Churn is the percentage of subscriber base that must be replaced on an annual basis to maintain the same level of home delivery circulation. The formula for computing churn is the total annual permanent stops divided by the average annual home delivery circulation:
stops ÷ circulation
When studying churn, subscribers can be broken down into core (subscribed for at least 12 months consecutively) and marginal (subscribed for less than 12 months consecutively). Typically, churn will be greater among marginal subscribers.
Another component of churn has to do with the reason for the stop. Some stops are controllable—they result from poor service, price, and other controllable factors. Others are natural, resulting from difficult economic conditions, people moving away from the area, and so on. While the strategies of the newspaper can impact controllable churn, there is little that can be done about natural churn.
Note: If a subscription stops permanently but starts again within 30 days, that stop/start will not be included in churn calculations.
Circulation keeps churn history files. These files can be updated on a monthly or weekly basis (as defined in Business Rules) as part of End Publ Run.
The Churn Analysis Report lists the percentage of annual churn for core subscribers and marginal subscribers.
The Churn Summary Report lists natural and controllable churn percentages for both core and marginal subscribers. This report is valuable management tool for implementing appropriate strategies to deal with churn. For example, high controllable core churn may represent poor service, and you might develop ways to deal with that churn, such as customer service training, etc.
The Controllable Churn report lists controllable churn by permanent stop reason code for both core and marginal subscribers. This report provides a snapshot view of the controllable reasons why subscribers permanently stop the paper.
Notes:
Business Rules determine the day of the week on which churn is updated (if at all), and whether churn is updated weekly or monthly.
Stop reasons are set up as either controllable or natural. See Reason in the Setup Manual for more information
The End Publ Run option will take approximately 10-15 minutes more to run on days when Churn History updating (as determined by Business Rules) is done.
Mail subscribers are not included in the churn reporting.
The churn information in the reports will reflect the churn history as of the latest update.
Subscription demographics can be updated while generating the churn reports.
Select the report from the Churn menu.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
PRODUCT
setup
Enter the ID of the product for which to calculate churn.
RUN DATE
date
Enter the date for which to process annual churn. For example, enter “03/01/10” to calculate churn for the date range 03/01/09 through 02/28/10.
REPORT TYPE
predefined
Indicate whether the report should be for Print, Digital, or Both.
Include Mail
yes/no
Indicate whether the report should include Mail.
DELIVERY SCHEDULE
setup
Enter the delivery schedule for which to calculate churn (enter “*” to multi-select delivery schedules).
UPDATE DEMOGRAPHICS
yes/no
Subscription demographics can be updated when running the churn reports. In this field, identify whether you want to update subscription demographics.
DEMOGRAPHIC
setup
Select the demographic to be updated.
CORE ANSWER
setup
Select the demographic answer to be created for core subscribers.
MARGINAL ANSWER
setup
Select the demographic answer to be created for marginal subscribers.
Click OK and then Continue to produce the report.
