Customer retention: what is the best formula?
 

Hi all,

I´m currently doing some research on how webmaster/site admin retain their customers. There are a lot of techniques floating around, but I would love some feedback from you guys on what kind of marketing initiatives you can use to keep your customers coming back for more.

A perfect retention program is almost impossible, as there are many factors that can make it successful, but what has worked well for you???

I would be grateful for some of your knowledge. Give it to me!!!! |bow|

The sponsors that I have with the best member retention add fresh and varied content continually (as in every few days in some part of the member area). This ranges from exclusive personal content (photo and vid clips), featured guest photo sets, purchased content, plugin feeds, and more. They also interact directly with their members through journals/diaries, live chats and live shows.

For these type of programs I maintain an average rebill percent of about 45%, computed on a three month running average.

Depends alot on what you offer/sell but for example, us at www.nextdoorcash.com have good retention now only due to good members area (targetted) not flooded with plug-ins.

Ad to that the fact that we offer to all our members access to all our other sites. (that we recently added direct marketing with www.allnextdoor.com :) )

All these factors workout very well when it comes to rebilling ;)

Hope this helps and sorry for the grammar but haven't sleep for +24h.

are plugins really important? isn't your own exclusive content much more important?

Rui: I feel for you!! I´m feeling pretty much the same as you.......... lack of sleep and still on last night´s drinks for fuel.

Thanks for all your feedback, guys. I agree with all of you regarding having a good members area, exclusive content, updates, etc. Quality is clearly more important than quantity.

However, what do you think is the most effective way to prevent a member from cancelling his/her membership, or not wanting to renew it, for example?

Dont have the same plugins as "all" other sites have is VERY important...... we only have one plugin (for bigcocks content) other than that all sites have their own content. Movies are downloadable in multiple formats, and NOT crappy feeds/streams which the surfers HATE..... they want to download the movies to the computers for their personal collections.

Also have tons of updates ready, for some of our sites we have 2 months content scheduled up in our members area management system, so our sites are updated regurarely :)

Have a good FAQ that answers the most asked questions, saves both you and the surfer tons of time.

Making it hard to cancel the membership might have worked/work now, but remember that VISA and MasterCard will be after you soon if you have a bad CB ratio.....

we have a pretty high rebill rate, and that's simply because:
1 - we don't fuck with the surfer
2 - two updates a day
3 - exclusive content
4 - variety

Those 4 points are really important in my opinion, surfers get bored quick so you really have to please them ;)

The most effective way to prevent them from cancelling is obvious. But that involves physical violence and credit card fraud. If you aren't willing to beat someone to death and bury them in the desert, I'd suggest working on a quality members area. |thumb

I suppose you could have occasional prize give aways and see if that seems to keep some of your members hanging on longer. And, as I always say, everyone likes free hotdogs.

Free hotdogs sounds good.......... washed down with some nice cold beer. Suits you, sir.

I always found that if you have people that act as the host or hostess of the site. Someone that will post updates daily and personally take care of all issues that may come up.

With freehotdogs and beer you might get a delivery problem haha ;)

Well, obviously beer is a preposterous suggestion. Everyone knows that alcohol doesn't transmit correctly in binary. We'll have to stick to hotdogs. |thumb

hahahhaahah ;)

Accountability.

$20 is a lot of money to a lot of people. It's 2 back breaking hours on an assembly line, or 4 hours at the 7-11. As a site owner I am honored that they have given me their hard earned cash, and I consider it a responsibility to make sure that they receive the best possible value for that money.

All members receive immediate and personal responses to their emails. No form mail, no 3 day wait for a response.

We update on schedule like clockwork. Generous photo sets, great video clips, and 98% exclusive content.

We invite our members to submit requests, and we respond promptly. A member's fantasy is usually brought to life within 2 weeks, before his subscription expires.

Our most loyal members often find special thank yous in the site. From involving their username in a photoshoot, to a personal video clip thanking them for their support- mentioning them by name is a great way to make our members feel valued.

I'm not gonna give all our secrets away, but our affiliates can rest assured that we do everything humanly possible to ensure that our members remain happy for much longer than 30 days.

I have to agree with emmanuelle that keeping the members involved seems to really help the retention. Prizes, giveaways, "be a pornstar" shoots, etc.

Mainly only happens on amateur sites, but, I wonder how it would work out with a "live" webmistress on the more general/niche sites.

I have to agree here. I do not have many members at all for my site as we are new. But think of it like she is saying. You are running a business and I remember back in the old days for me I would walk into my local hardware store and they called me by name. That kept me away from home depot for years, until the local went under. But as far as sites go the longest I ever belonged to one was for 1 full year. It was run by the girl and she worked her ass off to make sure everyone of her small group of members were treated with the utmost care. Emails were a pain for her during work so she put up a personal forum which she posted answers with in 10 minutes. her site was updated weekly every week on the dime. her live shows were always creative and she always took ideas for next weeks shows. anytime she got gifts she made sure to say thank you and use the gifts in the shows. it went a long way. Made me feel special, like i belonged there. It got to the point were all the members (30 of them) knew each other by name and the chats during the live shows were just that chats about everything. I mean it was crazy the girl woudl be nakid and the guys would be talking baseball. Well over time she had a baby and shut the site down. But that stuff goes far man. Any other site I never belonged to over 2 months. Never felt it was worth it. no matter what the price. LL are good an bad. after a while surfers dont want to pay for porn when they know they can get it for free. just like music. no one wants to pay for it now that they were able to get it for free. Most LL are bookmarked and hit daily by the same people. I have my 5 that I go to still to this day. I know the pics will be good and i wouldnt get blasted with pop ups. etc. Just my 2 cents.

the sites that retain the best for me have:

1. plenty of content within the niche advertised on the tour

2. regular updates

i notice the sites that are doing best for me don't have the extras like a "host" or massive plugins. the ones that do offer plugins make them definitely secondary. and important - if guys join your site to see big dick content, don't update with small dicks or lesbians - give them BIG DICKS. the same applies to all niches.

i think it comes down to this:
give your members plenty of what they joined for, and keep giving them more of it.

Regarding the big dick content, we have TONS of dvds in that niche in addition to the feeds, so they are just a supplement :) The surfers love download the high quality big cock movies we have.

DonPaul - it was only an example niche, but thanks for spamming it :(

besides, plugins don't work as well as content you host on your own site or at least that has your headers, footers and page color.

Oki I though you were referring to my post since you talked about the same niche and I said the only niche we used a plugin for was that niche..... I was NOT trying to get spammy there!

price doesnt matter as much as people think, I tried each price from $15 to $35 monthly and the highest price is working the best for me, not only the ratios arent much different to other prices, but most important the retention is higher. I dont say this is how it works, those are just my stats, based on thousands of sales.

For The Girls has a daily blog in which I post about sex news, what's new on the site, and sometimes I just talk about myself. It gives our site a more personal feel, I think, and lets the members know that the site isn't just a lonely smut edifice. They know who is running the place and they know we care about what we offer. I think it helps with retention.

Emmanuelle's post is actually spot on, I think. With so much free porn out there, you need to give the surfers something more than just content (although obviously regular updates and all those things are very important). They need to feel like a member of a community, and feel as though they're getting value for money. They have, after all, paid for something that they could possibly get for free elsewhere.

grandmascrotum - it is a great idea!

still, andrej's sites retain well without that. he simply gives them lots of content of good quality, always 100% on the nose as far as the niche, and very regular updates, plus access to ALL the sites if the members feel like wandering.

You make me proud to be an affiliate. |lovers|