THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

In the realm of digital outreach, especially within Christian ministry, the challenge of connecting deeply with individuals through social media and digital platforms is an ever-present challenge. For our team at MII, the recent journey of refining our customer journey stands as a testament to the power of agile problem-solving and the profound impact it can have on gospel outreach. This week we’ll review a problem we faced recently, our methodical approach to analyzing and testing, the solution we implemented, and the remarkable results we witnessed. Hopefully our experience will provide your team with some insights and encouragement for how you can also improve your own digital ministry efforts. 

The Challenge

Our mission is to always engage individuals interested in spiritual conversations through social media ads and lead them to take the next step in their spiritual journey. While our ads were hitting the mark, with performance metrics indicating an acceptable cost per click (CPC) and cost per lead, a deeper dive into the customer journey revealed a significant hurdle. Despite landing on our webpage ready to explore further, visitors were not completing the three-page journey to reach our call to action (CTA) — an invitation to connect directly with our team. As we all know, if people aren’t engaging in conversation with our team they’ll never have the opportunity to discuss and explore spiritual truth with our counselors. 

The challenge for this particular campaign was clear - how do we get more people into conversation with our team? 

Analysis and Revelation

Upon examining the user journey, our team uncovered a critical insight: the three-page navigation was inadvertently acting as a barrier. Though visitors were engaging with the content on the first page, including watching an entire video, the subsequent pages were causing a significant drop-off. It became evident that our intended audience was ready to connect much sooner than we had anticipated, and the additional steps were only providing opportunities for disengagement.

A Solution Through Simplification

With these insights in hand, we embarked on a journey to streamline the user experience:

1. Condensing the Journey: We simplified the process to a single page, featuring a targeted video to maintain engagement.
2. Enhancing Video Engagement: To ensure viewers remained focused, we set the video to auto-play, removing the controls for pausing or fast-forwarding.
3. Immediate Call to Action: Recognizing our audience's readiness, we introduced the CTA to connect with our team after just 10% of the video had played, significantly earlier than in the original journey.

The Impact of Change

The results were nothing short of transformative:
- The completion rate of the journey surged from 0% to an astounding 85%.
- Engagement with the CTA skyrocketed, with clicks increasing to over 1,200 in merely five days.
- Direct conversations between users and our team increased from 0 to 86 in the same timeframe.

Perhaps most revealing was the identification of a technical glitch that had previously gone unnoticed. This issue was hindering the majority of the 1,200 individuals who had expressed a desire to connect. Rectifying this not only solved an immediate problem but also paved the way for an anticipated 90% engagement rate, marking a significant milestone for our ministry efforts.

Lessons and Forward Steps

This journey underscores the importance of a well-structured test, the agility to implement rapid changes, and the profound impact such adjustments can have on ministry outcomes. By embracing a data-driven approach and remaining adaptable, we were able to significantly enhance our outreach efforts, ultimately allowing us to connect more deeply with individuals seeking spiritual guidance.

MII’s recent experience with this campaign serves as a powerful reminder of the potential that lies in continually evaluating and refining our strategies to meet our audience where they are. As we move forward, this mindset will remain at the forefront of our efforts, guiding us as we seek to fulfill our mission in an ever-evolving digital landscape.