Jesus Film Media exists to aid The JESUS Film Project® in accomplishing the goal of creating and providing media tools that share Jesus with everyone in his or her own heart language. Since the original “JESUS” film was released in 1979 by Campus Crusade for Christ, the film has been seen by more than 6 billion people in every country in the world and translated into more than 1,100 languages. Over the course of its life, more than 200 million people have indicated that they made decisions for Christ after viewing the film.
To keep up with changes in technology and make the Gospel accessible to as many people as possible, Cooke Pictures/Jesus Film Media launched an app whose features allow users to search a broad database of video clips (64,000 videos representing 1,100 languages) and easily share videos on any personal or mobile device, with friends or via social media. As part of the national launch, Cooke Pictures and Jesus Film Media teamed up with the FrontGate Media group to create downloads for the free app.
Target Audience
The Jesus Film Media app has broad appeal because of the very nature of the Gospel. FrontGate Media helped them to target church leaders and mission-minded Christians.
Challenge
The challenge in designing this campaign was also its best asset–the app’s broad appeal. With a goal to reach as many Christians as possible, the possibilities were endless. The key was to discern the mix of outlets that would reach the broadest audiences, while honing in on the right constituents most likely to download the app for use in personal and small group study, Sunday School lessons, congregational worship services or personal evangelism.
The FrontGate Media Campaign
We designed a broad advertising campaign within the FrontGate Media ad network, with a combination of direct emails, site skins, web site banners, mobile advertising, pay-per-click (PPC), social media, email newsletter ads, and special customized touches that targeted mission-minded Christians from our monthly audience of 10 million people, via our sites, and 6 million email subscribers. Over the two-month campaign, FrontGate Media group delivered more than 12,000,000 combined impressions across all forms of digital media. The key outlets that were targeted include:
- NewReleaseTuesday.com
- Rapzilla.com
- WorshipTogether.com
iTickets.com- ProjectInspired.com
- HearItFirst.com
- Christian Leadership Database
- HM Digital
- HollywoodJesus.com
- Spirit West Coast Festival
- Kingdom Bound Festival
- ConversantLife.com
- Christian Musician Summit
Results
The campaign, which ran in various stages from November 1-March 20, yielded a total of 133, 570 app downloads to date, of which FrontGate was the largest contributor of click-thrus. That included iOS with 75,062 and Android with 58,508 downloads.
FrontGate Media’s audience provided connection to a wide range of core Christians and church leaders throughout their high-engagement web sites and events. WorshipTogether.com and Rapzilla.com rose to the top as the best performers across the board, surprising the advertiser with the reach to their niche audiences.
Rapzilla.com’s Direct Email list ranked as the #1 most responsive subscriber list in the campaign coming in with an amazing 25% open rate and 13% click thru rate!
Meanwhile, the HM Digital Mobile Tech feature performed way above average, and a dedicated HTML blast to the Christian Leadership Screenings Database generated a 10.24% click-thru rate.
All of these results are evidence that matching your product to the appropriate target audience will result in higher opens and higher CTR.
Direct email at all levels was one of the most powerful marketing tools throughout this campaign. NewReleaseTuesday.com’s direct email eblast saw over 15,000 opens, reiterating the site’s top performing reach and engagement with their audience.
FrontGate’s Pay Per Click (PPC) and social media promotions also proved to be effective tools in driving traffic to the client’s download site.
Of all the leading Christian media outlets in this campaign, FrontGate Media provided 10 times more reach than the next closest group in the campaign. FrontGate’s broad spectrum of audiences kept the client’s marketing mix fresh and relevant, allowing the client to reach a broad spectrum of audiences within the faith-based community including urban market, church leaders, event and conference attendees, missional teens, and more.
Related Links
Download the app: app.jesusfilmmedia.org