St. Benedict Press Tries Magalogs, Email, Social to Reach Catholics

St. Benedict Press is using a combination of magalogs, social media and email marketing to reach a new audience beyond its house file.

The Charlotte, NC-based company markets downloadable videos and audio recordings to Roman Catholics.

Beginning in December, St. Benedict Press will send out 100,000 pieces of a new magalog to prospect names from 23 lists of Catholics it believes may want to learn more about the faith, says Rick Rotondi, vice president of new business development.

Those lists include direct mail Catholic book and magazine buyers, donors and other response lists. Later, the prospecting field will expand to alumni of Catholic colleges and institutions, Catholic clergy and parish leaders, teachers and administrators at Catholic schools and public libraries, says Rotondi.

Over the next 12 months, St. Benedict will send out four magalog mailings to customers and prospects. This will be supported by an ongoing email campaign. The company plans to send out 12 to 16 blasts email blasts to its more than 50,000-name opt-in email file, Rotondi says.

The first issue of the magalog will be 20 pages long, increasing to 24 pages next year. The magalog is being aimed at Catholics ages 40 and under who might be starting a family. They go to church regularly and might be open to learning more about the religion.

St. Benedict is also launching a companion website www.catholiccourses.com as part of this effort.
St. Benedict recruited nine professors to teach the downloadable courses on various religious and philosophical subjects, he says.

St. Benedict gets response rates of more than 4% to the book catalogs it sends out to about 250,000 customers in February, June, September and right after Thanksgiving, he says. Those customers tend to be very conservative devout Catholics ages 40 and over, Rotondi says.

Earlier this year, St. Benedict used feedback from its Facebook page participants to test market a new Bible translation.

"They chose one of three possible covers, says Rotondi, noting the campaign got mentioned on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. "Our friends and fans on Facebook actually voted on which bible cover to use."

Right now, St. Benedict has 3,000 likes on its Facebook page. The firm also has a YouTube channel on which it promotes the website and the courses, he says.

Going forward, St. Benedict plans to delve further into social media, perhaps offering members exclusive product