Seminars Unlimited, Keene, TX, needed to tap into its spirit of survival when it launched its integrated direct marketing campaign last month promoting the “Millennium of Prophecy Bible Study Spectacular” to New York residents. The event will continue through Nov. 12.
We knew it was going to take a different approach, said Robert Wagley, outreach spokesman for born-again evangelical Doug Batchelor, pastor/speaker with Amazing Facts Ministry, Roseville, CA. Wagley also helps design Batchelor's direct marketing campaigns. “Visuals are very important. You have to get people to pay attention to what you're offering,” he said.
Of course, it's doubtful anyone receiving one of the nearly 600,000 millennium-inspired, four-color tri-folded glossies dropped in Manhattan last month could have overlooked the Christlike angelic figure descending from the heavens over a clock-faced planet earth.
Amazing Facts, a nonprofit religious organization, mailed 500,000 pieces in two drops with roughly another 100,000 distributed via hand directly to the public. The campaign was also buttressed with outdoor direct, local direct response television and print advertising.
Scott Steward, marketing director at Amazing Facts, hinted that they had to pull out all the stops to penetrate the New York City market. But Steward concedes Amazing Facts — which is getting about 1,000 people a night to its millennium event — was hoping for more.
