This article is based on a presentation given by Resa at our Customer Success Festival in London 2023.

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I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur. In 2011, after the birth of my baby girl, I realized I would never sleep again. So, with all this extra time, I decided to start a business.

During this time, I learned two crucial aspects of running a business: acquiring customers and turning them into promoters. However, I soon realized I couldn't scale this business. As my daughter grew, so did my interest in business issues.

Fast forward to 2016, and I became a boy mom. With even less sleep, I decided to start a new business, this time aiming for more freedom. I looked at successful entrepreneurs and thought they had the best lives – working when they wanted and enjoying flexibility. So, I started an agency, hoping for more flexibility.

In this new business, I had to master customer acquisition again but also learn about customer retention. As I ran this business, I realized I was spending too much time with my customers, so I wrote one of the first books on implementing HubSpot. This way, clients who didn't want to hire my services could buy my book on Amazon instead of calling me in the middle of the night.

As I worked with numerous customers, both startups and scale-ups, I noticed a common problem: they struggled with retention strategies. Intrigued by HubSpot's concepts, I wanted to know more. 

So, instead of starting another business, I sold my agency and joined HubSpot. My goal was to help them scale their services to partners, focusing on customer retention strategies.

In this article, I'll share the key strategies, including:

  • Building effective acquisition funnels,
  • Customer retention strategies, and
  • Implementing measures of success

By mastering these areas, you'll be well on your way to achieving both acquisition and retention success. Let's dive in!

Why your customer retention strategy is dead – and how to fix it
In business, any key stakeholder wants consistency and positive outcomes. That’s why getting ahead of problems and fixing them before they manifest is a corporate superpower. And in a subscription business, retention is king.
Customer Success CollectiveGrace Gupta

Building effective acquisition funnels

Let's first look at building effective acquisition funnels. 

We know that the best companies at building acquisition strategies are B2C companies. Let's take our favorite frenemy, Amazon, as an example. We love them for their convenience, but we might hate them because we don’t own stock. However, let's focus on how Amazon gets us to purchase from them every single time, specifically through their product, Audible.

I don't know about you, but I love reading books. However, between my responsibilities with my four kids, I often don’t have the time to read a book at night. So, I choose to listen to books during my commute or while doing chores. This brings me to the question: why did I subscribe to Amazon Audible? What made me make that purchase?