Tips, resources, and breaking news from the advertising team at CTI.
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October 11th, 2010
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Case Study: Using videos in your email campaign
Last month, we sent out the following email campaign for Zondervan, and it got a lot of attention from our MomSense subscribers. In fact, the mailing received over 3x the average click-thru rate.
It doesn’t take a marketing guru to figure out why so many people clicked on this email (note: the HUGE video play button).
The obvious call to action was: ”Watch this video and learn more about the Jesus Storybook Bible.”
Based on the number of clicks this email received, it was an effective call to action. There’s just something about a play button that screams “click me!”
Unfortunately, embedded videos are not supported in most email clients. To get around this problem, savvy email marketers will use images that look like videos. It’s a common-sense solution, and it works.
As you can see in this example, it’s easy to create an image that looks very much like an embedded video. And because the image is linked to a Youtube video, readers were able to watch it in a new window without experiencing any rendering issues in their email client.
Those who were interested in the Bible could then click through to the product page and learn more about the Bible before making a purchase. The results were very good – The email received a very high number of clicks, despite a lower-than-average open rate.
Props to Zondervan for creating an engaging email!
Do you have any experience using videos to improve campaign performance? Feel free to let us know how you have experimented with video links in email. Design tips are always welcome.
Posted in Case Studies, email marketing
CTI’s Awards from EPA
Last month the Evangelical Press Association held their annual conference, and as part of their gathering they announced the winners of their Awards of Excellence and Higher Goals awards. Christianity Today International won quite a few, we’ve listed them for you here.
Awards of Excellence
Christian Ministries
Award of Excellence: Leadership
Award of Merit: Your Church
General
Award of Merit: Christianity Today
Online
Award of Merit: Christianity Today Online
Award of Merit: Small Groups.com
Higher Goals
Article Series
4th Place: Christianity Today, “The Global Conversation” by Christopher Wright, J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Joseph Cumming.
Best Blog: Noncorporate
2nd Place: SKYEBOX by Skye Jethani (Managing Editor of Leadership)
Biblical Exposition
3rd Place: Christianity Today, “Still The Way, The Truth, and The Life” by John R. Franke.
4th Place: Leadership, “Walls Do Talk” by Paul Louis Metzger.
Cartoon
5th Place: Your Church, “Church Collateral” by David Harbaugh
Cause of the Year: God as Creator
2nd Place: Christianity Today Online, “Chaos Theology” by Mark Galli
5th Place: Christianity Today, “Augustine’s Origin of Species” by Alister McGrath
Critical Review
2nd Place: Christianity Today, “Meager Harvest” by Telford Work
3rd Place: Leadership, “How a Mighty Church Falls” by Gordon MacDonald
5th Place: Christianity Today Online, “No Line on the Horizon’ Is No Radical Invention of U2 (Hooray!)” by Andy Whitman
Devotional
3rd Place: Christianity Today, “Three Gifts for Hard Times” by William J. Stuntz
Editorial
1st Place: Christianity Today, “Is the Gay Marriage Debate Over?” by Mark Galli
2nd Place: Out of Ur, “Skye Jethani: Generation of Sarcasm” by Skye Jethani
4th Place: Christianity Today Online, “The New (Evangelical) Mainline” by Mark Galli
Evangelism Article
3rd Place: Leadership, “The Gospel for iGens” by Scot McKnight
4th Place: Your Church, “Bringing Joy to the World” by Lee Dean
First-Person Article
5th Place: Leadership, “The God Bearers” by Lt. Cmdr. Bruce Crouterfield
General Article: Long
2nd Place: Leadership, “Can Your Church Handle the Truth?” by Matt Russell with Angie Ward
4th Place: Christianity Today, “The Case for Early Marriage” by Mark Regnerus
General Article: Short
3rd Place: Leadership, “Messy, Costly, Dirty Ministry” by Mark Buchanan
Humorous
4th Place: Out of Ur, ‘The Next BIG Things” by Url Scaramanga
Interview Article
1st Place: Christian Music Today, “Rising from the Valley of Death” by Mark Moring
5th Place: Your Church, “Budget Bullseye” by Marian Liautaud
Personality Article
1st Place: Christianity Today, “The Controversialist” by Molly Worthen
2nd Place: Christianity Today Online, “A Song Grows in Brooklyn” by Alissa Wilkinson
Reporting
2nd Place: Leadership, “Trouble Brewing” by Eric Reed
Standing Column
5th Place: Christianity Today, “Wrestling With Angels” by Carolyn Arends
Original Art: Digital/Mixed Media
2nd Place: Leadership, “The Sin Tamer” by Doug Fleener
Photo Feature
4th Place: Christianity Today, “Cuba for Christ” by Jeremy Weber, writer; Gary Gnidovic, photographer
Publication Design
3rd Place: Leadership, Doug Fleener, designer
Publication Redesign
1st Place: Christianity Today, Gary Gnidovic, Alecia Sharp, designers
Posted in Media
CSS Help for Creating Great E-blasts
The Direct Marketing Association’s 2009 economic-impact study reported that the return on investment for e-mail marketing, or e-blasts, was a whopping $43.62 for every dollar spent!
Besides providing a great ROI for your ad dollars, e-blasts also allow a lot of creative versatility. Designers can use HTML and CSS to create unique designs that grab attention and enhance the sales message.
Unfortunately, many email clients block images and CSS by default, forcing the design to be scaled back for the sake of functionality. The good news is there are resources available to help you successfully implement CSS in eblasts. Check out this report from Campaign Monitor, then pass it along to your designer.
Happy e-blasting!
Posted in email marketing
Ads in Digital Magazines
According to a new survey called “The Case of Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines,” by Josh Gordon, digital magazines compare favorably to other electronic media when it comes to advertising and reader experiences. The research revealed that readers of digital magazines feel that ads in digital magazines are more helpful than ads in other electronic media and feel they are more interesting then other electronic media. Below are a few of the of the statistics from the study, and you can read the entire article here.
- 70% of digital magazine readers were less likely to ignore display ads in digital editions.
- 79% said they viewed ads in digital editions as more credible.
- 82% say digital magazines were “more engaging” than other similar content.
- 1 in 5 readers say they play a “digital extra” before moving on to another article.
- 44% say digital extras give articles they had no interest in, a second chance.
- 28.1% say they will read a bit of the article and then play the digital extra before moving on to the next article.
Posted in Advertising Tips, digital magazines
Getting Over Eblast Hurdles
A quick video that shows some ways to overcome design obstacles that can be encountered when creating an eblast for one of CTI’s e-newsletters. This video covers how to handle hurdles like anti-virus software, platform diversity and image blocking. Watch this to make sure your eblast campaigns are as successful as possible!
Posted in Advertising Tips
