There is a moment in every key partnership where things just click. A turning point when a tool becomes more than just another piece of software; it becomes the backbone of a strategy.
For the Marietta Daily Journal—part of the Times Journal Media Group, along with more than 25 other publications across Georgia—that moment came after a period of intense evaluation.
When Phil Schroder joined TJM as VP of Digital Assets in October of 2024, his initial plan was to shop for a new Content Management System (CMS) provider.
"I've told people that when I came here, I wasn’t totally sold on BLOX Digital," Schroder admitted. "But as I kept looking around, I found that there was nobody else that could offer the complete package for the right price and get everything done for us."
Instead of leaving, Schroder and his team made the strategic decision to lean all in with BLOX Digital, adopting their full stack of digital solutions. The result? Streamlined workflows, a happier newsroom, and a massive 27% growth in digital subscribers in just one year.
Here's how they did it.
THE CHALLENGE: Growing pains, fragmented systems
Times Journal Media has a rich history, with roots going back nearly 160 years. Over time, the company expanded significantly, acquiring the Cherokee Tribune, Rome News-Tribune, Gwinnett Daily Post, and many others. Today, they operate 17 newspapers and 10 websites across 15 counties.
Growth brings complexity. Acquiring publications means integrating legacy systems, along with their unique workflows and headaches.
For Schroder, this meant juggling everything from Google Analytics to programmatic advertising and subscription management. The team was dealing with disjointed pieces of technology that didn't always talk to each other. They needed a way to consolidate their digital footprint, including websites, apps, and e-Editions, under one roof to make management possible and profitable.
They also faced a common industry dilemma: the paywall. When Schroder arrived, the sites were locked down tight.
"We had a hard paywall on our sites," he said. "We were offering just one offer across all the sites. We weren't utilizing modals or pop-ups and we weren't customizing our paywalls."
The hard paywall was keeping readers out, but wasn't converting them into subscribers. The user journey was friction-heavy, and the data was hard to parse. They needed a change in philosophy and the technology to execute it.
This consolidation was the game-changer. It allowed TJM to stop worrying about the minutiae of connecting disparate systems and focus on what actually drives revenue: content and user experience.
Rethinking the paywall
The first strategic shift was counterintuitive. To grow digital subscribers, they decided to provide more content for free, at least initially.
"We opened up the site a little bit more," Schroder said. They moved away from a hard wall to a metered approach, allowing a few page views before the ask. This wasn't just about generosity, it was about data and engagement. By letting readers sample the content, engagement metrics (like page views) went up.
Times Journal, Inc., designed an entirely new subscription UX, taking advantage of every feature in the BLOX Digital suite to smooth out the subscriber journey.
Times Journal, Inc., designed an entirely new subscription UX, taking advantage of every feature in the BLOX Digital suite to smooth out the subscriber journey.
TJM simplified checkout, cleaned up offers, and increased marketing to drive subscriber growth.
They completely relaxed the paywall on national sports news, realizing that wire content wasn't a subscription driver. "Nobody ever subscribed because of national sports news on our sites," Schroder said. "But local sports is a huge driver for our subscriptions."
By customizing the paywall behavior based on the value of the content, they aligned their offers with their value proposition.
Streamlining the user experience
Matthew Wolfe, Digital Subscription Manager at Times Journal, Inc., designed an entirely new subscription UX, taking advantage of every feature in the BLOX Digital suite to smooth out the subscriber journey.
"Our paywalls were complicated and, in some cases, we had too many offers on them," Wolfe said. "We simplified the checkout process, cleaned up the paywall offers, and ramped up marketing to drive subscriber growth."
They also introduced "stop intervention" tactics. When a subscriber goes to cancel, they are met with automated emails and simple one-click options to change their mind.
"We set up a page where they can acknowledge that they want to restart their subscription,” Schroder explained. "We can just hit a few buttons and boom, they're back in business. Very, very simple to do. We weren't able to do that before."
Unifying data and analytics
One of the biggest advantages of a unified platform is the clarity of data. Before, tracking a user across the web, an app, and an e-Edition required juggling multiple Google Analytics instances. It was messy.
With everything under the BLOX Digital umbrella, Schroder and his team can view the entire lifecycle of a subscriber. They track everything from content views to paywall hits, to "add-to-cart" actions, to the final purchase.
This granular data isn't just for the business side, it's also fueling their newsrooms.
Empowering the newsroom with data
Because the BLOX Digital ecosystem provides clear insights into what subscribers are actually reading, Schroder can share meaningful, actionable reports with the editorial team.
"We share data with the newsroom every single week on where we are at on subscriber counts and what stories are bringing in the most subscribers," Schroder said.
This has led to a shift in the newsroom culture. Editors and reporters are now invested in how their stories perform, not just in terms of clicks, but in terms of revenue and loyalty. "Digital subscriptions are very much a focus of our newsrooms," he said. "Several newsrooms reach out to me each week to ask questions about the reports they get."
This culture shift helps the team deliver high-quality journalism that serves the top of the funnel (attracting new readers) and the bottom of the funnel (retaining loyal subscribers).
THE RESULTS: 27% subscriber growth and climbing
The strategy of consolidating tech and revamping the paywall might have seemed risky to some, but the numbers speak for themselves.
In a single year, TJM achieved:
27% growth in digital subscribers.
Increased Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), even after implementing a price increase.
Higher engagement and page views across their sites.
"The business is fun again," Wolfe said. "I go back 25 years in the industry, and prior to arriving at TJI, spent the last 15 years managing loss. So to be able to actually take the disciplines I've learned and apply them to digital subscription growth is really nice."
By removing the technical friction and leveraging a platform that "just works," Times Journal Media freed up their talented staff to do what they do best: strategize, create, and grow.
Looking ahead
Schroder and the Times Journal Media team aren't resting on their 27% digital subscriber growth. They're already looking at the next frontier: better audience targeting. They plan to use the advanced segmentation tools within the BLOX Digital platform to target audiences both on-site and off-site more effectively.
Collaborate in real time, optimize stories with powerful AI tools, and gain immediate insights into your audience—in one unified, full-stack CMS.
Additionally, they are participating in industry discussions on how to protect local content as AI search and Large Language Models (LLMs) become more prominent. But with BLOX Digital's fully-integrated tech stack in place, they feel equipped to handle whatever the digital landscape throws at them next.
For Schroder, BLOX Digital turned out to be more than just another vendor he decided not to fire, it became the partner that helped his team build a sustainable, growing digital future.
"We just jumped into BLOX Digital and I think we're using as many pieces of BLOX as you can possibly use," Schroder said. "It's a good idea to have everything in one place."
