What is good retention?
Notes on customer retention, narrative-market fit, and brands as best friends
I share a weekly update on ways to be a better marketer, brand-maker, team-builder, and person. If you enjoy this, you can share some love by hitting the Substack heart button above or below.
Hi there 👋
This week, I found three articles I’m excited for you to see, and I’m happy to share an invitation to a webinar I’m hosting on Wednesday all about remote team management.
Wishing you a great week ahead.
~ Kevan
video of Earth’s 24-hour rotation, fixed to a single point
Benchmarks for good and great customer retention
by Lenny Rachitsky
Summary:
Based on insights from growth leaders as well as publicly available data, here are some retention benchmarks for various verticals:
GOOD and GREAT User Retention
Consumer Social: ~25% is good, ~45% is great
Consumer Transactional: ~30% is good, ~50% is great
Consumer SaaS: ~40% is good, ~70% is great
SMB / Mid-Market SaaS: ~60% is good, ~80% is great
Enterprise SaaS: ~70% is good, ~90% is great
The article goes into much greater detail on all five types of verticals, including specific examples of retention at Slack, Salesforce, Amazon Prime, and more. It’s well worth a read.
Narrative-market fit
by David Perrel
Summary:
Interesting to see concepts from tech (product / market fit) applied to journalism. I’d say that a lot of this article rings true for me, though I do think that journalists are aware of the “narrative vs. facts” temptation and many do a great job fighting the temptation to write for clicks.
The closer an article’s topic reflects the zeitgeist, the better narrative-market fit it has. Just as companies with product-market fit are more likely to be funded, stories with narrative-market fit are more likely to be written.
Gen Z: “Be a brand, not our best friend”
by The Ambassadors Company
Summary:
The Ambassadors Company regularly surveys Gen Z to understand what they value from brands. In their latest report, based on brands’ responses to covid, Gen Z had some pretty clear takeaways, including “Be a brand, not our best friend.”
The secrets of great remote marketing teams
by me :)
Summary:
I’ll be hosting a free webinar this Wednesday, June 17, at 12:00 pm Eastern / 9:00 am Pacific for CXL, talking about my lessons in managing remote teams over the past 10 years. The webinar is completely free, and if you’re interested in diving deeper, there will be a multi-hour video course that you can purchase through CXL, too.

Thanks so much for reading. Have a great week!
— Kevan
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