The Hockey News is reporting some exciting success stories. Pat Strangis, Director Newsstand Marketing, TVA Group, was kind enough to share the good news with CoversSell.Com.
What the Hockey News has been testing is the idea of making more of their regularly scheduled issues look like SIP’s, both by beefing up vertical content in these issues, designing the covers to look more like SIPs, and by raising the cover price. The strategy appears to be working!
Example #1:
The 2014 Season Preview issue (on sale Sep 15th 2014) sold 9,540 copies, compared to The 2013 Season Preview issue (on sale Sep 16th 2013) which sold 8,163 copies. That’s a positive variance of 1,377 copies or a 17% lift. Plus, the 2014 issue retailed for $5.95 vs. $4.95 in 2013. So newsstand revenue was up 40.3%!
Example #2:
The 2015 World Junior issue (on sale Dec 8th 2014) sold 14,509 copies, compared to The 2014 World Junior Issue (on sale Dec 16th 2013) which sold 9,004 copies. That’s a positive variance of 5,505 copies or a 61% lift. Plus, the 2015 issue retailed at $5.95 vs. $4.95. Therefore newsstand revenue was up 93.4%!
Example #3:
The 2015 Playoff Preview issue (on sale April 6th 2015) sold 10,386 copies, compared to The 2014 Playoff Preview (on sale April 7th 2014) which sold 6,937 copies. That’s a variance of 3,449 copies or a 50% lift. Plus, the 2015 issue retailed for $5.95 vs. $4.95. Therefore newsstand revenue was up 80%!
