How to Compete with other subscription-based Services? e.g. Netflix, Disney etc.

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CX Centric leads international interactive discussions centered around Business Growth through Customer Experience. These are known as CX Centric Conversations. Recently we led a discussion focused on the Media industry. This involved leaders from The Economist as well as The New York Times. The discussion involved deliberating on the opportunities and threats that media companies are bound to encounter in competing with other companies in subscription-based services. At the end of the discussion, we came up with pragmatic recommendations which media companies can tap into.

What do we mean by How to Compete with other subscription-based services?

In this discussion, we started off by explaining in simpler terms what this discussion question really entails. The discussion question was further simplified to “How do you compete with the overall subscription basket in media i.e. grab a piece of the share? e.g. if a household has $100 to spend on subscriptions, how as a media company do you get a piece of that to spend?”

Opportunities for Media Companies in competing for subscription-based services

• Strategic Partnerships - e.g. Create a wallet subscription for customers and split the money on negotiation with other news providers

• Marketing Research to help in further improving your subscription services - e.g. Looking at the journey of customers and where they sit with regards to the need of your product/service

• Create small bite-sized content - Create content that makes it convenient for customers to go through (e.g. focus on ‘on the go’ news)

Threats for Media Companies in competing for subscription-based services

• Copyright issues - Companies need to be aware of their business identity and also of third-party copyrights

• Fake news - Customers are finding it difficult to filter between real and fake news.

• Licensing requirements - Licencing requirements differ when it comes to media making it difficult for many Media Companies to meet the licensing requirements

• Concern relating to data privacy - Sometimes readers are restricted from accessing certain important information because of data privacy

It is worth mentioning that, of the opportunities that the group came out with, they were also included as part of the recommendations which media companies can use in competing with other subscription-based services.

Recommendations to Media Companies to help compete effectively for subscription-based services

• More flexible (e.g. Changing the subscription offerings at any given time so as to meet the customer preferences)

• Offering personalized content (e.g. let people create their own experiences)

• Make use of podcasts for customers to subscribe to

• Tap into social media platforms e.g. Instagram to increase the company’s reach to potential customers

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We regularly host #cxcentricconversations. These are global interactive discussions centered around the Customer Experience. Feel free to keep up to date here.

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