Steubenville Conferences have been providing teens with life-changing encounters with Jesus Christ for decades. Their popular youth conferences are renowned both for providing an amazingly fun weekend for teens and for leaving a lasting spiritual impact on their lives.
After Covid-19, however, registration dipped dramatically. So the Steubenville Conferences team reached out to 5 Stones to help reverse that trend. The results were monumental.
With the clear goal of increasing conference registration, the 5 Stones team got to work. We scoured 10+ years of conference attendance data before planning a robust marketing strategy. This included digital advertising, enhanced messaging, an upgraded landing page, expanded media kits, new lead generation, podcast insertions, and influencer campaigns.
Our strategy raised awareness in the market about Steubenville Conferences, provided accompaniment resources for youth leaders and parents, and drove registration decisions through conversion-focused tactics.
We saw a 20% increase in overall registration for the Main Campus conference location—bringing in over $300,000 in additional revenue—and a 17% increase in attendees per conference. This was the second-highest attendance per conference in the past ten years. Steubenville Conferences made their post-Covid comeback, bringing the life-changing message of Christ’s love to thousands of teens.
Our social media strategy included influencer campaigns, which brought endorsements from leading Catholic voices like Fr. Mike Schmitz, Katie Prejean McGrady, Sr. Josephine Garrett, and many others. Advertising campaigns grew Franciscan Conferences’ audience list by 6,000+ new parents and group leaders. All these results were achieved while using only ~75% of our ad budget, allowing us to reallocate funds for future marketing efforts for Steubenville Conferences.
The joy and enthusiasm they bring to their collaboration are truly infectious. For any organization seeking a strategic, capable, and passionate marketing partner, I wholeheartedly recommend reaching out to 5 Stones.
Steubenville Conferences needed a landing page optimized for generating leads. Our team used Steubenville Conferences’ branding and current web design to create a beautiful, interactive page that reflected the fun and energy of their youth conferences. The new page paid off with a 20% conversion rate for lead generation—nearly double the industry benchmarks.
With an updated landing page optimized for conversions, our email list started growing. We designed and built a robust lead nurture series focused on educating parents and youth ministry volunteers on the conferences. Due to a national decline in staff youth ministers at parishes, it was critical that we reach this broader audience of potential volunteer group leaders. Our strategy delivered a 33% increase in open rate and a 37% increase in click rates.
