Most all businesses have had to adapt to the opportunities and challenges of today’s digital age. The Sheridan Group, one of the country’s oldest magazine and journal publishing companies, is no exception.

Headquarted in Hunt Valley, Maryland, The Sheridan Group serves the print and digital publishing needs of the journal, magazine, catalog and book industries. As the digital era continues to change the face of communication and content dissemination, The Sheridan Group is constantly developing, designing and shaping its services to meet current and future industry needs.

Staying in touch
This is also true for how The Sheridan Group markets to and stays in touch with current and potential clients. Today, The Sheridan Group relies heavily on its email newsletters to offer value to and stay top-of-mind among its target audience.

Susan Parente, the publications marketing manager, states: “We serve fairly small communities — scholarly journal publishers and short-run magazine publishers — and competition is brisk. The newsletters are our opportunitity to consistently bring news of value to our customer/prospect base, while solidifying our brand as a publishing/print technology leader.”

Outsourcing made the difference
The Sheridan Group originally took the eNewsletter on as an in-house project, but it wasn’t getting done frequently enough to make much of a difference. The production process was cumbersome for those who already had other important duties to complete.

“It took time to come up with topics, vet them, then figure out where we were going to get the information from which to create the articles,” explains Parente. “There were many delays, multiple review cycles, and ultimately, a lack of consistency from one issue to another.”

Rather than abandon the newsletter altogether, Parente says The Sheridan Group began its search for a third-party partner who had the “time, resources and the ability to achieve a professional-looking newsletter that was delivered routinely.”

When a sales colleague passed along a prospecting email from Proven Systems, the search was complete. The Sheridan Group turned to Proven Systems to handle all aspects of producing its quarterly eNewsletter, The Register. Within a few months, The Sheridan Group decided to work with Proven Systems to publish an additional newsletter for their journal audience, the quarterly On Topic eNewsletter.

Real results
“The results are awesome,” says Parente. “I wasn’t prepared for the level of professionalism, responsiveness and quality research and copywriting I experience with Proven Systems.”

And, adds Parente, the new-and-improved newsletter has given The Sheridan Group’s sales team “ready conversation-starters based on our well-crafted articles. We also benefit from immediate, detailed information on who is reading our newsletter, and what topics resonate best.”