Win Cubed
As we launch the next layer of our service supporting City Ministry, I wanted to pull back the curtain and reveal some of motives, goals, and hopes for Skill Sharing.
MOTIVES
The shallow answer might be, to facilitate gospel demonstration and proclamation. That’s great, but not really the full story. Of course we’re driven to spread God’s word, but what else.
I (Dan Jaspersen) am a layman with a hefty background in marketing, communication, strategic planning, and all of that. I sit in a pew with my family most weekends and then head home. There are dozens and dozens of people like me who do the same thing. Our pews are loaded with smart, savvy professionals in a variety of fields. In some cases, their local congregation has tapped into their talents, but it normally stops there.
The big “What if?” of Skill Sharing was What if churches in other areas could access those pros and get help on much needed website overhauls, graphic design needs, video, podcast management, or whatever project needed to happen. Could we steward the “pew talent” to help advance the gospel?
Doctrine of Vocation anyone?
GOALS
I spend a little time on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and the internet in general. I see various posts from churches, ministry, and other organizations quite frequently.
*Sigh.
There are so few of them which compel me to click, watch, or digest them deeper.
Great City Network is being built with the mission of helping churches communicate better - in all directions. Skill Sharing in a big element of that goal. Each church in each city with each pastor will have a unique situation to work through. We recognize that pastors are well trained at seminary, but they are NOT trained as marketers. And that’s ok. We want to come along side congregations and assist in the technical areas so pastors can focus on their jobs - tending and growing a flock.
HOPES
In the ever-changing realm of digital communication it requires excellence to compete with all of the distractions and noise. The Christian message has taken a beating recently. We know that God is good and salvation is beautiful, but it’s challenging to deliver in our cultural climate. But it’s not impossible.
We hope to help churches craft plans which draw the lost toward the light.
We hope to engage talented believers to use their talents in this great commission.
We hope to sow seeds in freshly tilled fields for the Holy Spirit to work on.
This is the win+win=WIN equation alluded to in the title. Win Cubed.
Churches win with help on their communication endeavors.
Our talent pool wins with expanded work and networks
The Gospel WINs with better paths to meet people where they are.
Audience Breakdown
First - do a quick Google search for “User Personas.” Specifically - look at the images
It's a simple argument to say that "our church wants to reach EVERYONE" because Jesus came to save everyone. Yes, the doctrine is clear, Jesus’ work ensured salvation for all of mankind. I'm not here to debate that.
Consider for a moment that during his ministry on Earth, Jesus did not communicate that message to everyone. He trained a select few, spoke to some groups, but generally stayed within the realm of the Jews. He didn't try to reach everyone in the whole world. He knew that he needed to focus on his core target market. We (21st century Christians) owe a great debt to the first round of believers for writing down Jesus' teachings and making sure we have access to them today. It's almost like God had a plan.
You church would benefit greatly from distilling your target demographic down to 2-3 core groups. And be very specific when you do this exercise. If you wish to connect with young adults, build a persona to describe them - in detail. At first, this may feel weird, but it's essential to really wrapping your head around a target market.
These personas will help you write social media posts, blogs, and other parts of your communication plans. To be clear, I'm using one right now. I have have persona for pastors working in large urban settings.
• Most of them are younger (28-39), well trained, but lacking education in marketing concepts.
• They are fast learners and almost constantly listening to a podcast, reading a book, or doing some activity to improve themselves.
• If they have kids, they are likely under the age of 5.
• These pastors enjoy the challenging environment of a fresh city and small congregation.
• They wouldn't do as well in a large, well established place.
• They are motivated by an internal drive to proclaim the Gospel which can be hard for them to articulate.
These types of notes inform the topics I write about and the language I use. Notice, I'm keeping it rather casual, and trying to pack a lot of info into this post - to demonstrate value.
Know your audience.
Leverage that building
When I was working for Kingdom Workers, I got to tell ministry stories from around the world. One of my favorites came from Indonesia and it's related to rubbing elbows with people. Kinda.
In many of the small villages where KW is active, the church is one of the only buildings around. These small structures serve many purposes. They believe that the building should be open and used everyday, not just for worship on Sundays. It's a great space. We should use it!
How many of our churches are dormant 5 days a week? I'm not just talking about a couple people (ie. pastor and secretary) being there, but really using the space. It's easy to lock the doors and just keep everything safe, but is that how we're supposed to use our blessings.
Having a church building is a massive blessing, and while we should protect it, we need to use them. Yes, we should host our classes, social gathers, and meetings there, but what else? What about groups from outside your church using the space and technology? What about hosting safety training sessions (CPR, Firearm Safety, Hunter safety, etc)? What about using your classrooms as meeting rooms for other organizations?
I'm not here to tell you how to use your space, but simply to ask a new question.
A Free Gift goes a long way
6. Giveaways and Generosity
When introducing your church, it can be hard to reach your target audience and engage them. However, no one can say no to free things. Therefore, giving away some of your t-shirts (coffee mugs, or other swag) can be a good way to engage as the recipients will talk. Reach out to different companies and offer to buy their team lunch but also ask them to share a photo on their social media platforms. Consider this as a line-item in your marketing or evangelism budget.
It’s also good to thank your guests with little things that remind them of you. It could be a small goodie bag or coffee mug. Such a gesture will leave a positive flavor in their mind about your church. It may well prompt them to market the church through word of mouth.
BTW - here is a FREE GIFT from Great City Network.
It's a PDF outlining a full year's worth of ideas for your blog.
Some of it is technical, but not difficult
5. Make your Content Easy to Discover
In today’s modern society, it’s crucial to have an online presence through social media, a website, or a blog. However, putting content online does not guarantee that your target customers will see the content. Therefore, to have a good online presence, you need to make it easy for people to discover your content.
One of the best ways to make your content discoverable is through keywords. Use keywords that are relevant to your market niche when you publish your posts as this will improve your search engine rankings on Google*. The keywords can also help you boost your audience on social media. You may also use automation tools to find people within your niche and connect with them.
The second way to make your content discoverable is employing SEO techniques. Learn how to improve your SEO ranking using various techniques, and your website or blog will get more visitors. Some techniques that can help you include using unique phrases for your pages or blog titles, posting original content, and getting rid of unnecessary plug-ins to improve the load speed of your website.
*How is your Google My Business doing for you? We made a quick guide to setting it up for your church. Grab our Google My Business set up guide. A gift from us.
Rub Elbows with the people
4. Co-sponsor and Attend Events in Your Niche
From time to time, cities host special events. Such events present you with an excellent opportunity to market your church. Often, face to face marketing is more effective than emails or social media. The opportunities to network and meet new people to connect are worth the price of sponsorship. Next time you hear about an event in your area, consider seeing if there’s a chance to co-sponsor the event or present during the event. If you get the opportunity, seize it and take full advantage of it by ensuring that the audience learns about your church by the time the event ends.
Routinely attending local Chamber of Commerce (or similar) events is a good way to engage with the business leaders and influencers in your city.
Quick Mingling Tip: You should always collect more business cards than you give out. This gives you the ability to follow up with all of those new contacts.
Why does your church exist?
3. Know and Share Your “Why”
It is very important to understand your “why”. People will always want to know why your church exists. Telling them that you’re here to “proclaim the Gospel of Jesus as Savior,” isn’t always enough when you’re trying to cut through the noise. Yes, of course, this is your primary “why” but the market is very saturated with that type of message.
You need to have a good, unique story* about why and how your church is unique in the sea of churches. The story should differentiate you and your congregation from others and will prompt people to ask questions and want to know more about you and your teaching.
When you share this kind of information with your audience, as well as on your marketing material, your story will resonate with people and become more memorable. Also, your story may be an inspiration to others, and they will start to follow you. You may also share this story of your startup journey on your blog, YouTube channel and any other social media platforms you have.
*We hosted a session on Brand Language Development with an Emmy Award winning pro who works with the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers, and dozens of high profile brands.
Niche it.
2. Create a Niche and Build Credibility
You do not require a huge budget to create a niche for your church or to make it credible. All you need is to find opportunities to increase awareness for your church and let your potential audience get a look on the inside. Some good opportunities include blogs, podcasts, webinars and YouTube videos. For instance, it does not cost you anything to start a YouTube channel and share your messages. All you need is a smart branding strategy* and creativity. Videos can reach a large audience, take less time to create, and are easy to understand. Therefore, you may upload videos to give your target audience an insight of your upcoming products. Make sure that the content is well-written and interesting.
*We hosted a workshop on Brand Positioning with a pro who works in the Silicon Valley. His tech start-up experience is a fresh voice in the arena of church marketing.
Engaging is better than Selling.
Marketing your church is crucial if you want to keep up in the fast paced big-city setting (or anywhere). There are many ways of marketing a church, but most of them require a large budget. However, this doesn’t imply that you cannot promote your work if you have a limited budget. In fact, the lack of sufficient funds is the best motivation for creativity and innovation. With a little creativity and determination, you can still conduct effective marketing campaigns.
1. Engage With Your Audience Rather Than Just “Selling”
It’s easy for a pastor to get into the trap of just wanting to push our messages in a one-way conversation. Though it’s not bad to prioritize announcements, sometimes you need to engage with people to help them know more about your church and your message. Social media is one of the best and easiest ways to engage with your target audience. It presents an opportunity for indirect marketing which is very effective.
Share or retweet posts, comment, get involved in conversations and backlink your opinions to your church. People will notice you and, eventually, they will begin to trust your voice. However, you should be very careful about what you post. People probably will not read your posts or follow you if you are always talking (just) about your church and worship services. You need to post interesting articles and things that catch people’s attention. Also, check for sites that are appropriate for your beliefs and focus on them.
A few examples of sites which likely post content you'd be comfortable posting:
• Bread For Beggars
• Hearts and Hands Podcast
• Illume Church
Counseling & Mentoring - a preview
Sometimes the process of building something takes time to clarify. That was the case with Great City Network’s newest series of workshops. There was an inkling of an idea and a vaguely understood need, but it was mushy and abstract. So, we got to work having conversations, researching, chatting with pros, and praying.
What started as a disjointed rough sketch is now ready to present to you.
The idea was to support pastors in areas outside of the theology and their pulpits. “What are the other parts of a pastor’s job?” That was the key question we were working with.
Counseling.
While still in the brainstorming phase, one of our pastors was trying to faithfully walk along with one of his members who was struggling deeply. Her issues were significant and thankfully she knew she could turn to her shepherd for comfort, help, and guidance.
But still, he felt a little out of his league trying to counsel her through the situation.
Mentoring.
How many of our church councils are merry-go-rounds of the same handful of men? In many cases, that group of men is faithful, but aging and growing tired. What about the other 80% of our men? That same is true of the women in our congregations. There are an active few, but several disengaged.
How can we get fresh legs into the game?
The new Great City Network series will focus on these two primary areas: Counseling and Mentoring. Like our Branding and Marketing series, the content will be geared toward pastors working in large urban settings, but of course the concepts will likely be true regardless of setting.
Session 1 will focus on helping teens take ownership of their faith. As children, we go to church with our parents. But as we grow and gain more freedoms (and responsibilities) with our first cars, jobs, and other activities, it becomes more likely that a teen will choose to attend church less often. How can we help our teens prioritize continuing to mature in their faith?
Brandon Lee White is a professional speaker and guide who works mostly in the public school settings, but also with Christian youth groups. Over the years, he has spoken in nearly all 50 states, the National 4-H convention, and dozens of large gatherings of teens. He brings a fresh perspective to the conversation of mentoring teens.
Branding and Marketing Series - an intro
A few months ago I was on a call with one of our pastors. We were discussing some of the ideas he wanted to see come from the Great City Network project.
“We really just need to get better at Social Media,” he commented, “can you help us learn that?”
In the moment, I gave him a simple positive response. Sure, of course I can guide you through the practical points of running decent social media.
Over the following couple of days, I began to realize that it wouldn’t be enough to simply teach social. What he (and many pastors) actually needed was more comprehensive guidance on building a solid, modern, competitive communication strategy. Social media, after all, is only one small component of a larger system.
Fast forward to the present. Great City Network is currently ⅓ of the way through our Branding and Marketing series of workshops geared toward churches. The series has been designed to cover several topics in three core units: Brand Development, Digital Marketing, and Community Engagement.
Our presenters all come from the professional field where they work at very high levels. We have an Emmy award winning brand writer who works with the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks. In the area of website design, we’ve invited a UX/UI designer from Epic - one of the largest health industry companies in America. A marketing professor, a Ph.D in public health, HR Consultant, and several others round out the talented professionals leading our pastors through the series.
Great City Network is a community of WELS pastors focused on developing fresh perspectives and best practices for spreading the gospel in major metropolitan settings. With that in mind, we knew we needed to work toward building excellent communication strategies for churches. After all, when you’re working in a big city, there is a lot of noise, speed, and angles of conversations happening all at once.
As the live workshops occur, we publish them for our members to refer back to as often as needed. Many times, we build additional resources related to the topics as well. Together, we can work to be better communicators of God’s word through the channels he has blessed us with.
~ DJ
Introducing the new Great City Network logo
Allow me to introduce Great City Network’s icon and visual brand. First, take a moment to look at the icon. Really look at it because there are a few thoughtful design elements to notice.
First up, the idea of a great city. The name “Great City Network” comes from Jonah 4:11 where God is commissioning the reluctant messenger to go to Nineveh. Of course, if you know anything about the Old Testament world, you know that Nineveh was on of the largest cities in Mesopotamia. It was a hub of commerce, culture, and conversations. In the eyes of Jonah, it was a wicked vile place, but God still cared for the people there. He cared enough to send a prophet.
We see ourselves in that story.
Today, North America’s “great cities” are massive centers which can be very intimidating place to spread the gospel. The post-Christian era is in full swing in places like Seattle, Chicago, Vancouver, New Orleans, and others. In the center of our icon, you see the idea of skyscrapers drawing us toward the focus of this network: To develop fresh strategies and perspectives on leading a church in a major urban center.
Secondly, the circle wrapping around the buildings is light. The light of the gospel carried forward by our called workers and lay leaders. You probably noticed the notch cut out in the circle. Rather than seeing it as an incomplete shape, I invite you to see it as a highlight or a spot where the light is so bright it shines in your eye. You see, if you study drawing and light, you’ll learn that there is more light at the bottom of an object than you may have noticed. That’s us. We like to bring the light in the darkest, lower-most areas. You’ll notice the same notch highlight at the bottom of each building.
Lastly, it’s no accident that there are three buildings in the icon and the center is the tallest. If you’re very observant, you may notice that the building “on Jesus righthand side” is slightly larger than the other. That building is also a bit closer to the center building, recalling for us the “never too late” faith of the thief on the cross next to Jesus.
Great City Network was borne out of Illume Church in Seattle, WA. Out logo and color palette bares a few nods to the parent brand. The highlight in the circle and bottoms of the buildings are closely related to Illume’s icon.