Comprehensive Vacation Bible School guide to be paired online with ‘Ministry Today’ magazine

A comprehensive guide to the 2009 line-up of Vacation Bible School (VBS) programs is to be made available to 100,000 pastors soon as part of a digital publishing initiative by Christian Retailing magazine, part of the Strang Media Group.

The 28-page 2009 VBS Product Guide published as a supplement to the Nov. 10, 2008, issue of Christian Retailing magazine will be paired online with the January-February edition of Ministry Today, a bimonthly magazine for those in church leadership, also published by Strang.

“For church VBS committees, all the content of the guide is in one place online where each committee member can access it,” said Christian Retailing Publisher Dave Condiff. “It solves a need a VBS committee has to share and access resources.”

Originally produced to help Christian retail stores provide VBS resources to churches in their community, the product guide includes information about themes and curriculum details for 19 programs from leading suppliers.

Extending the reach of the VBS guide to a longstanding periodical with readers who are church leaders ought to result in “a remarkable addition” for each audience, Condiff added.

Ministry Today subscribers will receive an e-mail message this month that will contain an Internet link to the magazine’s Web site, with full interactive access to the VBS guide’s articles, charts and advertising.

The initiative stems from a similar campaign in November that offered 100,000 pastors the 112-page issue of November-December Ministry Today in digital form. E-mail recipients could access the magazine’s first-ever issue in the interactive format, the same program used to publish Christian Retailing online.

The response to the offer was well above industry expectations for similar e-mail efforts. Ministry Today reported an “open rate” of close to 45%, more than three times the rate considered outstanding by Internet-marketing standards.

Of those who were confirmed to have opened the e-mail, 7% actually perused the digital issue—eclipsing the usual “click through” rate of 0.5% or less that marketers expect for online-content viewing, said company officials. Around 90% of those who viewed the issue online signed up to receive regular digital editions.

“The response we received was phenomenal when measured by industry standards for gauging the success of an e-mail promotion,” said Huelan Grier, executive vice-president of Strang Magazine Group, publisher of Christian Retailing and Ministry Today.

Similarly, print advertising sales for the November-December issue spiked upward when advertisers were told another 100,000 readers could see their ads online and link to their Internet sites.

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