I teach Catholic churches, businesses, and ministries how to market like Jesus. Every Monday, I send out the latest musings on Catholic marketing from my position as a Catholic marketing professional, former parish employee, and regular old Catholic mom trying not to lose my mind while raising saints. Subscribe if you want to learn how to apply the strategies Jesus and the apostles used to grow the Early Church to your own marketing work today!
I gave them my email SO FAST
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I was browsing a homeschool curriculum website the other day when I saw my new favorite freebie offer: Up came a pop-up as I browsed, and I almost clicked out of it until I saw what it said... "Sign up for our emails and get free shipping on your first order." When I tell you I SMASHED the email sign-up button so hard. I've talked about it before, but shipping can be a huge factor in why people choose not to buy something. They are finally convinced enough to buy, but then they go to checkout and it's suddenly $6-15 more than they'd calculated. And yes, I know you're not Amazon, but they've trained us to not think about shipping costs anymore. It's not that people expect small businesses to be able to offer free shipping just because other stores do; it's that people just truly forget to add that cost in until they see it at checkout. So if they were on the edge because of the price and then see shipping on top of that, that sale has sailed. But if you can offer them that convenience, even as a one-time new subscriber discount, you have a much higher likelihood that they'll actually make a purchase. Now, what about offering free shipping at a higher price point? For example, if you spend $75+ you get free shipping? That has the advantage of raising your overall order value, which is great! But what I like about offering one-time free shipping to a new customer with no order minimum is that they feel especially valued, and they can purchase at a smaller dollar amount to "try you out" so to speak before that trust has been established. Then, once they've purchased, you can continue to email them - and repeat customers are much more likely to buy from you again (like, 80%+ more likely). So while you might not get as high an order value from that initial sale, you set yourself up for the potential of a lifelong customer, which will be more valuable over time. Jesus didn't start out asking people to be martyrs. He led them into deeper relationship with Him first - from observers to disciples to apostles to martyrs - and we have to do the same with our people. And sometimes? The invitation might need to take the form of free shipping to get their attention. For His greater glory, Emily |
Market Like Jesus: The Catholic Marketing Newsletter
I teach Catholic churches, businesses, and ministries how to market like Jesus. Every Monday, I send out the latest musings on Catholic marketing from my position as a Catholic marketing professional, former parish employee, and regular old Catholic mom trying not to lose my mind while raising saints. Subscribe if you want to learn how to apply the strategies Jesus and the apostles used to grow the Early Church to your own marketing work today!
"This shouldn't be so hard!" I thought to myself as I plopped my head into my hands in front of my computer. "I literally do this for a living." "I TEACH other people how to do this for a living," I continued berating myself. So why wasn't I able to do it for myself?? The source of my existential crisis was creating a landing page for a recent offering for Gloriam. I'd done all of the things I teach you to do: I knew my audience really well. I knew their problems. I knew how what I offered...
I scooched over into the pile of shoes on the floor, trying to take up as little room as possible as yet another customer came through the sliding glass door. The owner of the store was bouncing from customer to customer, involved in three conversations at once and somehow not getting frazzled by it. He circled back to me, and I expected him to apologize - not because he needed to, but because that's just what we do to overcompensate as small business owners, right? Instead, he simply smiled...
If you're like most parishes, September is the month of ALL THE EVENTS. Every group is starting back up (and competing for your parishioners' limited calendar space). And of course, everyone wants to be promoted in the bulletin, on the website, in the email newsletter, etc. But after a while, all of these promotions start to blend together...which means they're probably only being skimmed (at best!) by parishioners. There are a bunch of strategies you could try to help these groups promote...