Executive Summary
Background
The NYT is one of the world’s leading multimedia and news information companies. In the mid-2000's it faced financial pressures due to a decline in advertising and subscription revenues and began experimenting with using a metered paywall system.
Challenge
The NYT has been successful in its transition to becoming a subscription based business. While it experienced record breaking growth in 2020, its subscription growth has since slowed down and they have a smaller pool of subscribers than before.
Solution
To maintain competitiveness and increase revenues, the NYT needs to offer more value to its subscribers and reduce the number of subscription choices to make it easier to choose an offer.
I came up with a few possible solutions in which the NYT could offer more value in its subscriptions offerings and also reduce the number of subscription choices to make it easier for users to choose an offer.
Solution #1: LESS choices
Solution #2: Offer More Premium Features
Solution #3: Simplified Subscription Model
Research
I conducted user interviews to learn more about the different reasons that people pay for the news.
I also looked into the demographics of news subscribers to see how preferences for acquiring news differed by age groups.
Competitor Analysis
I looked at similar news and media companies to see how their subscription models differed and what value proposition they offered.
Pain Points
I then looked into reasons people did not want to pay for the news. Most of the reasons revolved around users not wanting to pay for the news and not seeing the value in paying for additional subscriptions.
On the NYT website, there was also the problem of having too many subscription choices for users to choose from, leading to choice paralysis.
Ideation
I then began brainstorming ways on how the NYT could improve its subscription offerings.
Crazy 8's
