The Brand and Challenge
The New International Version (NIV) is the most-read English-language Bible translation worldwide and the number one selling Bible translation. The key objective is to support the translation’s leadership position, its use, and sales. Communications need to also speak to a broad audience comprised of all potential Bible readers, novice to scholar.
What We Did
Verve Marketing Group created a refreshed identity implemented into a full brand campaign. The process included creation of a brand strategy document to formalize vision, positioning, promise and personality. The campaign theme of “Trusted and Loved” was quickly landed on speaking to the desire by all audiences for an accurate translation that is easy to understand and enjoyable to read.
The brand campaign was implemented into a new website and a multi-channel digital marketing program. New articles are created for the website blog weekly. These are optimized for search engines and driven to by email subscribers to the blog and social media posts.
Web Design and Development
The website is the hub for information about the translation and key NIV products. It is also a destination site of free resources and articles that consumers—novice to scholar—use to read, understand, and apply God’s Word in their lives. The NIV website was a Gold Award winner in the 2018 International MarCom Awards Competition.
Digital Marketing Campaign Using Blog and Social Media
A program of posting weekly articles to the NIV site started in January 2018. Since then, traffic from organic search has grown from 19% of site traffic in the base year of 2017 to 62% of traffic in 2022. The digital marketing program has been the driving force of the site’s traffic growth increasing 4,465% vs. 577% increase for all other sources (direct, social, etc.). Each new article provides an opportunity to drive people to the site on a different topic of interest and is the digital marketing tool primarily driving awareness to new users.
Weekly blog articles offer Scriptural insights on popular topics and practical support to encourage Bible reading. Categories in the blog — Devotionals and Deeper Study — support the translation’s position as both easy to understand and good for study. Article promotion, Scripture verses, and free Bible resources form the basis of a robust content marketing program.
The Results
• 338% increase in overall site traffic after one year and 1,159% increase after 3 years—over 10 times the base year.
• 381% increase in organic traffic after one year and exponential growth with 3,260% increase over base year after three years and 4,465% in five years.
• Grew organic traffic from 19% of site traffic to 62% five years later.
• 6,200 keywords in the top 10 of Google search after 5 years and 616 keywords #1 on page one.
• The NIV website was a Gold Award winner in the 2018 International MarCom Awards Competition.
“… fabulous to work with from strategy, design, content, and web development. You know the digital marketing space and deliver incredible results!”
– Helen Schmitt
Sr. Marketing Director & NIV Brand Manager, Zondervan
