Awareness/Recruitment campaign generated 10M+ impressions
The purpose and mission of the Office of Vocations of the Archdiocese of Boston is to encourage and support young men in their discernment of their God-given vocation, especially that of the priesthood.
The Catholic church, across the United States, has seen a sharp decline in men open to discerning a vocational call to the priesthood or religious life. The Archdiocese of Boston’s Vocations Office, also known as Vocations Boston, decided to invest their efforts in turning the tide of this declining trajectory. The success of marketing data and technology, proven by brands, today, was harnessed to identify potential future priests. Through these effective tactics, Messenger Eagle Communications was able to expand the reach and engage more men, to nurture their discernment, than the Vocations Office had been able to do on their own.
Messenger Eagle Communications created a multifaceted approach to solve the Archdiocese of Boston’s problem.
Campaign Strategy
To better understand potential seminarian audience segmentation – identifying the different “types” of young men inclined to be open to discerning their vocation in life – and the discernment journey by these persona types, we hosted collaborative workshops with numerous Vocations Boston priests and current seminarians.
The creative strategy phase resulted in a creative brief driven by emotional insights for each persona type. This guided an entire brand redesign for Vocations Boston, complete with a new positioning statement, logo and website.
The Messenger Eagle team then developed media strategies and plans for potential seminarians by these established persona types and a creative campaign to build and grow brand awareness in the greater Boston area.
Web Banners and Social Ads
Creative Approach: Life’s Calling
We established two different creative approaches:
Creative #1: Conceptual
A reflective approach that echoed the journey of discernment for young men considering priesthood.
Creative #2: Reverent Action
A more active approach to resonate with men of this persona to embrace their active lifestyles and highlight that priesthood is anything but boring.
The second campaign we created for Vocation Boston tested the CRM pipeline, attracting young men from the greater Boston area and running them through a filtering system to better qualify those who filled out the initial form. Over time, Messenger Eagle evolved the workflows to build more engagement and prove the man’s readiness to dive deeper into his discernment with personal engagement.
Workflows and Segmentation
Workflows were created to segment and interact with candidates based on behaviors and pre-defined qualifiers.
The two campaigns garnered strong engagement, generated more than 300 active leads and helped increase brand awareness and engagement on all fronts.
