It's that time of year, where we all remember that it's better to give than to receive - though for that to be true, there have to be people to receive.
So, in that spirit, we'll be announcing a bunch of new features over the next week or two.
And this first new feature is one we are giving you so you can keep receiving.
It's called the Failed Payment Retention Flow, which helps Ghost publishers keep their paying subscribers paying.
This feature is included as a new base feature for all levels of Outpost subscribers, Space Station up to Luna.
What it does: when one of your paying subscriber's subscription renewal payment fails because of a expired or credit card, Outpost kicks off a special email flow for them, gently reminding them to update their payment method.
In the meantime, their paid privileges are extended on the site. By default, we send 5 emails (with some nice pre-written copy) over 7 days.
We accidentally launched this for most Outpost subscribers a few weeks ago, and boy, does it work well. We're seeing lots of people who just didn't even know that their payment failed, re-upping their subscriptions by updating their credit cards.
That's important because reducing churn (e.g. the percentage of paying subscribers that renew) low is key to building your business. You want to get and keep subscribers.
We also tell you in your daily report when there's been a successful conversion, how many of these emails go out daily, and conversion rates.
When the flow doesn't work, we'll tell you who didn't update their payment details.
We also label those members who didn't end up adding a new payment method with the user label: FormerPaidSubscriber. You can use that in Ghost to send out targeted return offers.
You can read more about the Failed Payment Retention Flow in the FAQ or jump right into the documentation.
FYI #2, we built a whole new Autoresponder flow UI for this, so it lives somewhat separately from your usual Autoresponder. It's in your Outpost Control Center, under the Autoresponder tab in retention flow (not basic).
We hope you like the first present, and there's lots more to come.
FYI #3, these GIFs are from Scrooged, which is arguably the best Christmas movie ever, except for possibly It's a Wonderful Life.
As always, if you have questions, comments or just want to argue about best Christmas movies, just reply to this email, and we'll route you to the correct Christmas Ghost for you.
