Retention Strategy
Plan churn reduction, at-risk customer plays, and lifecycle retention programs when your solo SaaS or product is losing users after signup.
Overview
Retention Strategy is an agent skill most often used in Grow (also Validate pricing fit, Operate support signals) that structures churn reduction and lifecycle retention planning for solo-built products.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/kostja94/marketing-skills --skill retention-strategyWhat is this skill?
- Initial assessment covers churn type (voluntary vs involuntary), usage signals, and lifecycle stage
- Churn types table splits voluntary (60–80%) vs involuntary (20–40%) with common causes
- Reads project context from .claude/project-context.md or .cursor/project-context.md when present
- Pairs with growth-funnel for broader funnel work; defers lifecycle-heavy funnel mapping there
- Cites economics: acquiring customers costs 5–25× more than retaining existing ones
- Acquiring new customers costs 5–25× more than retaining existing customers
- A 5% retention improvement can increase profitability by 25–95%
- Voluntary churn typically represents 60–80% of churn; involuntary 20–40%
Adoption & trust: 786 installs on skills.sh; 586 GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You are acquiring users but cannot tell why they cancel, which cohorts are at risk, or what retention levers to pull first.
Who is it for?
Indie SaaS founders post-launch who need a structured retention and churn-prevention plan without a lifecycle marketing hire.
Skip if: Pre-launch ideas with no users yet—use validation and funnel skills until you have churn to analyze.
When should I use this skill?
User wants to reduce churn, improve customer retention, or plan lifecycle marketing; or mentions retention, churn, customer lifecycle, churn prevention, at-risk customers, or loyalty program.
What do I get? / Deliverables
You get a churn-type diagnosis, signal checklist, and retention program direction aligned to onboarding, expansion, or renewal stage.
- Churn type and stage assessment
- Signal and program recommendations for retention
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Retention and churn prevention are core Grow concerns once you have customers to keep, not just leads to acquire. Lifecycle marketing covers onboarding through renewal—the subphase where retention strategy frameworks apply first on the shelf.
Where it fits
Map onboarding drop-off and expansion triggers before renewal season.
Translate login and feature-usage signals into at-risk customer segments.
Test whether pricing objections dominate voluntary churn before rebuilding features.
How it compares
Use for retention and churn strategy; use growth-funnel when the primary ask is full-funnel lifecycle architecture.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is retention-strategy for?
Solo builders and small teams running subscription or recurring-revenue products who want agent-guided churn analysis and lifecycle retention plays.
When should I use retention-strategy?
In Grow (lifecycle and support) when reducing churn or planning loyalty programs; in Operate when support tickets signal relationship churn; in Validate when pricing drives voluntary cancel reasons.
Is retention-strategy safe to install?
Check this page’s Security Audits panel; the skill reads local project-context markdown and does not by itself send customer data externally.
Workflow Chain
Then invoke: growth funnel
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Retention Strategy
# Strategies: Retention Guides customer retention and churn prevention. Acquiring new customers costs 5–25× more than retaining; 5% retention improvement can increase profitability 25–95%. Use this skill when reducing churn, building retention programs, or identifying at-risk customers. **When invoking**: On **first use**, if helpful, open with 1–2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On **subsequent use** or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output. ## Initial Assessment **Check for project context first:** If `.claude/project-context.md` or `.cursor/project-context.md` exists, read Sections 4 (Audience), 9 (Documentation). Identify: 1. **Churn type**: Voluntary (active cancel) vs involuntary (payment failure) 2. **Signals**: Login frequency, feature usage, support tickets 3. **Stage**: Onboarding, expansion, renewal ## Churn Types | Type | Share | Causes | |------|-------|--------| | **Voluntary** | 60–80% | Pricing, missing features, poor onboarding, relationship | | **Involuntary** | 20–40% | Payment failures, expired cards, billing | **Predictability**: Most churn is predictable 30–90 days before cancellation via behavioral signals. ## Proactive vs Reactive | Approach | Conversion | |----------|------------| | **Reactive** (after cancel) | 15–20% | | **Proactive** (before decision) | 60–80% | Move from lagging indicator to early warning systems. ## Retention Strategies | Strategy | Use | |----------|-----| | **Health scoring** | Behavioral + transactional + relationship signals | | **Loyalty programs** | 5–15 percentage point retention lift | | **Segmentation** | Predictive modeling for at-risk | | **Onboarding** | Prevent low value realization early | | **Dunning** | Retry logic; pre-expiry card updates for involuntary | ## User Value & Feedback | Dimension | Use | |-----------|-----| | **Product value** | Registration; feature usage; payment | | **Marketing value** | Testimonials; customer stories; webinar guests; feedback, bug reports, feature requests | | **Feedback analysis** | Email, community, reviews—AI-assisted analysis; prioritize by impact; route to product vs ops | **Avoid**: Treating users only as MAU/registration denominators. See **creator-program** for creator ecosystem. ## Lifecycle Integration Retention occurs after conversion; ongoing investment in customer success, not isolated campaigns. Map touchpoints: onboarding → adoption → expansion → renewal. ## Output Format - **Churn analysis** (voluntary vs involuntary; signals) - **Retention tactics** (by stage) - **Health score** framework (if applicable) - **Intervention** playbook (at-risk triggers) ## Related Skills - **email-marketing**: Onboarding sequences; win-back campaigns - **pmf-strategy**: Retention as PMF signal; churn as anti-signal - **cold-start-strategy**: First users; differs from retention - **analytics-tracking**: Usage data; churn signals - **traffic-analysis**: Attribution; retention cohort analysis