TICS Products & Services

The marketing imperative to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time in the right medium has never been more necessary, technology-enabled, and challenging. With the proliferation of channels and media, marketers today are struggling to create and capture demand across all interaction channels. At the same time, consumers have become more immune to advertising messages, creating a need for sophisticated content-based marketing.

Achieving success in this environment requires a consolidated view of the customer across all channels and an innovative approach to campaign strategy, messaging, content, and management.

TICS offers a unique turnkey solution that leverages web-based configurable customer-centric marketing databases, marketing automation systems that include campaign planning and targeting tools, and extensive reporting and analytics packages with our core capability of multiplatform content creation and management.

TICS centers all of its work on consumer insights, utilizing original or syndicated research, Time Inc. studies, and client research to develop a comprehensive understanding of customer needs. We produce insights that help to refine targeting, understand customer lifecycle moments of truth, and identify the motivations of customer behavior so that our content can be delivered to the right customers at the right time in the right channels. The result is sustainable, effective content strategies that shape results across the customer lifecycle.

At Time Inc. Content Solutions, we develop customized content strategies for each client. We convey messages clearly and succinctly in formats that best achieve our clients’ goals, stepping in to make suggestions and stepping back to listen and learn as the creative process unfolds. Many of our clients see the crucial need today to meld print and digital delivery mechanisms, uniting the opportunity for instantaneous information delivery with the comforts of more traditional, tangible media. Drawing on Time Inc.’s leadership in developing trusted print and digital content platforms—from food and finance to sports and entertainment—we are a go-to, first-line source for leading companies around the world. Recent content strategies include integrating such formats as e-newsletters and destination websites; mobile, tablet, and social media applications; direct mail and catalogues; as well as customized magazines and interactive tools that provide answers and advice with the touch of a mouse.

TICS specializes in creating relationship marketing and custom publishing platforms that enable companies to generate, sustain, and expand profitable relationships with their best customers.

We create multiplatform custom publishing and branded content solutions—from custom magazines and e-mags to welcome kits, interactive websites, and video—that engage and entertain consumers and enhance the client experience in a wide range of industries, from automotive, financial services, and consumer packaged goods to lifestyle, entertainment, and telecommunications.

TICS’s customer lifecycle management (CLM) framework offers a variety of sophisticated analytical tools to capture attitudinal or behavioral changes. We apply proven direct marketing techniques to drive desired behavior. TICS specializes in CRM, e-CRM, and CLM methodologies, and with a complete range of digital applications at our disposal—as well as state-of-the-art production technologies—we can tailor one-to-one marketing and innovative solutions.

Database marketing enhances content delivery by ensuring that the right content is delivered to the right target at the right time, supporting stronger customer relationships and a positive ROI. TICS has extensive experience with database marketing and management. As an organization we wear a variety of hats, depending upon our clients’ specific needs. We have played the role of consultant when asked to assist in the design and development process of building a database for clients taking their first steps in CRM. We have played the role of collaborative partner for clients that have an existing database and are anxious to data-mine their files for finer customer segmentation and personalized messaging or, digging deeper into their program’s results, to evaluate and measure the success of CRM campaigns.

TICS works closely with many of the direct marketing industry’s leading database suppliers, including Acxiom, Experian Technology, IBM, and Knowledge Based Marketing, which manage many of our clients’ database files. We also build strong strategic partnerships with client IT and database marketing teams for those clients whose systems are managed internally.

We offer a robust portfolio of offerings, including strategy and insights; the development of custom websites optimized for usability; online and mobile applications; e-newsletters; e-magazines; video; social media marketing and campaigns; content syndication; managed vertical networks; and data analytics. We develop smart, creative, and strategic interactive marketing solutions, with a content DNA, for leading companies such as Allianz, AT&T, Gillette, and Unilever.

We offer full-service e-mail marketing and solutions—including creative services, deployment, and campaign management—to deliver the right content to the right customer at the right time in the customer lifecycle.

An integral component of our business model is the integration of research and measurement processes and applications to evaluate our best-in-class content platform strategies. TICS has a metrics process that begins at the onset of every new client relationship and ends during the postlaunch phase of the communications program. We cultivate collaborative relationships with our clients to create comprehensive qualitative and quantitative measurement yardsticks, including web-based concept-testing focus groups and precision database-tracking analyses.

Our metrics plan has proved successful in our partnerships with clients. We focus on accountability for sustaining long-term relationships. We believe this is the best approach to building long-term strategic partnerships with clients.

TICS’s full suite of mobile marketing capabilities addresses everything from strategy and ideation to development. It includes mobile websites and microsites, downloadable products and applications, messaging platforms, measurement and analytics, and platform design and usability assessment. What’s more, it offers a range of functionality that encompasses click-to-call, e-mail opt-in, click-to-video polls, interlinking, geotargeting, and electronic couponing.

The TICS production team provides turnkey service in the development, creation, and production of each magazine. From the prepress stages all the way to our postproduction services, TICS is a valuable partner at every turn. A highly skilled operations manager is assigned to each project; that individual is responsible for all production aspects, with careful attention to every detail throughout. The TICS production department works closely with its printers, lettershops, and data-processing houses to ensure that every mailing fully adheres to quality-control standards.

At TICS we work with vendors that have the flexibility to provide segmentation and customization to all of our clients’ communications. Based on a client’s database, we can provide high-end personalization and segmentation to allow for targeted communications. Our vendors’ technologies are state-of-the-art, and we continually look for ways to partner with these vendors to push the limits of this technology.

TICS provides turnkey, efficient, best-in-class service. The result is a series of highly engaging, on-brand communications that drive client engagement and, ultimately, ROI. A dedicated account-management team is assigned to develop, launch, and manage the strategic program. Its members work closely with the TICS creative and production teams. Our efficient turnkey system is designed to be collaborative, confidential, on budget, and on deadline.

All project information and decisions are communicated to the client for final approval. The account manager acts as a facilitator and liaison on solutions, updates, and strategies affecting creative, prepress, marketing, and budget concerns. The account manager helps navigate the client through Time Inc. to obtain relevant resources such as database and list management, direct marketing, and research.

At TICS we work hand in hand with our clients to build the best sales strategy and sales tools possible—leveraging much of our internal Time Inc. research—to position our clients for long-term success. Where appropriate, we offer select clients access to our national ad sales network, which is centrally managed by our executive ad sales director. With offices in every major advertising market, our network is connected to top decisionmakers within all of the leading traditional and digital advertising agencies in the country.

Over the past 15 years, we have established an impressive record of success in helping partners such as Sony, the New York Stock Exchange, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Citigroup design smart and effective advertising sales plans—offering privileged access to unique audiences at a fair and competitive price.

TICS offers a full range of digital video, photo production, and syndication capabilities to help brands deliver original content in any format, whether broadband, web video, mobile video, or video on demand. We also handle licensing and rights management.