Game Changers Recap: Three takeaways from Emilia Korczynska, Head of Marketing at UserPilot
Net Revenue Retention
Widely regarded by business leaders as a key indicator of the health of a business, Net Revenue Retention is the measure of the money a business makes from its existing customer base. This is comprised of service renewals, feature upgrades and system expansions.
Emilia views the marketing activities contributing to NRR as a low-cost way to drive steady business growth, but warns that churn – customers choosing to stop using your product – is the largest obstacle in the process. “If your customers are churning, you’re not engaging them enough and you can’t upsell them to generate more revenue.”
The conversation expanded into how Emilia leverages existing customers to drive growth and lower customer acquisition costs.
Where Churn Prevention Belongs in the Customer Journey
Most companies focus on churn prevention at the end of the customer journey: during renewal periods or when the customer is choosing to cancel their services. Emilia’s take? That’s too late. “Churn prevention begins in the sign-up flow.”
Emilia reduces the risk of customer churn by designing the user onboarding process to deliver immediate value to the user. She segments her users at the time of sign-up to receive a personalized onboarding program focused on the shortest path to value. In other words, the customer is trained to use the product in the exact way necessary to solve their immediate need before learning about additional features.
“Once they experience value,” Emilia explains, “then you can start continuous onboarding where you unlock more value aligned with their initial goal.”
This process of delivering immediate value ensures that the customer views the product as an essential tool to their success, increasing stickiness and ensuring both long-term ROI for the customer and better NRR for the company.
Emilia also shared insights of how she segments users over the course of the entire customer journey, and how she pinpoints user behavior indicating impending churn.
Promotional Sales in SaaS
Emilia minced no words on her opinion about promotions in SaaS: discounts attract the wrong type of user and promotions should be based on driving the value of the product rather than reducing the price.
Sales driven by service discounts creates a false sense of urgency and forces the customer to rush into a decision to grab a bargain. This results in a price-sensitive customer base rather than one focused on the value of the product.
Emilia shared some examples of value-based promotions:
- Offer a higher-level plan for the price of the lower-level plan
- Discount extra user licenses so more members of the team can engage with the product
- Improve the service level for a certain plan without changing the price
- Increase value by providing a special bundled price with another product or company
“Offering discounts won’t save you from churn,” Emilia warns. “If the value isn’t there, they won’t use it. If they’re not using it at a cost, they won’t use it for free, either.”