Subscription prices increasing after renewal deadline

Hi David,

All in all it went well, overall, I’d say it was a success.  We sent a reminder postcard and deployed a robo call to unrenewed subscribers prior to the deadline reminding them that the “additional renewal discount” would expire after the deadline.   We allowed a buffer of about 3-4 days after the deadline and then I cancelled all unpaid seats and rerolled them at the new price types (original map + the layered incremental map with the increase).  We offer some discounted subscriptions for employees of sponsors, etc., and these  discounts also expired at the deadline and so their prices were increased as well. 

I roll everyone over using lists, anyway, so I deleted those in the list who had already renewed before I rerolled to avoid problems with duplicate, unseated orders.  There were a handful of problems with people who had orders with an order date but no payment who were cancelled and NOT re-rolled because the lists I ran for already renewed subscribers included these accounts because of the order date.  I realize now that I can easily identify those accounts in the seat cancellation log to re-roll them, too. 

At that point, we sent out “final notice” renewal forms with the higher prices on them. For the most part, patrons were accepting of the higher price and took responsibility for missing the deadline.  We made some exceptions as necessary for the handful of people who were out of town and missed the original form/postcard/robo call.

We found that it drove a larger percentage of patrons to renew by the deadline. We’re still collecting data, but I think it’s safe to say that we turned over fewer renewal leads to Telemarketing and overall our renewal rates are up over this time last year.  As of now, we’ve brought in an additional $8,600 in incremental income from the price increase and I am only able to report on incremental income from orders that are seated so that figure will increase after we complete the seating process for subscribers with an upgrade request.  When combined with the amount we saved (still TBD) in Telemarketing costs and the benefit of having the money in the bank sooner,  I’d say it was well worth the effort it took to pull it off.

Let me know if I can provide any other information that might be helpful.

Best,

Amy

Amy,

How did this work for you? We're new to the RMA and Pricing Institute and looking at different ideas as we gear up for the 13-14 season ourselves. Curious to hear any feedback from subscribers and successes or failures with this approach.

Thanks,

David