that you read Anne's book, which provides a practical understanding of the essentials of subscription businesses -- why value nurturing matters and how to make it central to your business.