kudos: client testimonials
Staff Development
Next Steps Marketing came in at a critical juncture in our company's history when we were growing quite fast. The focus was on taking the circulation team to the next level by providing both tactical and strategic training. Next Steps worked well the team, and added some seasoned strategic support for our talented eager and young team.
Christopher Boily
Senior Director, brand management, magazine sales and marketing
Viz Media LLC
Customized Reports
Next Steps Marketing worked with us to produce a customized circulation report. The report was both to explain what was going on in circulation to top management, and also so our circulation managers could keep track of the metrics of new business, renewals, pay-up, ratebase, and profit/loss themselves. After providing us with the monthly reports for a period of time, they then trained our staff to run them ourselves. It was a great experience for us.
Jill Anderson
Circulation Director
AGI
Online Cover Testing
Next Steps Marketing's online cover testing is a terrific quantitative research tool that is beneficial to both the business and the editorial teams and will bottom line direct your staff towards the production of magazine covers which are more successful on the newsstand. The information garnered from our Western Interior & Design readers was educational and informative and we had the results within 72 hours of the survey being sent out.
The presentation of the combination results is graphically pleasing and imminently clear and created a strong and collaborative process within the staff. The added bonus is that the readers love to give their opinions, engage with our brand and feel more committed to our mission as a result of the online cover testing.
Polly Perkins
VP, Business Development
AdMedia Partners
Flexible Strategy
We originally brought them in to build an integrated strategy for our controlled audience. In implementing the strategy, they not only met but exceeded our goals for the year. The following year we began a migration from a free to a paid audience model. Next Steps Marketing helped us re-tool the strategy and to reach out to convert our free subscribers to paid. As we manage both a controlled and paid model, their flexibility, all-round-audience building expertise (they are now also working on our newsstand distribution) and creativity make them a vital part of our team.
Cindy Johanson
Chief Operations Officer
George Lucas Educational Foundation
Digimag™ Creation
Next Steps Marketing delivered my vision for OrganicStyleMag.com brilliantly!! I was very proud of the final product which more than accomplished all of our objectives. The subscriptions increased rapidly with each issue and we received countless accolades and positive feedback from our customers. Although this was a company magazine designed to support customer acquisitions and retention and we had no plans to seek advertisement revenues, to my amazement we were contacted by dozens of companies (including our vendors) who enthusiastically wanted to advertise in the magazine.
I loved working with the team at Next Steps Marketing. Not only were they committed to assuring my total satisfaction, they were professional, fun to work with and constantly performed well above and beyond to assure delivery of a final product that surpassed my expectations. In every sense it was a great experience. I would certainly engage them again and I absolutely recommend Next Steps Marketing to anyone wanting to enhance their brand through the production of digital magazines.
Gerald Prolman
Founder and Former CEO
Organic Bouquet and Organic Style
Newsstand Marketing & Management
NSM has worked closely with O'Reilly since Make Magazine was just an idea, alive only in the mind of our publisher. We presented them with some formidable challenges to traditional newsstand sales: low frequency (quarterly), high cover price ($14.99), and unusual (small) size. NSM rose to the occasion, delivering big in our first year with a substantial initial launch, quickly followed by more than 100% distribution growth -- all while exceeding efficiency goals.
Five years later, they're still working closely with us, providing excellent newsstand management and consulting. They provide strategic support, recommend promotions, keep an eye on draw, and participate in brainstorming sessions on the best growth strategies. They also provide operational and tactical support by assisting with contract negotiations, booking promotions, handling day-to-day vendor management, and generating summary reports. NSM is flexible, creative and provides solid solutions to newsstand challenges.
Heather Harmon
Circulation Director
Make Magazine
Attendee Marketing
We needed a team that could “hit the ground running” to act as our outsourced attendee marketing team for dozens of paid webinars and in-person events. Next Steps Marketing quickly developed our marketing message, got them implemented, and managed the creative and logistics for the high volume of direct marketing (mail & email) campaigns necessary to promote these events and meet our attendance goals. They solved our immediate challenges with grace under pressure.
Tara Gibb
Vice President, Marketing
Think Services, Inc.
Full-Service Circulation Support
Next Steps Marketing has a collaborative, team approach that works well for Mother Jones. They consistently bring cost-effective and successful ideas to the table. For example, they saved us money on our direct mail campaigns while exceeding budgeted net response and over a 2 year period their efforts have been key in increasing newsstand sales by 25%.
Jay Harris
President & Publisher
Mother Jones
Socially-Responsible Marketing
Next Steps Marketing has been a tremendous partner. The team's expertise in audience marketing and understanding of how audiences respond and act has aided us in our mission to help those who do the important work of improving society do it even better.
Regina Starr Ridley
Publishing Director
Stanford Social Innovation Review
