The Better Business Bureau

Challenge

The BBB emphasizes community by reaching out to its members through a monthly newsletter, Torch Talk. However, it was seeking new ways to better connect with its audience in an engaging online format.

Goals

• Interactive content creation: In order to create the best possible reading experience and better connect with its members, the BBB was looking to utilize interactive media for Torch Talk. To do so, the company needed to convert the monthly newsletter from a static email sent through Constant Contact to a fully interactive online magazine.
• Branding: The Better Business Bureau’s brand and logo are iconic and inspire trust in consumers. It was all the more important, then, to include them in the magazine to reinforce that trust.
• Analytics: The magazine would require a measurable component and provide user-behavior statistics to track reader behavior and engagement rates.
• Customer relationship management system: Torch Talk would also need to manage 10,000+ subscribers, a growing number as more and more businesses in the region become accredited. Apart from companies, the BBB’s readership also includes consumers (a demographic which the nonprofit had been focusing its marketing outreach on).

Solution

The BBB enlisted the help of Joomag, the complete digital publishing platform that provides creation and distribution options for interactive publications.

Joomag’s platform supports an array of interactive media such as videos, audio, flash animations, photo galleries, and more. The BBB could create its own magazine by uploading a PDF file and enriching it with interactive elements like videos and hotspots.

To provide a seamless experience for Torch Talk readers, Joomag provided the BBB with branding capabilities. The latter was able to achieve brand consistency by displaying its logo throughout the digital publication.

For distributional purposes, Joomag’s CRM allowed the BBB to import its existing clients and deliver customized emails to them. Joomag’s built-in mailing service meant that the BBB could customize its emails and include the magazine in them for mass mailing purposes.

The BBB could now also acquire more information about its reader base, including viewership numbers and publication interactions thanks to Joomag’s comprehensive analytics.

Results

• Going with Joomag let the BBB and Torch Talk maintain their current audiences while gaining new ones. Both had capitalized on the power of their well-known brand and maintained their reputation of being there for their readers.
• How did readers react? They were getting more engaged with the digital content. Torch Talk’s new and improved interactivity resulted in significant increase in unique views and average session durations. Bounce rate has notably decreased.

Joomag isn’t just for new businesses dipping their toes into the waters of digital publishing. An established brand such as the BBB can easily transition to it, maintaining its current audience while also attracting new ones with the power of ample interactivity.