Migrating the majority of our circulation management to PWX Solutions 3+ years ago has proven to be a great decision for us. Their experience supporting a vast array of other publishers has allowed us to employ a number of proven best practices, deliver highly profitable direct mail campaigns, and significantly grow our gift programs. Their breadth of experience – from traditional direct marketing to digital marketing – has been highly useful in guiding many key aspects of our consumer marketing strategy.
Content sales are the single most significant contributor to the success of our business model – and PWX Solutions has been a critical, key partner in delivering profitable, sustainable subscription growth.
The team at PWX Solutions works collaboratively within our strategic vision for each of our print titles. We rely on their expertise for all of our marketing and operational needs related to our print titles. They bring new and innovative ideas to the table while at the same time, over the 5+ years we have been working with PWX Solutions, we have exceeded our financial targets and marketing objectives.
PWX Solutions is staffed by industry veterans, and we rely on their expertise to manage everything from acquisition and retention direct mail and email, to customer service and fulfillment operations, to performance reporting and financial forecasting. Their digital operations team is great, and works like an extension of Conde Nast’s digital marketing and tech teams. In short, we count on the consumer marketing team at PWX Solutions to help achieve our marketing objectives and financial goals.
America’s Test Kitchen has a diversified revenue model encompassing television, digital memberships, ecommerce, books, and events that have grown from our initial print magazine platform. Magazines remain at the heart of our business model, and PWX Solutions has been integral in optimizing this channel for profitability as well as a vital source driving lifetime value across our portfolio. Our relationship with PWX Solutions launched during a time of change at ATK, and their partnership has been invaluable in moving our business forward in an environment that is certainly challenging for print titles.
PWX Solutions has proven to be an essential part of our team at BDG. Without their deep industry knowledge, expert experience and extensive resourcing capabilities, we wouldn’t be able to publish our print magazine products. On top of it all, the PWX Solutions team is a pleasure to work with and always accessible–even under pressure on tight deadlines, they service our business with total professionalism and never fail to just get it done!
PWX Solutions provides critical operational support services for Sports Illustrated and our related print properties. The PWX Solutions team is composed of top industry talent who are seasoned experts in their fields. Their responsiveness, attention to detail, and accuracy consistently meet or exceed expectations and has made them a valuable partner to Sports Illustrated.
PWX Solutions has been translating AARP Publications’ content for Apple News+ and for the AARP Publications Mobile App for nearly one year. Their entire team is highly knowledgeable, professional and responsive to our needs.
PWX Solutions has been handling our magazine’s prepress and printing needs for four years now. Their team has saved us thousands of dollars that we would have spent doing this in house.
Having PWX Solutions manage our production and print management for Garden & Gun has worked out even better than I expected. As a single title publisher, we would have not been able to rationalize the investment in talent across all facets of the production process that we are now able to leverage. I know that the PWX Solutions team has me covered from book makeup and ad trafficking to vetting my print and paper bills.
AFAR has been using PWX Solutions for production management for nearly 3 years. The team at PWX Solutions is as responsive and flexible as having my own staff in house. They have helped us drive efficiency and savings from reworking our workflow to replatforming our digital editions. The team also handles my paper supply chain and consumer marketing.
We have been working with the PWX Solutions Production Team for five years and in that time, they have proven to be collaborative partners. Our PWX Solutions production team manages our book makeup process as well as our relationship with the printer – they care about our brand as much as we do. Through editorial closing reports provided with each issue they help us track performance and their imaging solutions have enabled us to gain efficiencies and maximize cost savings.
PWX Solutions offers a variety of production services aimed at supporting and streamlining editorial workflow. We work with them on imaging, edit page processing, book makeup, production schedules, digital editions, etc. Over the time we have been working with them they have consistently demonstrated professionalism, skill and responsiveness upon which we rely with each close. It is a pleasure to work with them.
Any new client relationship begins with a comprehensive review of your current business, pinpointing immediate needs, challenges, and goals. We study your recent successes and obstacles, identify methods to best meet your objectives, and then rigorously test those assumptions. Once clear goals have been outlined, we create a customized plan and regularly review progress to ensure we remain on target.
Strategic planning may include the following:
At PWX Solutions, we understand the multi-faceted approach needed for an effective and comprehensive marketing strategy. For maximum success and revenue growth, we focus on both new business acquisition and retention marketing to help our clients reach profitability and longevity.
Driving New Business
New business acquisition is key for growing and maintaining your business. From the top of the acquisition funnel, we assist clients with identifying their target audiences, communicating effectively to prospects, and converting those prospects into paid customers or donors. Investing in a robust new business strategy will ultimately pay off over time, leading to increased ROI and profitability.
Maximizing Customer Retention
While new business feeds the funnel, a solid retention strategy is essential for revenue growth. Strong retention rates indicate satisfied customers, which is always our goal! Nurturing and engaging with existing customers is vital – replacing a customer is much more costly than keeping an existing one – and thus contributes to long-term profitability. Our marketers are experts at managing subscription and membership businesses, optimizing retention rates and maximizing overall net revenue.
A comprehensive marketing plan includes outreach across numerous channels to achieve the greatest possible results. We understand every client’s needs differ and provide customized offerings. PWX Solutions draws from expertise across digital and brick-and-mortar channels to recommend tactics to help clients exceed their goals. A staff of 150+ experts are organized by function and collaborate to deliver results. Our long-standing relationships with top vendors enable us to negotiate favorable pricing and bring best-in-class services, systems and processes to our clients.
Digital Marketing Solutions:
Offline Marketing Channels:
Marketing Operations:
At PWX Solutions, we believe in collecting comprehensive data to inform our marketing campaigns, which contributes to their effectiveness. We provide clients with a suite of reports that helps them to track performance. Reports are customized to meet a client’s needs and objectives, and can be viewed, downloaded or emailed via our private client website.
We regularly review promotion reports – as well as daily/weekly campaign and source performance – for ways to optimize response. With an eye on the competition and industry trends, we execute regular testing to maximize P&L potential. We continually evaluate the long-term profitability of each source to ensure every marketing tactic we employ is making a valuable contribution toward a client’s objectives and bottom line.
Insights and Analytics may include the following:
CLIENT: LEADING SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL NON-PROFIT AND MEDIA ORGANIZATION
Better UX Improved Customer Experience - and Reduced Costs
Objective:
Optimize online subscription order pages across marketing channels.
Challenge:
Layout of existing order pages limited the number of offers/options and the user journey spread across multiple pages. Client wanted increased flexibility for updating marketing messaging and legal disclosures. Alternative payment options were not available.Solution:
Designed new order page that clearly displayed the specific benefits of each offer in a user-friendly format. Consolidated regional offers/types of orders within the same page to avoid users having to navigate between pages. Redesigned order flow to include alternative payment options seamlessly. Created the ability to incorporate updates and toggle dynamically based on type of offer or other business need.Results:
Improved user experience by creating an all-in-one shop that the client desired. Reduced cost for future maintenance and changes in content/offers; after testing changes rolled out to the client’s other brands.CLIENT: ICONIC MUSIC AND LIFESTYLE MEDIA BRAND
Model Increased Consumer Revenue more than 30%
Objective:
Generate additional revenue from existing customer base.
Challenge:
Introduce new, higher prices to support a premium product while limiting the number of customers lost. Maximize the revenue on an individual basis, not by source of business/length of time as customer.Solution:
Created and tested a scalable price structure to build a sample set of data. Built a model to identify individuals who will likely support higher renewal prices. Allowed the model to assign prices based on model score (not previous source of business). Tested the model’s success in generating higher renewal prices while minimizing customer churn.Results:
Identified individuals who were price insensitive. Increased average price up to 33%. Improved total revenue more than 30%. Determined the optimal balance of increased price and minimal churn.CLIENT: GLOBAL MEDIA BRAND THAT CELEBRATES ENTREPRENEURIAL CAPITALISM
Saved $50k Annually with Direct Mail Best Practices
Objective:
Identify expense savings in direct mail program.
Challenge:
Client has mailed out an effective acquisition piece for more than ten years. Despite continual testing, it could not be beat. Control package was expensive: a 6×9 envelope with a label and the contents of the package included a personalized order form that required a mail match process to include the correct form with addressing on the envelope.Solution:
Developed testing that resulted in winner using standard practices to create more traditional business envelope size mail piece that improved or maintained response in the various offers mailed.
Results:
Simplified mail production process Printed less expensive new mail pieceRecurring annual savings: $50k+
CLIENT: INDEPENDENT REGIONAL MEDIA COMPANY
Introduced SEM and Social for 43% Increase in Online Revenue
Objective:
Invest in new online channels that renew automatically to add to long term revenue growth. Diversify source mix to reduce reliance on direct mail.
Challenge:
In recent years, significant focus was placed on optimizing website and email channels to drive incremental new business.
Based on the success of existing web channels and automatic renewals, client was interested in expanding to paid social and SEM to increase online-generated subscriptions.
Solution:
Optimized price point and varied premium offers for specific audience targets Tested creative to increase conversions, stay up-to-date with seasonality and match product’s social branding Adjusted bidding strategies to drive spend or reduce budget as needed to maximize ROIBased on successful results, expanded SEM and Social promotions to another brand in client’s portfolio.
Results:
Generated over 17,000 new subs from search and social promotions to date. Primary product offer increased revenue from online sources 46% in 2 years, due to the addition of new channels. For the second product introduced, both SEM and Facebook generated profitable subscriptions in year 1, with significant profit growth projected as customers renew.CLIENT: MULTI-CHANNEL CONTENT PROVIDER FOR DESIGN OBSESSED AUDIENCE
Lowered CPA 20% in Search Engine Marketing
Objective:
Find new business subscribers within the target CPA through SEM. Utilize Google’s advertising platforms to drive magazine subscriptions.
Challenge:
Client needed to strengthen their marketing tactics in order to increase market share among a growing list of competitors.
Solution:
Initiated SEM to increase digital marketing presence. After discovering which keywords and terms were most profitable, created multiple separate campaigns to further optimize results. Established appropriate cost per acquisition goals and efficiently divided the budget to target the most relevant traffic to the most profitable areas of the business.Results:
130% higher click to conversion rate compared to Googles benchmarks 20% lower cost per acquisition than target 3% higher average order valueIncreased SEM budget in accordance with ROI and continued to experience exceptionally positive results.
