Optimal Marketing Strategies for the Acquisition and Retention of Service Subscribers

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a diffusion model for a subscription service. The evolution over time of the number of subscribers is governed by a differential equation combining two processes—namely, a customer acquisition process and a customer attrition process. Assuming profit-maximization behavior of the firm, we use dynamic programming to optimize the customer equity and determine optimal customer relationship marketing expenditures. We implement an augmented Kalman filter with continuous state and discrete observations to estimate the model’s parameters using market data of two well-known companies in the telecommunications sector. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to model acquisition and retention efforts in the context of a diffusion model. By doing so, we extend the literature on product diffusion to services—that is, beyond its traditional area of durable (and occasionally nondurable) products. By the same token, we contribute to the literature on customer relationship marketing (CRM), where social interactions have been overlooked. Our analytical and numerical results provide a better understanding of the relationships among the optimal customer equity, the customer lifetime value, the prospect lifetime value, and the optimal acquisition and retention spending. Our model and estimation approach give the tools for assessing empirically the role of CRM spending, social interactions, and other factors in the service subscription dynamics. Our main empirical results are as follows: (i) CRM spending and external incentives have indeed a significant effect on acquisition and retention processes; (ii) the impact of CRM is market specific; (iii) compared with optimal levels, both firms underinvest in retention; and (iv) whereas we observe increasing spending in acquisition over time, the derived optimal policy recommends a decreasing level of spending over time. This paper was accepted by Eric Anderson, marketing.