Case Study
The Economist: Streamlining the Renewal Process
About The Economist
The Economist offers authoritative insight and opinion on international news, politics, business, finance, science and technology. Their weekly newspaper is read by more than four million people around the world.
The Economist creates and distributes a compelling view of the world over multiple platforms, including print, web and digital editions as well as events. The Economist Group say their success is built on high-quality, independent analysis and that they are ideally positioned to be the commentator, interpreter and forecaster of the phenomenon of globalisation as it gathers in pace and impact.
The Challenge
Pro-Active were asked by the Global Retention team to deliver a new solution to the renewals process working alongside their subscription bureau.
Whilst The Economist already had a supplier looking after their renewals process, the team needed more flexibility and better reporting of their weekly mailings. They needed to be confident mailings were being despatched and the ability to be able to change their mailing copy or creative within 24 hours of print production and despatch.
The lack of a pro-active approach along with process inflexibility, led to the appointing of Pro-Active to take over the renewals process. They were looking for a more streamlined solution where updates to letter copies could be amended or updated at the last possible moment and where there was more visibility on the actual process in terms of submission of the mailing, proofing, despatch confirmation and reporting.
The Solution
The solution comprised of a new web based interactive portal, developed and built by Pro-Active. The web based system was specifically designed for submitting the weekly creative on to our secure server and could be accessed and viewed any time. Live proofs and a mailing report are also uploaded on the portal to provide full visibility on the letter copy being mailed and the number of contacts being targeted. The system also sends automated email alerts to the Renewals team and the Pro-Active team if new uploads are submitted to the portal so all parties are updated in real time.
Alongside the building of the interactive portal, we ensured that the data was correctly reformatted to the address format of the receiving country. This enabled maximum chances of deliverability so that the letter could be received and the renewal offer be subscribed to.
Business Impact
The outcome of the new renewals system is a seamless process with a quick turnaround and full visibility of the weekly renewal efforts for the Economist team.
The interactive portal was built to avoid the previous renewals issues that the Economist had encountered thus ensuring maximum visibility and flexibility on the whole process to provide peace of mind that the weekly renewals mailings were as they intended and were being sent. The improvement on the data formatting also meant the Economist Renewals team were able to attain maximum chances of subscribers renewing their subscription.
“I used Pro-Active for my mailings and PURL campaigns throughout my years at both Haymarket and EMAP and were the first suppliers I called when I started at The Economist. The Pro-Active team went out of their way to understand my new role, what I needed to achieve and most importantly helped me make do my job easier. My complicated renewal series mailings are now all automated with the mailings going out seamlessly each week with no intervention from me or my team. We have access to a live dashboard where we can check when and how many mailings have gone out as well as change artwork.
The Pro-Active team are always very helpful and makes dealing with a pleasure to work with, they are reliable and I fully trust them to get the job done properly.”
Connie Man
Marketing Manager, The Economist