Advancing Native Missions (ANM), founded in 1992, focuses on empowering native missionaries in their home countries to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. They hope to become a household name in the nonprofit world, especially for faith-centered organizations.
ANM began partnering with PHOS a full year before exploring a new website. Despite promising organic results, ANM felt a disconnect between their brand and website and where they wanted to go. Combining our branding expertise with a stunning new website, we were excited to drive more marketing results.
We began this project by exploring what ANM wanted to be known for. This influenced all aspects of our branding, website, and marketing strategy. The goal quickly became building upon the strengths of ANM and enhancing the overall look and feel of their brand.
Global Impact
The updated brand and website needed to communicate an international focus. Because ANM empowers the local church in countries around the world, their brand system couldn’t feel too corporate. It needed to feel more organic to represent their core focus.
Trustworthiness
Built upon the generous donations of individuals and churches, ANM’s brand needed to communicate trust. We focused on aspects to showcase ANM’s heart and transparency so that new donors can feel like their investment is being stewarded faithfully.
Distinction
In a crowded space of other international and recognizable nonprofit organizations, ANM needed to carve out a place online to display authority. Our goal is to make Advancing Native Missions a household name when it comes to faith-based nonprofits. A strong brand system would help build into this.
The Solution
With all those things considered, we first focused our strategy on refreshing the brand to highlight a global mindset. ANM wanted to move from a slightly detached, corporate identity into a more warm, welcoming, and distinguished brand. This created the right building blocks to design a website that highlights ANM’s story and impact while driving more donations.
Brand Refresh
We first began uncovering where ANM’s team felt the brand fell short. Their updated brand needed to feel global and trusted, combining two essential elements to aid in more brand authority.
Our brand attributes exercise allowed ANM’s team to select the words that they wanted their updated brand to convey. These would serve as our starting point for building out our moodboards.
Moodboard
Our moodboarding process included three moodboards to show different directions we could take their brand and website. We created these on a spectrum: one option being similar to their current brand but with subtle touches of warmth, one that kept a professional tone while including bold and dynamic graphics, and one that pushed their brand to a new extreme with a focus on global influences. ANM picked the one that was most unlike their current brand, allowing us to push them to the next level.
With an approved moodboard, we were able to develop ANM’s refreshed brand elements that served as a guide for the website design and other visual assets moving forward.
Sitemap Development
ANM’s previous site was fairly large. With hundreds of pages and even more blogs, one of the benefits of building a new website was refining the sitemap. This also enabled better management of the “baggage” that comes with aging websites.
With so many pages, our team had to determine what pages were most important to be highlighted in ANM’s navigation. We had to consider the ideal user journey, the most important information to communicate who ANM was and their uniques, as well as where to ask for donations.
User Experience
A pain point of the previous website was a confusing sitemap. By first looking at who we wanted to prioritize for website users, we could better map out what pages needed to be front and center. ANM wanted to reach:
Eager Donors
Church Leaders/Decision Makers
Millennial Donors
Donors and churches were still ANM’s focus, but we also wanted to expand into younger Millennials to capture their interest and, ultimately, their loyalty. This meant that we needed to convey ANM’s story and then guide a donor to take action. For churches, it meant allowing for connection to ANM’s mission and then pointing them to the right resources for their congregation.
Content Strategy & Migration
Another challenge that was presented was content migration. Should all 500 pages be moved to the new website? At first glance, our team knew the smaller amount of content, the better for site performance. However, ANM had rich SEO content and strong resources, so we had to get creative with our approach.
By implementing a strong content audit process, we examined all of ANM’s content to select the most important landing pages, blog posts, and resources to migrate to the site. This meant we protected the valuable content while also using the new website as an opportunity to cull down.
Website Design & Development
Now we could begin dreaming up the new website. With a brand direction and sitemap in place, our design team explored how to match an emotional storytelling need with a focus on the effective use of digital space. The web design resulted in a site that was engaging, welcoming, and highly functional.
Donation Integration
The largest call to action for this website is to donate. ANM invested in a donation third-party platform, Classy, which made integration seamless. By directing users to donate throughout the site and on key landing pages, it removed barriers to the ultimate conversion process.
Plus, users could now also donate to specific missionaries or regions instead of just a general donation. This makes the donation more specific and customized to the donors’ preferences.
Displaying International Reach
As stated in the new brand’s needs, international reach had to be highlighted and communicated. This was done through content, of course, but also with a highly interactive world map to showcase the areas that ANM’s support goes to.
Inbound Marketing
ANM’s ongoing marketing is primarily focused on:
Expanding brand awareness for Advancing Native Missions
Increasing donations, especially for repeat donors
We’ve been able to do both of these things through the following marketing strategies.
Search Engine Optimization
Before the branding and website project even began, ANM partnered with PHOS for SEO and PPC strategy. For over a year, we had a glimpse into how strong ANM’s content was for directing users to learn more about ANM and their mission. This was best illustrated through top-performing content like “What Is the 10/40 Window and Why Is It Important?“ and “Facing Family: When a Muslim Becomes a Christian“
Not only did we want to continue maintaining strong national reach with viral blog posts, but we also wanted to capitalize on keywords and phrases that spoke to ANM’s nonprofit focus. Our SEO strategy combines educational resources and donor-minded content.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
We also know the importance of bringing new users to ANM’s website to improve visibility and increase donations. Our Google Search Ads strategy is similar to our SEO strategy, capturing interest at the top of the funnel to increase visibility while simultaneously targeting donor-minded users to convert online.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a critical part of ANM’s larger marketing strategy. Like paid advertising, ANM’s organic and paid social strategies help to create more brand awareness. Additionally, these social accounts also continue to humanize ANM, more easily making the emotional connection online with users and potential donors.
Organic Social Media
Our goal for ANM’s social media is to create more emotional touchpoints with current and potential donors. We do this through field updates, stories from native missionaries, prayer resources, and short-form videos.
Video has been hugely helpful in creating dynamic content that captures the heart and meaning behind ANM’s mission.
Social Media Advertising
In addition to organic posts, ANM’s social media advertising strategy promotes more action. Directly tied to donation-focused initiatives and specific causes, we are tailoring promotions to get in front of those who are most likely to convert.
The Impact
ANM’s new website showcases a digital presence that is both inviting and distinct. The website captures authenticity through its visual and verbal aspects. Plus, the user journey is more easily navigated to produce more conversions.
Native missionaries can be a complex topic for those who are not familiar with it. This new website does a great job of building trust and being transparent about what ANM does and what they believe.
In addition to the new website, we’ve seen strong results from digital marketing efforts that have only increased with the website changes.
Google Ads cost per conversion has decreased by nearly $100 in 2023 compared to 2022.
Within 60 days of launching the website, new users increased by 50%, traffic increased by 39%, and there was a 20% increase in users from organic search.
In promotion of the new website, there was a 150% increase in direct traffic.
"The PHOS team has become an extension of our own team. They understand our mission and values and have helped us communicate those more effectively and multiply our online engagement. Advancing Native Missions is grateful for their skills, dedication, and partnership."
—Amber Parker, Vice President of Staff Development
