eail_In January 2015, research from the Marketing Office Council found that American companies send a whopping 1.4 million emails per month. I am starting to think that I get every one of those!

Truly though, that’s a staggering number…how do faith-based businesses and non-profits stand out? How do you get noticed within the massive volume of emails that your Christian target audience members are receiving?

You employ the rules of best practice. You create compelling, smart, and crisp email ads, with great subject lines, and you direct the users with purpose to your call to action. Remember that you aren’t in this alone. You aren’t the first person to wrestle with what could, should or will work!

Here are four ways to do just that:

  • Your subject line is THE MOST effective way to “grab” your reader, particularly in an age where consumers are overwhelmed with ads and emails. Sadly for many marketers, the subject line is often an afterthought.  What good is that gorgeous email ad complete with exactly the right size pictures, and ad copy you sweat blood over, if the email doesn’t get opened?   If a tree falls in the forest…. Research shows you have less than 3 seconds to get the attention of a reader when they receive your email (Marketing Office Council, 2014). Test out your subject lines across your internal list or A/B test with the site you are sending through. By the way, you have a built-in advantage.  FAITH is a tremendous Emotional Selling Proposition right up there with Kids and Safety. After you’ve correctly targeted your faith-based audience to send to, use your subject line to call out their faith and tie it to your faith-based opportunity, product or service.
  • Answer a question or meet a need with the content in the body of the email. Consider who your audience is, and what they might gain with your product or offer. If your email is for a book about women and working, Christian women may have needs to addresses such as “mommy guilt”, juggling quiet times and children, or being a witness in an office setting. Ask yourself how your offer or product will help your core audience. Don’t tell them about your book.  Tell how your book will benefit them.
  • Remember the fifty-fifty rule: To reduce your spam ranking, be sure that your direct email ad is at least half HTML text and half images.  Those emails that are all one big image built by cutting up the big image into smaller images are quickly flagged as spam.  A combination of actual text and images will keep the reader’s eye moving through the email, and can keep your reader more engaged until they reach the end. Research shows that emails with 50% or more of text perform better, with a 4% higher open rate! That’s a substantial percent.
  • Have ONE call to action: Even if your audience is tuned into your message, they need to know what’s next, and they don’t need a bunch of choices. Help guide their next step by ending your email with a call-to-action. This can be a purchase button, a “contact us for more information” text box, or a link to additional material. By leading them all the way to the end (their next steps), you create an element of trust. MailChimp found that emails that have the call to action at the end performed significantly better than those with a call to action at the outset. For their research purposes, they were selling a product, and it showed an increase of people purchasing the project by 3.5%.

Do you have a message that needs to reach the faith-based audience? That’s the one thing we specialize in! We would love to help you.  Contact our office today to get started at 949-429-1000 or check out our services via our award-winning website.