I'm in the test prep industry, where customers only stay active for 2-6 months (3 is typical).
This radically changes LTV, as we don't have multi-year timeframes. We currently sell a course as a one-off purchase. We could move to a monthly model, but there are fairly fixed licensing costs.
How would you increase LTV in an industry with quick turnover?
Definitely a shorter time frame changes things. Trying to lengthen the time your customers stay with you sounds pretty irrelevant in your case (without knowing the ins and outs of your business).
Do you sell just the one course?
Some of these tactics could help you up-sell them on other offerings of yours.
That's a great idea. Word of mouth is important, and forum posts are especially important. The general customer cycle is often:
User remembers hearing about Kaplan/princeton review --> Discovers Kaplan/princeton review sucks --> Discovers test prep forum --> Tries whatever is mentioned there
So we can ask for forum posts sometime after completion.
Not exactly like this, but one of the challenges that I had with A/B testing at Pictage was trying to account for the value that was generated through referrals. Maybe a bridesmaid would see a picture, and the mother-in-law would buy.
So certainly part of the value of a customer is the value of the referrals that they generate.
This radically changes LTV, as we don't have multi-year timeframes. We currently sell a course as a one-off purchase. We could move to a monthly model, but there are fairly fixed licensing costs.
How would you increase LTV in an industry with quick turnover?