🗞 What's New: 8 effective user retention strategies

It's more cost-effective to keep an existing user than to acquire a new one:

• Every time a customer churns, it’s like a hole in the bucket. Dig into these 8 customer retention strategies below to seal the leak and keep your users around!
• How do you navigate your company through a major crisis? Check out what Super Bowl blackouts can teach founders about brand management, and how you can keep a cool head when things are chaotic.
• Founder Hailey Ellis-Kelley had a $30,000 exit from her digital course and membership community. Here, she shares how she prepared for the sale, and why she plans to always maintain a portfolio of 2-3 small companies going forward.

Want to share something with nearly 75,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

📝 Eight Customer Retention Strategies

by Bucky James

Customer churn can be a nightmare for founders. It’s a constant threat that can derail even the most successful companies.

Here are eight strategies to help increase your customer retention!

What is SaaS customer retention?

SaaS customer retention measures how long users stick around after signing up for your service.

It’s essential to track retention carefully, since it’s a key indicator of whether your service provides value to users. If people are signing up and quickly leaving, it’s a sign that something isn’t working.

There are a few different ways to measure retention. One of the most common is cohort retention, which looks at users who simultaneously sign up for your service.

You can also measure overall retention, which looks at all the users who have ever signed up for your service. This is useful for tracking long-term trends.

The impact of customer churn

Think of your SaaS revenue as a bucket. Every time a customer churns, it’s like a hole in the bucket. Recurring revenue leaks out, and you lose profitability over time. While acquiring new customers can help you fill the bucket, customer retention is equally essential for plugging the leaky holes. In fact, it’s much more cost-effective to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one.

You need to ensure that your customers stick around long enough to become profitable! You want them engaged with your product to the point where it becomes an essential part of their lives.

Eight customer retention strategies

1. Set clear expectations:

One of the main reasons users churn is that their expectations are unmet. Be very clear in your messaging about adding value to your users. Tell them exactly what they will get when they sign up. Slightly underpromise on the perceived value added, then overdeliver. This will delight your users.

2. Deliver the “A-ha!” moment:

The first step to retaining long-term customers is to ensure a smooth onboarding process. As soon as a customer signs up, your goal should be to capture their attention, and deliver value without any glitches. To achieve this, you can send out instructional content to familiarize users with the service and its features. If your service is complex, offering free training to users can be helpful.

Your ultimate goal should be to guide the user toward the “A-ha!” moment, where they realize the value that your service adds to their life. Optimizing your onboarding process can create a lasting impression on your customers, and build a strong foundation for your long-term customer retention strategy.

3. Highlight your value proposition:

Your value proposition is what sets your product apart from others. Having a clear, concise value proposition is crucial. It helps you quickly highlight the concrete results that users can expect.

Make sure to remind users about your value proposition regularly. Show them what they’re gaining by using your product.

4. Upsell:

Upselling is one of the best SaaS retention strategies. It not only generates more revenue for your business, but it also deepens your relationship with the customer. Long-term customers who see the value in your service are likely to spend more on additional features or services.

By upselling, you can tackle multiple pain points for the user, making them more committed to your service. You can also offer customized deals to long-term customers, further strengthening your relationship.

5. Send personalized tips to boost engagement:

Sending personalized, targeted tips to your customers can help them get the most out of your product. For instance, you can set up automated emails triggered when users complete specific actions, such as designing a sales page. Congratulate them on their achievement, and offer tips on optimizing their page.

You can increase engagement and make them stay longer by providing useful information that adds value to their efforts.

6. Maintain regular interaction with your customers:

Regular interaction with your customers is vital for building lasting relationships. It’s not enough to send content-heavy emails; you need to reach out to them more personally.

Reach out occasionally to say hi, or to ask how they’re doing with the product. This shows that you care about their success, and are committed to helping them achieve their goals.

7. Continuously improve your product:

Your product or service must be continuously improving to meet the changing needs of your customers. Invite constructive feedback on your product, and use it to guide upgrades and release new versions. Doing so demonstrates that you’re committed to helping your customers achieve their objectives.

8. The importance of over-the-top customer support:

While a user may tolerate a bug in the UI if their problem is solved quickly, a poor customer support experience can drive them away. According to a survey, 67% of users cite a terrible customer service experience as the primary reason for churn. Therefore, it is crucial to provide excellent customer support to keep your users happy and loyal.

Invest heavily in great customer support. Respond to inquiries and concerns promptly and courteously, and go above and beyond to solve problems.

Regularly communicate with your customers, letting them know about new features, special offers, and other news. Constantly innovate, and remind them that you are always working to improve your products and services.

Check out more SaaS retention strategies here!

Will you implement any of these strategies? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

🌤 Bluesky is Mastodon's newest competitor.

💻 Google Ads API version 13.1 is now available.

🛍 TikTok has invited select retailers to its expanded TikTok Shop push.

📹 LinkedIn has launched a new video series, as it expands its focus on original content.

🌏 Here are the top 10 global social media trends of 2023 so far.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

🏈 Super Bowl Blackouts and Brand Management

from the Hustle Newsletter by Susie Ippolito

The title "What to do When Things go Wrong" sounds like a pessimist wrote it, but Frank Supovitz is far from pessimistic.

Frank, who leads massive sports brands through literal and figurative storms, is more of a practical, well-informed optimist.

We could impress you with the long list of titles Frank has had with brands like the NHL, NFL, and Radio City Music Hall, but instead, let's look at the epic crises he has faced:

• 1993 National Hockey League All-Star Weekend: The Stanley Cup dropped on the ice. On its 100th birthday. In Montreal.
• 2011 Super Bowl: A snowstorm hit Arlington, Texas. Enough said.
• 2012 Super Bowl: The lights went out on one of the world's biggest sporting events.

*The San Francisco 49ers stand on the field after a sudden power outage in the second half during Super Bowl XLVII. Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images.

According to Frank, when building a business or executing a project:

• Everything comes down to project management.
• Success depends on the details.
• Communication is always the top priority.

So, let's dive into four ways that Frank navigates the storms!

Cool confidence comes from meticulous planning

It's complicated to pull off the world's largest sporting events.

You're dealing with a web of information, priorities, and to-do lists, not to mention the consumer experience. If things go left, your team needs to know exactly what to focus on.

When the lights went out at the 2012 Super Bowl, Frank's team knew that the primary concern was the safety of everyone involved. Everything else came second.

To clarify, "everything else" includes:

• Devastated advertisers losing millions of dollars.
• A black eye on one of the world's most respected brands.
• Pretty much everyone losing their jobs.

It's any brand's worst nightmare. And yet, the control room was the pinnacle of emotional restraint, calmly working through the outlined emergency procedures.

Cool confidence like that stems from excruciatingly careful planning, relentless questioning, and endless iterating.

Invert the pyramid

Frank flips the traditional leadership pyramid on its head to show brands how their leadership model impacts the consumer.

*Source: What to Do When Things Go Wrong

The service team has the most direct contact with customers in the organization. How well they perform their jobs, and how they engage with consumers, impacts how your audience receives your brand's message.

Yet, they're often the lowest-paid employees. Yikes.

Empower your service team with education, information, and efficient means of communication to best deliver a positive customer experience.

Communicate efficiently and frequently

As Frank puts it: "Communicate or die."

Sometimes, an ineffective plan is responsible for the catastrophe. Sometimes, a major force wreaks havoc. But one thing will always make a bad situation worse: Unclear or inefficient communication.

When 125 people showed up at the Super Bowl with counterfeit tickets (yes, that really happened), Frank's "communicate or die" mantra kicked in.

Communication flowed freely from the control booth to the ticket taker. While the frontline employees bore the brunt of the customer dissatisfaction, they maintained composure because they had direct communication with the control room.

If the frontline were cut off from the control room, as so often happens in large companies, this would have been a much different situation.

Communication is key. Document the key players in your business, and know how to reach them.

Details are like dominoes

Some business decisions are simple, like when Frank quickly dismissed a Richard Branson impersonator trying to scam Super Bowl tickets. That was a no-brainer.

But many business decisions are complex, involve multiple details, and cost you money.

Details are like dominos: The outcome of each detail depends on the one before it, and the one after. Your business decisions are only as strong as their weakest detail.

Remember that, ultimately, your job as a brand is to make the journey worthwhile for your customer.

Pay attention to details and their implications, and plan things as thoroughly as possible. Then, leave it all on the field.

If things go wrong, you'll have Frank Supovitz-level confidence to deal with any catastrophe that comes your way!

Have you dealt with a major crisis in your business? Share below!

Subscribe to the Hustle Newsletter for more.

🧠 Harry's Growth Tip

from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry

An honest line always feels warmer.

Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.

💰 Hailey Ellis-Kelley's $30K Exit

by Hailey Ellis-Kelley

Hi, indie hackers! I'm Hailey Ellis-Kelley, and I'm sharing one of my proudest business moments to kick off my very first Indie Hackers post!

About this time last spring, I sold my majority ownership in one of my digital assets, a digital course and membership community, to my smart, funny, cool partner for $30K. The price breakdown was $25K for the asset itself, and $5K to coach her through the first 90 days of the transition.

Read on for more!

The assets

The course and membership community were about two-and-a-half years old, and had been averaging about $65K ARR. The company had pretty solid profitability for as small as it was. We were originally a partnership of three, but one asked to be bought out last year. I snapped up her ownership shares (about $12K at the time) so I could get a bigger payout when I was ready to walk away.

I'd built another digital course back in 2018, but I didn't do much work to validate, sell, or iterate on it. Despite that, I ended up selling that one too, although for much less!

The journey

This time around, my cofounders and I worked through so much. We learned a lot about building an asset with the intent to scale to six figures. Finding a fit in the market was rough, and it took us at least two intensive iterations. We also struggled with building such a small asset with so many cooks in the kitchen, because we had different visions for what this could be.

That said, we actually accomplished a great deal: $100K and over 200 students served in the first 12 months! I learned so much about pricing, and preparing and positioning a business for both scaling and sale.

Prepping for sale

Before I sold my ownership, we had already begun shopping the asset around on popular business marketplaces (loved Flippa!). We had several conversations, but weren't excited about any of them at first. This part could be a whole post in and of itself!

However, I got a lot out of having these conversations and prepping for sale. It's fascinating pulling information together, including:

• Historical sales breakdowns.
• Detailing the assets for sale: Not just the course, but the email list, the website, domains, and loads of content.
• Operational history.
• The product suite, tech stack, and vendors.
• The patterns of our buyers.
• Short- and long-term opportunities that we saw.

It was also a learning experience because we had to field questions about our decisions, and learn what buyers were looking for in an asset.

The reflections

Over about 24 months, this asset paid me $45K for about 15 hours a month maximum, alongside my income from my main coaching business. It was a solid stream of supplemental income for me!

I'm sharing this mainly to celebrate! But I'm also sharing it to normalize, not just ending projects, but being able to sell them when it's time to move on.

This was one of the first times that I rode this investment vehicle to a single payout this large. Even small exits (I'm considering anything under $100K "small") are valuable for learning and producing income. People want to buy them, and I plan on prioritizing my plans for building accordingly.

Part of my vision involves maintaining a small portfolio of two to three businesses, and selling them when I want (or need) to. The very first asset that I sold in 2019 was for $5K, now I'm at $30K with this one. Can't wait to see what the next sale will be!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Bucky James, Darko, Susie Ippolito, Harry Dry, and Hailey Ellis-Kelley for contributing posts. —Channing