ACTS Missions
Email Marketing & Website Support
The Backstory
ACTS Missions serves as the supporting organization for ACTS Retreats, a worldwide movement that hosts weekend-long retreats at parishes around the world. Their purpose is to evangelize men, women, and teens, and provide them with a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. Since the 1980s, millions of people around the world have encountered Christ on an ACTS Retreat. Founded in the Cursillo movement in San Antonio, ACTS Retreats now take place in 28 states and six countries.
The Challenge
- Despite having millions of retreat alumni, ACTS Missions’ donor base is small.
- Local parish ACTS communities don’t always form a connection with ACTS Missions. This lack of connection leaves potential donors and brand evangelists on the table.
- ACTS’ donor management/contact management system was unwieldy and not intuitive to use for email marketing.
- With full plates and several sites to manage for different target audiences, ACTS Missions’ busy staff felt overwhelmed and burnt out. Juggling tech solutions and doing their important work of supporting retreats and evangelism was too much.
- They needed a Catholic marketing agency who could handle web hosting and maintenance, and leverage an email marketing strategy to engage subscribers and convert them into donors.
The Strategy
Email Marketing
- Combine Catholic worldview with email marketing expertise to create an authentic Catholic email marketing strategy.
- Create a content calendar to engage ACTS Missions’ existing lists consistently and strategically.
- Send four emails per month with well-timed messaging, strong calls to action, and exclusive value for subscribers, like prayers, meditations, and more.
- Increase subscriber engagement, with the goal of converting more subscribers into donors over time.
- Source testimonials from subscribers and retreat alumni to strengthen connection between parish-based ACTS Retreats and ACTS Missions; use these testimonials as part of the strategic email marketing plan.
ACTS Missions Email Marketing: BEFORE
ACTS Missions Email Marketing: AFTER
Web Support
- Maintain website content regularly to keep it up to date and visually cohesive.
- Offer continuous tech support, including plugin maintenance and technical solutions.
- Free up ACTS Missions staff time to focus on their mission: building vibrant, active communities through ACTS Retreats.
Why it Works
Our email marketing strategy focused on adding value to the subscriber’s life rather than merely promoting ACTS Missions. Customized content clusters provide the framework for each month’s emails, creating a predictable and sustainable content calendar that lets readers know what to expect. We make sure every email includes clear calls-to-action (CTAs), guiding readers on steps to benefit their lives and engage meaningfully with ACTS Missions. Their bounce rates and unsubscribe rates decreased, indicating that their email lists are getting healthier, and their subscribers find value in their emails.
ACTS Mission’s web support retainer ensures that their website stays updated so that it can be a resource for all website visitors. In addition, all of their new content is deployed using web design best practices, and SEO best practices. This ensures their site offers optimal user experience and is “findable” for search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.
