Subscription POV
By Morten Suhr Hansen
At the beginning of 2023, just over a year ago, I set myself a new goal for the year: I wanted to finally learn to play a bit of guitar. As a young person, like so many others, I strummed away on an acoustic guitar, but now the time had come for an electric version with an amplifier and everything, so in many ways, I felt like I was starting all over again.
Therefore, I naturally also needed the right instructor. An instructor who takes into account where I start, and who can continuously adapt the teaching according to how quickly I develop.
I chose Yousician. A digital learning service and the world leader in music education. Founded in 2011 in Finland, it is also one of Scandinavia’s leading subscription companies with around 20 million subscribers worldwide.
A music teacher that meets me where I am
Yousician works quite simply by using the microphone on your phone or tablet to listen to how you play, continuously adapting the instruction to your level. It hears when you play incorrectly and asks you to try again, and it moves you forward when you master the piece of music. All of this is to help you achieve the goal you have set for yourself. In my case, I want to be able to play Clapton’s ‘Layla’ perfectly.
My digital teacher never tires of my repetitions and is fine whether I practice for half an hour a day or 10 minutes a week, although it nicely nudges me to practice just a little more.
Does that sound amazing? It’s certainly a fun experience, which I would encourage you to try. Right now, you can choose between piano, guitar, bass, and ukulele, or singing if you’re completely without instruments.
Hyper personalization creates brand-new experiences for users
What I am experiencing with Yousician is not just personalization, but ‘hyper-personalization’. I know this because my colleague, Niels Vestergaard, is the author of our latest quarterly report, ‘Hyper Personalization’, which has just been released.
We already know that traditional personalization is often the key to providing subscribers with a more engaging customer experience, and today, analyses show that 62% of customers across all industries expect some form of personalized experience from the companies they do business with.
Traditionel personalisering anvender historiske kundedata til at skabe en unik oplevelsen for den enkelte abonnent. Hyper personalisering tager det et skridt videre, for her anvendes redskaber som AI, predictive analysis og real-time data til at skræddersy den helt unikke oplevelse gennem hele abonnentrejsen.
Hyper personalization is relevant throughout the entire customer journey
Traditional personalization uses historical customer data to create a unique experience for each subscriber. Hyper-personalization takes it a step further, utilizing tools such as AI, predictive analysis, and real-time data to tailor a completely unique experience throughout the entire subscriber journey.
Hyper-personalization is indeed relevant throughout all stages of the customer journey and can be used to create a better experience and greater engagement for the subscriber, thereby yielding better results for the company.
In the report ‘Hyper Personalization’, Niels Vestergaard outlines three specific areas where hyper-personalization is relevant:
- Acquisition: In the sales process, where personalization can create higher conversion through personalized campaign initiatives.
- Retention: To increase retention, where a subscriber’s use of the product can be enhanced through personalized communication.
- Expansion: Utilizing knowledge about the individual subscriber to target campaigns and other initiatives that increase ‘share-of-wallet’.
There’s no doubt that personalization, and particularly hyper-personalization, will be one of the major themes in 2024 for subscription companies, both large and small. In fact, it might be the specific area where the rapid emergence of various AI tools will most visibly create value for both subscribers and the companies behind them.
I hope you will take this opportunity to delve into and evaluate whether you are truly offering your subscribers the personal experience through both product and communication that they both deserve and demand.
And you might be wondering: Did I achieve my goal of playing a flawless ‘Layla’? Not quite… but now it’s a new year with new goals. So I’m taking another year with string play.
