The Client
Contemplative Outreach is a spiritual network of individuals and small faith communities committed to living the contemplative dimension of the Gospel. The common desire for Divine transformation, primarily expressed through a commitment to a daily Centering Prayer practice, unites our international, interdenominational community. Contemplative Outreach annually serves over 40,000 people; supports over 120 active contemplative chapters in 39 countries; supports over 800 prayer groups; teaches over 15,000 people the practice of Centering Prayer and other contemplative practices through locally-hosted workshops; and provides training and resources to local chapters and volunteers.

The Problem
Contemplative Outreach‘s (CO)  mission is to renew the Christian contemplative tradition, especially through teaching three methods of prayer that require guidance, training and practice to incorporate into daily life. The CO website helps to build awareness about the organization and these different types of prayers. With the amount of information readily available on the site, navigating through the three types of prayer and understanding where to start was overwhelming for many visitors, and a possible deterrent for building relationships with individuals.  The organization wanted to ensure that newcomers to the site could receive the most relevant information based on their level of knowledge/experience with each type of prayer. CO also wanted to introduce these individuals to the many ways to learn more about contemplative prayer, pointing them to free informational offerings, products for sale in the eCommerce store, local prayer groups and upcoming events or workshops. 

How We Solved It
CO worked with Convio Services to determine the best way to categorize new registrants to ensure that they received information most relevant to them. It was determined that each prayer method could present three levels of experience: interested in learning, beginner, and experienced. Based on these three categories, Convio Services created a Welcome Series of emails with conditional content that best-suited the user’s interests and information needs, as determined by a short survey taken at the time of registration. In the series of three emails, the body content was developed to convey a general message from CO, with a view toward giving the email a long “shelf life”. To reinforce the organization’s brand, each email was built with the same template, but the “Promo tiles” presented on the right hand side presented different information based on what the user indicated as their experience level for each type of prayer.

The Outcome
The Welcome Series of emails proved to be a concise and effective way to increase awareness of the three categories of prayer and related learning opportunities available through CO’s website. Email performance reports for the series indicate an average open rate of 60 percent and an average click-through rate of 32 percent. These results suggest that the content presented to newcomers is relevant to their interests. CO will continue to monitor overall email performance of the conditionalized Welcome Series, with a focus on click-through rates on both the emails and the landing pages to determine what information seems to be the most interesting to the newcomers of the site.  

Convio products used: Email Marketing