Written by Benedicte Larsen

Rapha and Harley-Davidson. Two companies – each from different eras of time and industries. However, they still have something very special in common. Both companies have managed to create a club (or community) of dedicated and loyal members, who pay a relatively high annual fee to become a part of these communities. Creating a community with a membership-fee is an interesting and different way of thinking ’The Network Model’, which is one of the nine subscription models, we work with at Subscrybe. In this subscription model, the value increases as the number of members increase. You can compare this to LinkedIn, who also use ’The Network Model’ – it’s no fun to be on this platform, if there were no other members using it, right?

In the following article, we dive into exactly what these companies have done to create their communities, focusing on one of the latest and most hyped communities, Rapha Cycling Club.

Written by Benedicte Lykke Larsen

At Subscrybe, we have seen how the subscription revolution has become a megatrend. You can subscribe to beauty and health products e.g. from Matas and Goodiebox, binge-worthy series from TV 2 Play and Netflix, and even to mobility provided by the likes of Swapfiets and Dribe. In addition, the subscription-based model is propagating in the retail industry. In our new strategy report – SUBSCRIPTION RETAIL – we focus on just that.

Written by Morten Suhr Hansen

According to news agency Reuters, three of the world’s largest consumer and food companies, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and Nestlé, are increasingly developing new, innovative and customer-oriented subscription solutions. Reuters list a number of the latest initiatives from the three giants.

The Swiss food company, Nestlé, has already launched their subscription business in several countries around the world, where customers subscribe to Nespresso capsules. For instance, in England, private households receive their coffee capsules on a regular basis.

Written by Benedicte Lykke Larsen

Millennials (born 1980-1995) are a generation of consumers that think and act in a considerably different manner than previous generations. They have extremely high demands for the companies they engage with. Interestingly, decision-makers in most of companies are often at least a generation older than Millennials, which can be rather problematic. Why? Because it can be hard to understand exactly what goes on in the minds of these young consumers and, therefore, hard to develop products and services, which relates to their wants and needs them. 

Written by Tine Møller

Even though ’subscriptions’ are a very hot topic at the moment, the concept has previously suffered under strong associations with old-school newspaper subscriptions, insisting phoners, and long binding periods. However, that time is (fortunately) over, thanks to some of today’s most successful brands. 

In their annual report Best Global Brand (2018), Interbrand states that the brand value of the subscription services amounts to 29% out of the total value of the world’s 100 biggest brands – compared to 18% in 2009. 

Written by Morten Suhr Hansen

In the recent few months, I have been cruising around in a brand-new Peugeot 308. I picked up the car at the local car dealership in March last year, because my wants and needs changed. In June, after using the Peugeot 308 for approximately three months, I returned it without any hassle or problems. The car was neither purchased or leased. It was a subscription car from the Danish company, bilabonnement.dk. Bilabonnement.dk (which means carsubscription.dk) offers its customers the opportunity to subscribe to a car and get it delivered without any down payment. In addition, customers are able to unsubscribe at a month’s notice, after the first couple of months. 

Written by Morten Suhr Hansen

New York Times will soon be reaching 3 million digital subscribers. Perhaps the company has already reached this milestone because at the end of the 3^rdquarter of 2018, the newspaper announced that they it reached 2.9 million subscribers. In recent years, New York Times has reported growth quarter by quarter, year after year. As such, it is one of the greatest success stories of the newspaper industry in regard to digital transformation. So, let’s take a look behind the company’s great success and dig deeper into some of the reasons why it has succeeded. 

New York Times’ digital transformation was initiated back in 2011 when the newspaper launched its first paywall on nytimes.com and, thus, began selling digital subscriptions.

Written by Peter Jakobsen

Increasing the number of subscribers is an essential part of running a subscription business. As sales increase, sales costs also tend to become sky-high. Therefore, it can become necessary to find alternatives to classic sales activities.

In the media industry, it has been the publishers’ sales strategy, for decades, to contact former customers in order to “win” them back. This activity is called a win-back activity or strategy.

In fact, about 60% of the retraction of customers is due to win-back, which means that the industry (hypothetically) would be dying, if it wasn’t for the win-back activities.

Read more Guide: How to get started with your customer win-back strategy

Written by Morten Suhr Hansen

In 1998, Reed Hastings, a former math professor and successful entrepreneur, launched a brand-new company that quivered and completely turned the entire movie and television industry upside down, also affecting many other industries. Netflix was its name. A company that, from day one, was based on a subscription model. During the next 20 years, the company became an industry-giant with more than 130 million subscribers and currently has a market value of more than 150 billion dollars.

Almost simultaneously, two Danish entrepreneurs, Thomas Harttung and Søren Ejlersen, established a company named Aarstiderne (English: The Seasons), which also was subscription-based from the beginning.
Read more New book aims to help companies in the Subscription Economy

Written by Morten Suhr Hansen

Moviepass is to cinemas what Netflix is to television. An all-you-can-eat subscription service, which lets subscribers go to the cinema as frequently as they like, for a fixed monthly fee. This concept has been a huge success for Moviepass. So much that the Moviepass subscription service is now claimed to be the fastest growing subscription service of all time.

During the subscription conference ‘Subscribed 2018’ in San Francisco, Mitch Lowe, the founder of Moviepass, was invited to tell the story about the fastest growing subscription service in media and entertainment.

Read more Behind Moviepass: The fastest growing subscription service of all time