Digiday+ Research: Publishers go simple for holiday subscription discounts this year

Only one respondent to Digiday’s survey out of 44 publishers who make money from subscriptions said the holiday season is the only time they offer subscription discounts, down from 9% of respondents to last year’s survey. But 21% said this year they’ll offer deeper discounts during the holidays compared with the rest of the year, which is also down from last year, when 32% of publishers said they offer deeper holiday discounts.

Overall, publishers don’t plan to get too fancy when it comes to their holiday subscription discounts. Sixty-one percent of publishers who sell subscriptions plan to offer simple percentage discounts during the holidays, Digiday’s survey found. In fact, publishers will focus mostly on percentage discounts this year, compared with last year when their approach to holiday subscription discounts was more diversified.

The percentage of publishers who said they’ll offer percentage discounts on subscriptions this holiday season hasn’t changed too much from last year (61% this year compared with 67% last year). But gift subscriptions and buy-one-get-one promotions have both seen a big drop-off from last year.

This year, about a third of respondents to Digiday’s survey (37%) said they will offer gift subscriptions, compared with half last year. And the percentage of publishers who plan to offer buy-one-get-one promotions has fallen from 26% last year to just 2% this year.

A handful of respondents to Digiday’s survey also revealed some additional holiday discounting tactics they plan to employ this year. Holiday-specific subscription discounts will also come in the form of referral discounts, limited special offers, trial periods and an additional free month for some publishers this year.