Case Study: U.S. Publisher boosts digital renewal revenue with Mather Economics

U.S. Publisher - Customer Case Study

Mather Economics worked with U.S. Publisher, a large metro newspaper, to identify the revenue-maximizing pricing action for its digital-only subscribers. The publisher needed a clearer way to evaluate which renewal price would improve revenue without causing unacceptable subscriber loss.

Mather Economics prepared a stratified random sample of 2,000 digital-only subscribers and tested four weekly renewal prices: $3.99 as the control, plus $4.99, $5.99, and $6.93. The most aggressive increase produced an incremental $16 million in 3-year revenue versus the control, and Mather Economics found that the $6.93 group had the lowest price elasticity at -0.05, compared with -0.09 and -0.21 for the $5.99 and $4.99 groups, respectively.