Using churn data to rebuild messaging and win back lost subscribers
Project Overview
We were losing monthly supporters faster than we wanted to admit. Instead of guessing why, we ran a survey to find out what people actually valued. The answers reshaped how we talked about the product, what we offered, and how we brought churned subscribers back, and new subscribers in. That one survey led to a repositioned platform, a new lead magnet, and a targeted win-back campaign.
We had no clear picture of what people actually came for in the first place. Without that, every fix was a guess. We needed to hear directly from the people who had supported us and the people who had left.
Two patterns came through clearly. First, people supported because they wanted to learn rich theology. Second, they believed in the mission. They wanted to be part of something bigger than a subscription.
This changed everything. We had been leading with features like bold Christian media. But supporters cared more growing in their faith and being part of the Great Commission.
Once we understood why people joined, we could build around it.
We had recently acquired a library of seminary-level content called Bahnsen U. Instead of treating it as bonus material, we made it a free lead magnet centerpiece.
We rebuilt the LMS on WordPress so the content could be organized, searched, and filtered in ways that matched how students think.
We reframed the homepage and sales page around the benefit of answering the most important questions of the Christian faith rather than the feature of “hard hitting Christian media”
We then built email campaigns for two segments.
For churned subscribers, we sent personal emails from leadership thanking them for past support and inviting them to come back at a grandfathered price before the new pricing kicked in.
For free subscribers and the public, we used YouTube descriptions to drive signups for a free account, then followed up with a 3 email automation sequence explaining the new platform, the Bahnsen U content, and the limited-time pricing.
The Results
The Results
The survey and the work that followed delivered real numbers. We added over $70k in ARR through reactivated subscribers and new conversions. Free subscribers grew by 451 percent, driven largely by the repositioned Bahnsen U lead magnet. Monthly subscriber revenue grew by 32 percent. The win-back emails brought churned supporters back at a rate we had not seen before. And the new messaging gave us a foundation we could keep building on.
