They also say that “only about half of [organizations] consider their value proposition to be very compelling or compelling (48%). On the other hand, 42% find their organization’s value proposition to be only somewhat compelling.

SIIA member Piano came up in the SIPA Discussion Forum today. Coincidentally, their director of research, Patrick Appel, just put out some interesting information on subscriptions and renewals at a Readers First Meetup sponsored by the International News Media Association.

Are we encouraging innovation enough?

When I think of the places I renew my subscriptions or memberships for—theaters, magazines, AAA (a SIPA member!), Baseball Digest, the DC Film Society—it's mostly either for the emotional connections, the advantages I get, or a good outcome from the past year.

I recently went pretty far in the furniture store West Elm's online buying process for a coffee table. At the end, the store closest to me didn't have it in stock so I abandoned ship. I also wasn't sure if I could get it all assembled or had to do it myself.

"You have to be proactive and anticipate what a client wants even before they know they want it," Kristina Dorsey, client director at CQ Roll Call, told us at a Customer Onboarding and Retention event earlier this year. "It's about making sure that our clients are educated on our value proposition, and know that we're the only one doing this—legislative tracking, advocacy, and news and analysis—as well as keeping up with what's going on with the market."

Jim Sinkinson of Fired Up! Marketing led a roundtable at the recent SIPA Annual 2017 Conference in Washington, D.C. focusing on Renewal and Retention Strategies. Here are his five major tips: Improve Content Value. The most direct way to improve content value is to make your content specifically about reader needs—problems and opportunities. Make your content not just about things—news, industry analysis or data—but about helping readers solve problems and realize aspirations. Transform your service into a consultancy focused on customer needs. Your renewal rate is a function not of how much your customers learn from your content, but how much they use your content to become more successful. Promote Customer Usage of Content. Even if your content is spot on—of sterling quality and obsessively focused on the right things—many (probably most) of your customers will not read every article or even every issue. What if more than half your customers ...

More than once—in an actionable-idea-filled session last month at SIPA's Customer Onboarding and Retention event in Washington, D.C.— Kristina Dorsey, manager of client success for CQ Roll Call, talked about the importance of teaching.

"You can't be all things to everyone, so determine what people find most valuable and your key areas of strength and put your biggest efforts into these things."