WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.120 So what are their biggest needs? What are their biggest concerns? What are the biggest goals? 00:00:05.560 --> 00:00:12.900 And this is not the Sunday school answer. We know they need Jesus. What is their biggest concern? 00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:20.480 They are concerned about going to heaven. What is their biggest goal? To live a good life. I mean, 00:00:20.520 --> 00:00:25.440 like all of those Sunday school answers, like that's not what people are waking up concerned 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:30.420 about. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the 00:00:30.420 --> 00:00:35.740 technological innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address 00:00:35.740 --> 00:00:42.140 deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:48.220 mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the 00:00:48.220 --> 00:00:53.100 metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, 00:00:53.100 --> 00:00:58.940 or a startup church plan? The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a 00:00:58.940 --> 00:01:05.140 multiplying church, digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover 00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:11.580 a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your 00:01:11.580 --> 00:01:18.440 host, Jeff Reed. All right. Hey, everybody. We got episode 214. My name is Jeff with the Church 00:01:18.440 --> 00:01:23.900 Digital Podcast. I'm definitely excited to have this conversation with you all today. By the way, 00:01:24.340 --> 00:01:30.060 hey, over at Digital Church Network, we are launching networks. We're launching these micro networks where 00:01:30.060 --> 00:01:36.160 we're grouping together different churches that have the same mission and vision. We're gathering 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:41.060 together physical churches that are doing digital ministry. We're gathering together churches that are 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:46.000 doing, that want to be a church in digital space. We're gathering together metaverse churches. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:52.100 And our hope by gathering these churches together is to help them get encouragement, 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:57.900 to get support, to be prayed for, to get accountability. Basically, we want to see our 00:01:57.900 --> 00:02:03.920 churches multiply through Digital Church Network. And we're passionate about getting churches that are 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:10.760 really interested in understanding digital discipleship piece and to really take next steps in digital and 00:02:10.760 --> 00:02:15.280 metaverse ministry. We want to get you guys connected with some others and some people that can help you 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:19.800 that journey. So, hey, if you're interested in this, we'll put the link in the show notes as well. Go 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:28.000 to digitalchurch.network slash lifeline. Digitalchurch.network slash lifeline. Yeah, that's probably a long 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:32.380 URL. Maybe we need to fix that. Maybe the comm guy we've got here is going to correct me with that here 00:02:32.380 --> 00:02:40.340 in a second. But hey, let's get you connected. We do a lot when it comes towards digital ministry and 00:02:40.340 --> 00:02:45.000 metaverse. But honestly, the idea here with the networks, I think this is the best thing we can do 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:50.260 to help your ministry, whether you're planting or working at established church. I think this is the 00:02:50.260 --> 00:02:55.880 best thing we can do. So get started, get more information. Oh, it's free. Digitalchurch.network 00:02:55.880 --> 00:03:02.020 slash lifeline. Well, hey, we're looking forward to this conversation. Episode 214 here. 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:10.740 We're diving into the idea of a content strategy. I'm going to make this just for two minutes. I'm 00:03:10.740 --> 00:03:17.180 going to make this podcast about me. Hopefully this is okay. But I work at, I don't work. I volunteer 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:24.880 at a small church in town. I am an attender. Maybe I'm a leader. I kind of go back and forth on that. 00:03:24.940 --> 00:03:31.120 But at the heart of this, I'm at a church plant down here in Miami. Easter, maybe we had 150, 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:37.060 200 people. Typically it's about 100, 150 plus or minus. So it's a smallest church. I mean, 00:03:37.060 --> 00:03:41.760 in reality, we've probably been open six, eight months. There was totally a pun there if you got 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:46.360 it, but that's another story. But we've been open maybe six, eight, maybe 10 months at this point, 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:55.400 relatively new. And the lead pastor comes up to me one day and says, hey, Jeff, I need your help. 00:03:56.280 --> 00:04:01.060 We're really excited. We want to develop a content strategy for our church. 00:04:01.780 --> 00:04:09.900 And I looked at my pastor and I was like, okay, maybe. Sure. Let's think about it. Let's talk 00:04:09.900 --> 00:04:14.660 about it. Let's figure it out. And just in the weeks since that conversation, it happened a little 00:04:14.660 --> 00:04:20.860 before Easter. So it's been a little crazy. I've really been wrestling with, okay, so we're a small 00:04:20.860 --> 00:04:26.320 church. We're just starting out. What would a content strategy really look like for our church? What do I 00:04:26.320 --> 00:04:31.880 need to do? Then I started thinking about the massiveness of social media and a lot of the 00:04:31.880 --> 00:04:37.460 noise that's happening in this space. And I started asking questions like, is content strategy even 00:04:37.460 --> 00:04:46.720 effective for normal churches and larger churches? How do we manage this content? As churches, are we 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:51.980 really effective in getting content beyond the sermon? Do we need to do more stuff with sermon? Is there 00:04:51.980 --> 00:04:56.520 ideas? I just had a conversation the other day with some guys that are doing a podcast that has nothing 00:04:56.520 --> 00:05:02.420 to do with the sermon for their church. And so it's really starting to open some eyes for what's 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:08.680 effective and what's not in the season. And so, of course, I went to the best guy I know to have this 00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:14.640 conversation and Ben Stapley wasn't available. So I went to number two, also a Canadian, Mark McDonald. 00:05:14.640 --> 00:05:21.560 So, hey, Mark, how are you doing? I'm doing great. After that preamble, I just feel like I should call 00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:30.940 Ben Stapley and get him on here. We joked before we got on to the recording how that you, Ben, and 00:05:30.940 --> 00:05:35.800 myself, I mean, we could just probably sit and banter back and forth. Maybe that's what we need to do. 00:05:35.860 --> 00:05:42.000 We need to do a podcast with the three of us. Oh, my gosh. Just a podcast with the three of us on no 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:48.900 topic whatsoever. Exactly. That would be interesting. Now, you're both, I don't want to make this totally 00:05:48.900 --> 00:05:54.860 about you and Ben, but you're both Canadian, right? We are. I'm from East Coast, Canada, so way down 00:05:54.860 --> 00:06:04.180 east. If you go all the way 10 hours north of Boston and then hook a right and go east, that's New 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:09.880 Brunswick, Canada, and that's where I'm from. Well, cool. Hey, as we're opening up here, Mark, not Ben, 00:06:10.440 --> 00:06:17.360 tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I can't believe I get to do what I get to do. I feel like 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:24.300 I'm just a little kid from East Coast, Canada. I'm amazed at how many times, you know, when you look 00:06:24.300 --> 00:06:29.500 back on a journey that you've had in your life and you think, oh, my goodness, like, I can't believe 00:06:29.500 --> 00:06:36.480 I'm doing what I've landed in. I was senior creative director for one of Eastern Canada's 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:42.560 largest ad agencies. And through all of that, I just kept thinking, so why does the church not 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:49.800 know this stuff? And I started talking to pastors and pastors would say, I mean, that's kind of 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:54.340 marketing, right? And I'd say, yeah, it's kind of marketing. And in Canada, we call it marketing 00:06:54.340 --> 00:07:01.320 communications or Marcom. And when we start talking about marketing communications, every 00:07:01.320 --> 00:07:09.400 pastor way back then would kind of go, I know, I'm, I mean, we're the church, we don't need 00:07:09.400 --> 00:07:15.920 marketing. And, and they push back so hard that I kept thinking, so there's got to be something 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:22.340 there. Why is it that the church doesn't want to do marketing? And, and then we had the opportunity 00:07:22.340 --> 00:07:28.460 to come to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And that was 21 years ago. And we started an agency there 00:07:28.460 --> 00:07:35.180 and started working with churches, became the national marketing arm for, for several large 00:07:35.180 --> 00:07:45.660 pastor led organization, national organizations. I, through that, our agency helped them and helped a 00:07:45.660 --> 00:07:51.900 lot of churches. I started writing articles, just written my 800th magazine article that's been 00:07:51.900 --> 00:07:57.980 published. And, and then out of that, the book Be Known for Something came along and, and really 00:07:57.980 --> 00:08:07.680 all Be Known for Something is, is just a restatement of branding and marketing that, that pastors don't 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:13.540 push back on. Because if I want to stop a conversation with a pastor, I ask them what they're doing for 00:08:13.540 --> 00:08:17.960 marketing. If I want to start a conversation, I say, so what do you think you're known for in your 00:08:17.960 --> 00:08:24.520 community? And every pastor says, Ooh, that's really good. I want, I want to talk about that. 00:08:25.080 --> 00:08:32.080 So out of that, uh, once the book became an Amazon bestseller, which just, again, blows my mind that it 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:39.400 even is so popular. Um, I, I was asked by the Florida Baptist to come down and work with the 3000 Baptist 00:08:39.400 --> 00:08:45.040 churches here in Florida. And I worked with them for a couple of years and I'm back doing the agency work 00:08:45.040 --> 00:08:51.280 now working with all denominations, a lot of churches. And I'm also the executive director 00:08:51.280 --> 00:08:56.000 for center for church communication, which influences about 10,000 churches across the country. 00:08:56.480 --> 00:09:01.120 Wow. I didn't, I didn't realize the, the center for church communications. Uh, that was, that one's new 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:06.500 to me. Very cool. So I totally see what, what you did there. Cause you're like baiting and switching 00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:12.660 branding for being known for something like that's, that's, that's interesting, right? Like how long did 00:09:12.660 --> 00:09:18.180 it take you to come up with that one? Well, it was interesting because when, when I would talk to a 00:09:18.180 --> 00:09:24.120 church, it's like, I, I always am interested in whatever I'm working on. Like if I'm going to 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:29.700 rebrand them, I need to know what their current perception is. And so trying to figure out, so what, 00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:37.780 what are you known for? We make all of our decisions in life based upon what we know about something. If, 00:09:37.780 --> 00:09:42.660 uh, you know, if we decide, so what type of phone are you going to use? Then quickly you go, 00:09:42.660 --> 00:09:48.580 I want Android because of this, or I want iPhone because of this. And you gravitate towards things 00:09:48.580 --> 00:09:56.000 based upon, um, what, you know, all the little things that you know about something. And so what 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:02.740 we, what we know is that people are making faster and faster decisions. So the more you can actually 00:10:02.740 --> 00:10:08.480 state what you should be known for, the faster someone will actually make a choice towards you. 00:10:08.480 --> 00:10:14.080 So let's, let's dig into the example here. Um, for me, like I said, making it about me, 00:10:14.140 --> 00:10:20.680 we can shift away from this. I'm at a church for about a hundred, by the way, this is the best thing 00:10:20.680 --> 00:10:27.040 you can do. Run a podcast and trick the guests into giving free advice right there. Write it down, 00:10:27.300 --> 00:10:32.260 create your own podcast, use it as an excuse to get free advice. Watch this question right here. 00:10:32.680 --> 00:10:40.880 Hey, yeah. So my church, uh, Mark, help me here. Um, a hundred, 150 person. Um, we've not been great 00:10:40.880 --> 00:10:47.800 at creating content other than the weekend services. Uh, my pastor and the executive pastor that they 00:10:47.800 --> 00:10:53.180 want to start, um, creating, uh, they asked me to help them create a content strategy. 00:10:53.660 --> 00:11:00.380 Essentially. What do I need to do? What does that need to look like? What's, uh, coach me here. Uh, 00:11:00.380 --> 00:11:02.560 and let's start to coach some other audience at the same time. 00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:10.740 So I've been doing work with the church for 21 years. I've been doing marketing communications work 00:11:10.740 --> 00:11:19.900 for, wow, like 35, 36 years. And, and what's interesting is that this whole idea of content 00:11:19.900 --> 00:11:27.460 strategy has come along with the digital side, but ultimately we all have a content strategy. The 00:11:27.460 --> 00:11:33.540 church, uh, even without a website, the church has a content strategy. Uh, over the years, 00:11:33.540 --> 00:11:41.220 every church says, well, we need to develop content to get people through the doors. And, 00:11:41.220 --> 00:11:48.520 and what I've found is that everyone tries to make it overly complex of what it, what does it mean to 00:11:48.520 --> 00:11:55.620 have a content strategy? I think we need to quickly state what content strategy, what that definition 00:11:55.620 --> 00:12:03.500 actually is. And it's as simple as developing content that achieves your organizational goals. 00:12:04.680 --> 00:12:13.160 So, so over the hundreds, thousands of years that the local church has been, uh, around in local 00:12:13.160 --> 00:12:21.040 communities. I mean, most times before it used to be the pastor would be the content guy. He would 00:12:21.040 --> 00:12:26.480 create the sermon and we would get people to come through the doors. And, and if people like the 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:35.680 content, like the person, like the fellowship, then the content strategy works. But the problem 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:43.820 is, as you know, Jeff, I mean, it's just gotten way, way more complicated because there's so many 00:12:43.820 --> 00:12:52.300 outlets. And especially if you're talking to digital church, like, you know, it's not just as simple as 00:12:52.300 --> 00:12:59.820 we're going to have sermon series anymore. Instead it's like, okay, so how do we break that content into 00:12:59.820 --> 00:13:08.540 all of the, the consumable things so that it actually, uh, allows the organization to, to achieve some goals. 00:13:08.540 --> 00:13:20.220 Uh, so if, uh, so I always have little people sitting on my shoulder, the medium to large church that's saying, 00:13:20.220 --> 00:13:26.180 I know how to do that. And then the small church, like what you're talking about that's saying, uh, 00:13:26.180 --> 00:13:34.820 Oh my goodness. Like that's just too, too complicated. Well, I guess that let's, let's fall towards the 00:13:34.820 --> 00:13:41.140 smaller church because we know that the vast majority of churches in America are under 200. 00:13:41.140 --> 00:13:49.940 And so if, if we're looking at the smaller church, the pastor's probably going to still be the, the main 00:13:49.940 --> 00:13:59.360 creator of content, but then how do you use that to help you achieve goals? And, and I mean, it really 00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:04.200 just, it comes down to four things. I mean, the first thing, I mean, you just got to set some goals. 00:14:04.200 --> 00:14:12.200 What do you actually want to do with this content? Is it, um, and, and I guess I call it a relationship 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:17.320 journey. If you think of it as a funnel, that's fine too, but like that whole relationship journey, 00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:24.000 you know, how do you attract somebody from your community with your content? That's totally different 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:32.900 than, uh, keeping people in the pews or keeping people tuning in online. So you just need to set 00:14:32.900 --> 00:14:38.540 some goals and, and I don't want to get too far into the weeds, but I don't mind if that's what you 00:14:38.540 --> 00:14:45.520 want to do. I mean, there's ultimately three goals that you need to, uh, to have with your content. 00:14:45.520 --> 00:14:55.820 I mean, is it awareness? Is it consideration or is it a decision? And, and I mean, this can all preach. 00:14:55.820 --> 00:15:02.860 I mean, anyone who's putting together a sermon, you need to bring up the, the elephant in the room 00:15:02.860 --> 00:15:11.680 and then consideration is just, okay, so how, what are all the options that are available to deal with 00:15:11.680 --> 00:15:19.340 the elephant in the room? And then decision, weirdly enough, oftentimes we think, so then you just have 00:15:19.340 --> 00:15:24.180 to make a decision. You have to have the altar call. You have to have anyone who wants this, put up your 00:15:24.180 --> 00:15:31.300 hand. But the problem is, is that what we need to remember with decision-making goals is that 00:15:31.300 --> 00:15:37.820 decision-making goals is eliminating or overcoming barriers. So there's probably a reason why someone 00:15:37.820 --> 00:15:44.420 doesn't want to do what you want them to do. Even after saying, here's all the possibilities, 00:15:44.420 --> 00:15:50.860 here's all the options, here's all the solutions, which one do you want? It's okay. Well, which one 00:15:50.860 --> 00:15:59.100 costs? Do I need to get up from my pew and walk down the aisle and repent of my sin? And like, 00:15:59.100 --> 00:16:06.500 you know, whatever, like for, I remember an evangelist used to say, the only thing keeping 00:16:06.500 --> 00:16:13.260 you between, uh, sitting there and making a decision today is to get up and get the devil 00:16:13.260 --> 00:16:20.660 off your lap. And, and there it is, there's the barrier. It's like, how do I make a public spectacle 00:16:20.660 --> 00:16:26.540 in order to make this decision? And so what you need to do in the decision-making goals is just 00:16:26.540 --> 00:16:32.160 figure out what are the barriers and then how do you eliminate them? So, so all of that, 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:37.320 like just set some goals. Like, do you want to get people to come in from your community? How many 00:16:37.320 --> 00:16:41.700 people do you want to have come in from the community? How many people do you want to have 00:16:41.700 --> 00:16:50.100 tune in online? How many people, like, what is the bar that you're going to set? And if it's just 00:16:50.100 --> 00:16:57.040 awareness, a lot of people don't even know that you exist. So, so set up a website so that you can 00:16:57.040 --> 00:17:03.900 attract people who don't know that you exist, or is it the consideration stage? And at the 00:17:03.900 --> 00:17:08.940 consideration stage, they're just looking for all the options. And then the decision is to eliminate 00:17:08.940 --> 00:17:17.240 the barriers. So that's number one. That's just sex, just set some goals. I'm a goal oriented person. 00:17:17.940 --> 00:17:27.640 I like, I, I am amazed at how many people resist setting goals. Goals doesn't mean you have to set it 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:35.020 up to put it on your website or on social media or hang it out in front of your church. It just means 00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:43.080 set some, set some expectations that you can actually measure over time so that you know whether 00:17:43.080 --> 00:17:51.520 it's working or not. Cause a communication strategy or a content strategy will cripple you if you really 00:17:51.520 --> 00:17:56.260 don't know whether it's working or not. So let's just pull that thread right there. 00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:03.020 What analytics, um, what, what am I basing it off of? How do I know whether it's working? 00:18:03.020 --> 00:18:12.220 Yeah. And, and analytics are a godsend. I mean, Jeff, I mean, I say this all the time and I'm sure 00:18:12.220 --> 00:18:19.680 you think this all the time. What a time to be alive. I mean, back in the day, 30 years ago, 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:26.600 when I started working at the agencies, I, I would create lots and lots of brochures and I would hope 00:18:26.600 --> 00:18:33.640 that people read them. In fact, I would have people say, Oh my goodness, we printed 10,000 of these and 00:18:33.640 --> 00:18:40.060 they're all gone. And then the, the client would immediately think, so 10,000 people have looked 00:18:40.060 --> 00:18:48.800 at my brochure. It's kind of almost as foolish as saying, um, yeah, our church prints 200 bulletins 00:18:48.800 --> 00:18:56.200 and we give them out. And so therefore 200 people know everything that's in them. Like we know that's 00:18:56.200 --> 00:19:01.760 not the case. In fact, two thirds of the people who receive a print piece of, uh, uh, communication, 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:13.060 never even open it. So what we know is that analytics are wild because we can now know when 00:19:13.060 --> 00:19:20.420 we create a digital brochure or a digital website, we know how many people actually look at things 00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:28.360 and we know where they look. We can do eye tracking technology. We can do analytics of, of demographics 00:19:28.360 --> 00:19:34.380 of who is it that's looking at certain things. What are they clicking on? What's the next step? 00:19:34.380 --> 00:19:40.340 Do they get to one page and then bolt and bounce away from your website? Like all of that stuff, 00:19:40.560 --> 00:19:48.440 the more information you can glean, like just take it in. So, okay. So I, 00:19:48.800 --> 00:19:57.860 uh, during COVID we, a lot of churches went online and they went with a, a YouTube style 00:19:57.860 --> 00:20:03.000 video where they're posting. A lot of those churches came to us and said, 00:20:03.120 --> 00:20:09.280 would you mind watching the service and tell us how you can do, we can do this better? And I said, 00:20:09.280 --> 00:20:15.660 I would love to do that, but I want you to go into your YouTube analytics and see where people 00:20:15.660 --> 00:20:22.780 join the conversation and where they leave the conversation and see if there's some type of a 00:20:22.780 --> 00:20:31.080 trend. And what we found was most people do not stay the entire time during the service, 00:20:31.080 --> 00:20:40.860 which tells me one thing, uh, that our services are too long. Our sermons are too long. Our worship time 00:20:40.860 --> 00:20:47.880 is too long. A lot of times everything just feels longer when you're watching it online versus when 00:20:47.880 --> 00:20:54.120 you're in the room. And that is a huge, huge wake up call to the church that's wants to go digital 00:20:54.120 --> 00:21:00.320 is that we've got to figure out how do we shorten those periods of time and have them so that they're 00:21:00.320 --> 00:21:07.460 somewhat optional in the sense that I only want to tune in for really great worship, or I want to tune 00:21:07.460 --> 00:21:14.660 in for just the sermon, or maybe it's not a 25 minute sermon. Maybe you should be doing three 00:21:14.660 --> 00:21:22.160 episodic style sermonettes that are joined together under the, the, you know, the guise of a full 00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:27.040 service. Wow. Breaking up into three different sermonettes. Are we allowed to do that? I'm pretty 00:21:27.040 --> 00:21:32.780 sure that's like anti-biblical, right? I mean, I, I, I feel like like so many people are doing the 40 00:21:32.780 --> 00:21:39.760 minute sermon that there's somewhere in, in something it says that the sermon has to be 30 to 40 00:21:39.760 --> 00:21:47.340 minutes, all constrained together in live. If they concentrate on the intertestamental, uh, in between 00:21:47.340 --> 00:21:53.040 the old and the new Testament, there were certain rules that were allowed to be broken. And it was one 00:21:53.040 --> 00:22:00.020 of them. You can do sermons in three rather than a one sermon. That's gotta be the same place where it 00:22:00.020 --> 00:22:05.240 talks about how all new technology comes from the devil, because I've had that quoted to me a couple 00:22:05.240 --> 00:22:11.400 dozen times as well. Uh, because that's biblical. Uh, it comes from fallen angels. Um, sorry, chip, 00:22:11.520 --> 00:22:16.720 chip, you've got people, I've got chips. So we'll, we'll brush that off and, and, and move on. 00:22:17.040 --> 00:22:22.080 Nice. So, Hey, you've got, uh, you've got, it's man, you sound like you're, you're really, 00:22:22.080 --> 00:22:28.260 what you're talking about is, is maximizing our weekend services or the content that we're creating 00:22:28.260 --> 00:22:33.520 pastor. You're putting so much energy into creating the sermon. Let's maximize that. Let's break it up 00:22:33.520 --> 00:22:39.920 into clips, put it on social media, get it on YouTube and create that, that digital strategy. You know, 00:22:39.920 --> 00:22:45.760 some, some of the stats coming out of Barna. Um, if people are lost, the people called to Christ, 00:22:45.760 --> 00:22:50.720 they're not connecting with, with our buildings and they're not connecting with our online services. 00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:55.820 People called to Christ. They're either asking their friends about Jesus, uh, that they think 00:22:55.820 --> 00:23:02.280 may have an answer to their spiritual questions. Um, or they're going to Google. And so by really 00:23:02.280 --> 00:23:09.680 utilizing our, our content, but breaking it up into ways that's more searchable, um, then now we can 00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:15.440 start to maybe even have a digital strategy that's part of our evangelism strategy. So I'm excited about 00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:20.920 that, but talk to me a little bit here because I think there's opportunities. Maybe it's the right 00:23:20.920 --> 00:23:27.640 word to start to do stuff outside of the weekend service. Like what would, I I've got this friend 00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:33.340 that's, like I said, he's starting a podcast, uh, where he's just telling stories about the church 00:23:33.340 --> 00:23:39.740 or, you know, somebody that wants to write blogs, uh, for, for the church. And, and I feel like I've 00:23:39.740 --> 00:23:44.760 seen that be successful in some places. And I feel like I've seen that be a train wreck if I'm honest 00:23:44.760 --> 00:23:51.460 in, in, in some other places. So how, how do you coach beyond the weekend service? How, how would you 00:23:51.460 --> 00:23:54.920 handle or approach some of the other content that's non-weekend based? 00:23:54.920 --> 00:23:59.220 Well, remember, so there's, there's four things I want to talk to you about. The first one is 00:23:59.220 --> 00:24:06.200 goals. What you talked about. Oh, we didn't get past goals, but you just had goals and, and what I 00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:13.420 hear you leaning towards is bringing people in. So that whole connection, that could be a goal, 00:24:13.420 --> 00:24:21.520 but ultimately I think that we need to, uh, have, have maybe three or four goals and what we need to 00:24:21.520 --> 00:24:27.680 make sure that we do effective communication rises and falls on how well, you know, your audience 00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:35.420 every single time. If I know who's listening to this podcast and I can talk directly to them, 00:24:35.420 --> 00:24:42.180 then, then I will, I will engage with them and they will, they will want to listen to me. So, 00:24:42.180 --> 00:24:48.160 so number two, after goals is number two, do your research. And I know it sounds boring, 00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:56.160 but you really do need to know your research. And so that's kind of multiple, uh, paths as well, but, 00:24:56.160 --> 00:25:01.400 but like, and it's going to sound like this, you know, crazy marketing communications guy 00:25:01.400 --> 00:25:07.940 who harps about knowing your audience and then stereotypically describing them. So 00:25:07.940 --> 00:25:16.860 that's called a persona. So just try to figure out who, who, uh, in your community would be attracted 00:25:16.860 --> 00:25:23.340 to this. Now, when he gets on the digital side of things, I mean, we have the world's limits. Talk 00:25:23.340 --> 00:25:29.800 about what a time to be alive. I mean, we get to reach anyone we want, but if you try to reach 00:25:29.800 --> 00:25:36.420 everyone, you'll reach no one. So you want to make sure that you create a small persona that you say, 00:25:36.520 --> 00:25:43.820 you know what, I, I can speak to that person. And, and what you want to do in that stereotypical 00:25:43.820 --> 00:25:50.580 description is you need to create needs, concerns, and goals. So what are their biggest needs? 00:25:50.800 --> 00:25:56.860 What are their biggest concerns? What are the biggest goals? And this is not the, the Sunday 00:25:56.860 --> 00:26:04.100 school answer. We know they need Jesus. What is their biggest concern? They are concerned about 00:26:04.100 --> 00:26:10.440 going to heaven. Uh, what is their biggest goal to live a good life? I mean, like all of those Sunday 00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:15.960 school answers, like that's not what people are waking up concerned about. And so we need to figure 00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:22.300 out what is it, if you're going to stereotypically describe a persona and the smaller, the group, 00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:28.600 the easier, the reach. So, so like, just make sure that there's enough there. Like you don't want to 00:26:28.600 --> 00:26:36.900 have, I want to target young families with 12 gerbils. Like, I mean, they're just not going to be enough. 00:26:36.900 --> 00:26:45.620 But if you said young families with the average two children who just moved to the area, 00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:52.400 or just moved away from their support system, like immediately, as soon as you start talking 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:58.240 about needs, concerns, and goals, you immediately think, okay, so I think I could probably figure out 00:26:58.240 --> 00:27:04.620 what they're looking for, but you just need to, you need to describe that persona and you can have a 00:27:04.620 --> 00:27:11.000 primary persona and a secondary persona, and you can even have a tertiary persona, but the more 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:17.100 personas you have, the harder it becomes because you want to try to figure out a thread that unites 00:27:17.100 --> 00:27:18.000 those personas. 00:27:18.740 --> 00:27:25.120 So the tension that, that I hear in this regularly with the idea of personas, and I agree with you, 00:27:25.180 --> 00:27:29.740 and even in digital context, digital churches, you know, I have the conversation all the time. 00:27:29.740 --> 00:27:35.400 You try to reach everybody, you reach nobody. You know, Seth Godin says, marketing guy, 00:27:35.600 --> 00:27:39.680 you're not going to reach a billion people. A billion people don't care about anything you have 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:45.280 to say. You want to create a message specific for someone, get them to hear it, own it, get them to 00:27:45.280 --> 00:27:51.280 understand it, get them to tell somebody else. And so like the idea of, of a persona is makes, 00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:59.300 from a marketing standpoint, from a, a be known for something standpoint, uh, from a, uh, 00:27:59.300 --> 00:28:04.220 communication standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. Uh, I, I've seen a lot of churches and a lot of 00:28:04.220 --> 00:28:13.420 pastors be anti that idea. Um, you know, Paul's, uh, be everything to everyone so that some may know, 00:28:13.780 --> 00:28:20.220 uh, seems to be kind of like the, the ideology that's kind of pushed out, um, when, when kind 00:28:20.220 --> 00:28:25.280 of battling against this idea of creating personas, you know, you can talk about Saddleback Sam all day 00:28:25.280 --> 00:28:29.820 long, but you know, there, there's still, there's hesitancy there. How do you, how do you address that 00:28:29.820 --> 00:28:37.100 hesitancy? Yeah. And usually what I say is, how's it working for you? Because almost everyone, 00:28:37.460 --> 00:28:45.720 almost everyone who is struggling and, you know, 80 to 85% of churches are in stagnation or decline. 00:28:46.100 --> 00:28:52.120 And it's because they're just trying to reach everyone. And, and if they were to specifically 00:28:52.380 --> 00:28:59.500 target, you know, create some rails so that they know who is it that we're really trying to get 00:28:59.500 --> 00:29:05.180 through the doors and who is it. And when I say through the doors to your website as well, but 00:29:05.180 --> 00:29:14.320 how, how you keep them is so much easier if it's a clearly defined group. And, and once, you know, 00:29:14.320 --> 00:29:19.500 needs, concerns, and goals, like if you think, so what are the greatest needs of everybody? What are the 00:29:19.500 --> 00:29:24.940 greatest concerns of everybody? What's the greatest goals of everybody? I mean, choose one. And the 00:29:24.940 --> 00:29:33.240 problem is, is that you might choose one direction that, and that's not the band, but the one direction 00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:41.520 that, uh, 95% of the people that are listening to you will be bored and not want to listen again. 00:29:41.520 --> 00:29:49.560 And so that's where you want to try. And it sounds, it sounds like a crazy saying, but give them what 00:29:49.560 --> 00:29:56.240 they need on the backs of what they want. And if we can figure out in that small group, what is it 00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:02.900 that they want? What is the solution to a need or a solution to the concerns or a path to the goal? 00:30:03.740 --> 00:30:09.460 If you know, okay, so if we go back to our, our young family who has just moved away from their 00:30:09.460 --> 00:30:16.880 support system and they've just moved into a new area, I mean, one of their biggest goals is I need 00:30:16.880 --> 00:30:22.760 to get my kids into a really good school system and I need to get them to, to get friends so that they 00:30:22.760 --> 00:30:29.900 can be, you know, acclimatized to, to wherever they are. Well, if your church can come alongside of 00:30:29.900 --> 00:30:36.720 them and say, we want your kids to have good friends. Well, all of a sudden every parent goes, 00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:42.060 that's, that's what I'm looking for. And then you think, well, that's pretty soft for a church, 00:30:42.060 --> 00:30:51.620 but if you can attract them and attract the engagement from what they want, then once you 00:30:51.620 --> 00:30:58.120 have that engagement, then you give them what they need. So oftentimes the church just jumps right to 00:30:58.120 --> 00:31:04.420 what they need, you know what you need. And they, they tune out and, and it's hard to get them back. 00:31:04.780 --> 00:31:05.760 So tell me about number three. 00:31:06.040 --> 00:31:10.260 Yeah. And I, can I just finish two just a little bit though? Cause I, 00:31:10.680 --> 00:31:16.980 I'll wake up in the middle of the night going, I should have talked about, so we need to make sure 00:31:16.980 --> 00:31:23.900 you get the right keywords. So based upon your persona, that research, cause two remember is 00:31:23.900 --> 00:31:30.820 research, make sure you get the right keywords. It is, especially in the digital world, um, 00:31:31.240 --> 00:31:38.120 figure out what they're looking for. So if a person, if your persona, like if you were looking for young 00:31:38.120 --> 00:31:46.840 moms, like here's a, here's a really simple, easy to use practical thing. So open up a browser, 00:31:47.340 --> 00:31:57.980 go to google.com, you know, they, they rule the world and start typing in young mothers want, 00:31:58.460 --> 00:32:05.080 and then Google will supply the language and they like, you'll have that little tumble down thing. 00:32:05.840 --> 00:32:11.760 And so what they've done is they've said, okay, so when people are searching for young 00:32:11.760 --> 00:32:21.340 mothers want, or young mothers need, or whatever you want to say, um, they know what, what young 00:32:21.340 --> 00:32:28.220 mothers are Googling. So they'll, they'll give you the answer to what you should be known for. 00:32:28.600 --> 00:32:37.380 So oftentimes you can look at that and say, Oh, so you know what they want small groups or they want 00:32:37.380 --> 00:32:46.300 groups or they want other young moms, or they want tips for children or whatever those things are, 00:32:46.300 --> 00:32:51.700 look at how, like go down the list and say, so is there something there that we can actually 00:32:51.700 --> 00:32:58.880 use as a keyword and, and keywords now, as you, I feel like I'm, I'm speaking to the choir here. 00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:04.180 So let me just turn around and talk to the choir. So Jeff, you, you know, all about this. I mean, 00:33:04.260 --> 00:33:11.200 it's not just a key word anymore. It's a key phrase. So we need to, we need to have a phrase that's, 00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:19.260 you know, three, four or five words that you can own, but you can own it in your digital content. 00:33:19.640 --> 00:33:26.580 And it's also something that people are Googling. So if you can get that, like, that's what sets up 00:33:26.580 --> 00:33:33.100 your content strategy for, for actually winning. So it's, it's really doing the keyword research. 00:33:33.100 --> 00:33:40.780 Keywordtools.io is a great, uh, free place and you can pay to get, uh, you know, a little bit more 00:33:40.780 --> 00:33:45.280 information from that, but just going to google.com is a great way to be able to do it. 00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:52.220 Great. We'll put links to keywordtools.io and, and, and Google, uh, evidently young mothers want 00:33:52.220 --> 00:33:55.040 encouragement that, that just popped up number one. 00:33:55.040 --> 00:34:03.280 So if young mothers want encouragement, um, then what you do is you create that as a key phrase, 00:34:03.280 --> 00:34:12.000 and then you make sure that you have either a URL that has a slash keywords or with that key phrase 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:17.820 spelled out afterwards. So that a page is actually called that. And then you want to make sure, 00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:23.100 oh, so let's just jump to number three. So after research, we've got to create some content 00:34:23.100 --> 00:34:30.040 and part of creating that content is to offer them solutions. And you do that through all of your 00:34:30.040 --> 00:34:38.740 digital channels. And this is where it, again, is not that complicated. Whatever your key phrase is, 00:34:39.340 --> 00:34:47.700 your page should be named it. Your headline should contain it. Your first paragraph needs to have it in 00:34:47.700 --> 00:34:58.460 the closer to the front of the sentence, the better. And then if that, so H1 content is like your main 00:34:58.460 --> 00:35:05.500 headline. If you're a pastor, you, you understand H1 because H1 is the sermon title. Then you have 00:35:05.500 --> 00:35:12.500 your three points underneath. Those are your H2s. They're supporting to your H1. And then your H3 are 00:35:12.500 --> 00:35:19.220 your sub points to your H2. So that's the way every page, every page needs to be set up that way. So 00:35:19.220 --> 00:35:27.380 your H1 contains your, your key phrase, your first paragraph, which is your P tag. If you're, 00:35:27.380 --> 00:35:34.740 if you're following tracking along with the whole website set up, whatever is the first P tag on like 00:35:34.740 --> 00:35:42.500 paragraph standard stuff, no one will read it except they'll look at the first of that paragraph. And if 00:35:42.500 --> 00:35:47.860 you supply that key phrase, which is the solution, then people go, Oh, I'm on the right page. And then 00:35:47.860 --> 00:35:53.860 they'll not read the paragraph and then they'll jump down and they'll look at the outline, the H2s and the 00:35:53.860 --> 00:36:02.020 H3s. And you want to make sure that you contain your phrase two or three times on each one of those H2s, 00:36:02.020 --> 00:36:12.180 H3s. Not on everyone, but just every so often. And then we also know in that scanning that again, 00:36:12.900 --> 00:36:18.500 write it in paragraph form, no one will read it. And then you just want to make sure everything else is 00:36:18.500 --> 00:36:25.300 a scannable and that you add links so that it takes you internally add links. So it takes you 00:36:25.300 --> 00:36:30.340 externally, at least one time on every page. And then you also want to add signal words, 00:36:30.340 --> 00:36:38.660 those things that everyone loves in sermons, where you start by saying, initially, we need to know 00:36:38.660 --> 00:36:43.540 initially is a signal word to say, we're at the beginning of all of this. It's what I did where I 00:36:43.540 --> 00:36:49.380 said, we have four things. So the first thing that's a signal word. And then when I finally get 00:36:49.380 --> 00:36:56.500 to four, and I say, finally, we'll deal with finally is a signal word. So all of those things, 00:36:56.500 --> 00:37:00.580 Google just loves, loves, loves signal words, because it means that you've thought through 00:37:00.580 --> 00:37:06.020 the content, you've edited the content, added in signal words so that people who are scanning 00:37:06.020 --> 00:37:08.340 can quickly know where they are on the page. 00:37:08.340 --> 00:37:17.540 Okay, so signal words was new to me. I thought I was up on SEO stuff. Very interesting. Thank you for 00:37:17.540 --> 00:37:22.580 that. What I would even just add to that in a lot of times being in web design, 00:37:24.020 --> 00:37:32.740 people look at H1 and H2, and they use H3s, they use them as design, but they don't understand that it's 00:37:32.740 --> 00:37:38.260 not about design. It's about how Google is interpreting the text. It's about SEO. 00:37:38.260 --> 00:37:44.820 That Google does not know the size of your H1, H2, H3. And oftentimes the size kind of dictates, 00:37:44.820 --> 00:37:51.140 oh, I need a little bit smaller. So you go to something else. No, what Google does is it, 00:37:51.140 --> 00:37:59.140 it extracts from that a good outline. So if you, you know, I always say, don't set up your content on 00:37:59.140 --> 00:38:08.980 your page first, uh, set it up in Word and don't add any other formatting or anything. It needs to 00:38:08.980 --> 00:38:14.900 quickly say, oh, okay. So you have, remember when we were in high school, when they taught us that 00:38:14.900 --> 00:38:19.940 Roman numerals are the big one. And then you underneath that, you go with one, two, and three, 00:38:19.940 --> 00:38:28.020 and then you have A, B and C. Whatever structure you have, those structures then have to, to, uh, 00:38:28.020 --> 00:38:32.900 correlate in the H1, H2, H3. That's so good. Yeah. But by the way, 00:38:32.900 --> 00:38:41.700 what's this word you speak of? I don't, I'm a Mac guy. Why would I use, what's word? I don't. 00:38:41.700 --> 00:38:48.580 I never use Word except for when I'm writing for magazines who always require it in Word. But I, 00:38:48.580 --> 00:38:53.300 I actually write in pages. They're magazines. They're PC guys. They don't know. I mean, 00:38:53.300 --> 00:38:57.860 come on. I have, I have a higher standard for you by my friend. I can't believe. 00:38:57.860 --> 00:39:05.380 So really, I mean, and, and just as a signal word, I mean, so number one is set some goals 00:39:05.380 --> 00:39:11.860 that are measurable and achievable. Number two, research the heck out of your personas and your 00:39:11.860 --> 00:39:17.460 keywords. I would also add in there, your competition. And I know that in the church 00:39:17.460 --> 00:39:22.260 world, we really don't have competition, but when you're, when you're concentrating on a need, 00:39:22.260 --> 00:39:27.140 concern and a goal, or if you're thinking about a solution to a need or concern or a path to a goal, 00:39:28.180 --> 00:39:33.540 somebody else is out there offering a solution, the same type of solution 00:39:34.740 --> 00:39:38.660 that might not be on the spiritual side, but it might be on the more temporal side. 00:39:39.620 --> 00:39:46.020 Know what other people are when they Google who else is popping up there and you really 00:39:46.660 --> 00:39:51.860 need to do it better than them. So jump in, look at their, look at their, the way that they've 00:39:51.860 --> 00:39:59.540 structured their pages. Why is it that Google gave that page over your page and, and really break it 00:39:59.540 --> 00:40:07.380 down to say, so is it SEO? Is it good content? Is it that, oh my goodness, they have so much content 00:40:07.380 --> 00:40:13.380 that there, there's no way to even catch up to it. If that's the case, you might want to back away from 00:40:13.380 --> 00:40:18.420 that solution or, or, you know, that pain in your persona's life. 00:40:18.420 --> 00:40:25.780 And then, so after research, then you just got to start creating. And part of creating is what you're 00:40:25.780 --> 00:40:34.660 talking about, Jeff. Look at who you have for a team and can they really do it? Yeah. A pastor can 00:40:34.660 --> 00:40:40.900 create a sermon. I've been in a lot of churches where the pastor can barely create a sermon, but that's 00:40:40.900 --> 00:40:49.940 like a whole other thing. Uh, and, but the thing is, is that it's tough to, to create good content. 00:40:49.940 --> 00:40:56.020 Every pastor, I can hear them saying amen in the background, especially when you have all the other 00:40:56.020 --> 00:41:02.980 distractions and on digital, there is a ton of distractions of other people saying, I can give 00:41:02.980 --> 00:41:08.100 you something better. I can do this. I can do that. And so you need to have really, really good, 00:41:08.100 --> 00:41:16.260 good content. That's SEO quality that rises to the top, but does you, can your team actually produce 00:41:16.260 --> 00:41:23.060 it? And when we thinking about content as a strategy, I mean, we're talking about blog posts, 00:41:23.060 --> 00:41:32.660 about eBooks, uh, case studies, templates, infographics, uh, and like the king of all content right now is 00:41:32.660 --> 00:41:37.860 video. So do you have somebody who can do good video and edit it and get it out there? 00:41:38.100 --> 00:41:43.380 Uh, podcasts, what we're doing, social media posts, like all of that stuff. 00:41:44.260 --> 00:41:50.540 I know every church goes, yep, we're going to be just like life church or just like seacoast. 00:41:50.900 --> 00:41:57.640 And, and it's like, okay, so how many people are on your team? Well, we have one volunteer who gives 00:41:57.640 --> 00:42:03.920 us two hours a week. Well, you ain't going to be like life church because life church has a whole 00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:09.760 bunch of people working on their team. So, so what you need to do is put it through the filter of your 00:42:09.760 --> 00:42:18.160 team to say, what can we do extremely well so that it will rise to the top and maybe you can't do it 00:42:18.160 --> 00:42:26.720 all. And I know that that hurts, but it's better to do some things really well than to try to get 00:42:26.720 --> 00:42:30.480 everything done in an extremely not so well way. 00:42:30.680 --> 00:42:35.300 Let me ask this. You, you, you said video, I mean, obviously video is king right now. I say that 00:42:35.300 --> 00:42:39.860 obviously if you're not in the audience or if you're in the audience and you didn't know that video is 00:42:39.860 --> 00:42:46.720 king right now, but beyond video, I'm wondering what else is true. Like if there, is there a hierarchy? 00:42:46.720 --> 00:42:51.960 Is, is there a ranking? Like what, what else is playing strong? Maybe not as strong as video, 00:42:51.960 --> 00:42:57.540 but, but stronger than others. Do you have any, any feel for, maybe I don't have a video guide, 00:42:57.620 --> 00:42:59.120 but I should focus on this next. 00:42:59.120 --> 00:43:10.920 Yeah. So, um, weirdly enough, I, I know that there was a research study just done about what type of 00:43:10.920 --> 00:43:19.780 content are people requesting from certain organizations. And I know that by far video 00:43:19.780 --> 00:43:27.120 was the number one that they could, they could actually select several, um, video, I think was 00:43:27.120 --> 00:43:34.940 like 56% said that that's what they're preferred. So it's, I mean, it's, it's the majority, but it's 00:43:34.940 --> 00:43:43.220 still not like a 100% because there's still a lot of people, including myself to, to be totally honest. 00:43:43.640 --> 00:43:51.580 Um, when I just have a video and I sit down and I think, Oh man, I need to, Oh my goodness is like 00:43:51.580 --> 00:43:56.880 90 minutes long. Are you kidding me? I, how on earth? And there's no chapters in there. There's 00:43:56.880 --> 00:44:03.080 no breakdown. Like I, I look for something that I, that's really scannable, which is on the blog 00:44:03.080 --> 00:44:09.000 side of things, which is actually the least preferred method. So we have video at the top 00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:14.980 and I know that blogs are at the bottom. And I think it's because people suck at doing blogs. Like 00:44:14.980 --> 00:44:23.480 they, they just don't do good, good scannable content. I think it's like 17% said blogs. Um, 00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:31.380 and then everything in the middle, I, I know, um, emails rank about in the middle, but again, 00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:38.800 like they don't qualify. What does it mean? Cause content, uh, just because you say I have content 00:44:38.800 --> 00:44:49.240 doesn't mean it's good content. And so an email that's written properly with one point and one ask, 00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:56.520 uh, and is like about 50 words is really good content and people would prefer it. But the problem 00:44:56.520 --> 00:45:05.280 is in the church world, our emails are, are usually close to 900 words and they are talking about several 00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:10.380 different things. And by the end of it, you're thinking, so what do they want from me? Like 00:45:10.380 --> 00:45:15.340 seriously. And, and that's when you usually close it. You don't read any of it. 00:45:15.340 --> 00:45:20.820 So is it easier or harder to write a 50 word email than, than a 900? 00:45:21.160 --> 00:45:27.260 Okay. So I taught a Sunday school class in North Carolina before we moved to, to Jacksonville, 00:45:27.360 --> 00:45:36.000 Florida. And, uh, I mean, we had like 160 adults in that Sunday school class and our thread, the thing 00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:43.740 that kind of, you know, the big solution because it was 40 and 50 year olds, it was, okay, life is 00:45:43.740 --> 00:45:49.920 complex. This class is going to be simple and it's going to be simple, but practical. So simple and 00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:59.500 practical became our big thread. And, uh, uh, I spent probably three days thinking about everything I could 00:45:59.500 --> 00:46:07.000 say. And then, uh, when, when, when push comes to shove and I'm trying to come up with the one point 00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:13.680 that's going to make this simple. And then how do I make it practical? That editing process is the toughest 00:46:13.680 --> 00:46:24.120 thing, you know, eliminating all the unnecessary. And I know that this is a long form discussion. Um, if you were to 00:46:24.120 --> 00:46:33.660 say to me, can you just sum this up in one paragraph, it, it will take me, uh, probably about an hour to do 00:46:33.660 --> 00:46:42.860 that, to take a long amount of content and, and get it into a small, in the same way, your emails that 00:46:42.860 --> 00:46:49.040 are going out, it should take you longer to write your subject line than it takes you to actually write 00:46:49.040 --> 00:46:54.580 the email because it's the subject line that will determine whether someone will open it or not on 00:46:54.580 --> 00:47:01.360 your headlines. You, the research to figure out what is the key phrase that needs to go into that 00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:07.840 headline should take you longer than writing the whole content. Uh, it's, it's really tough. And that's 00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:12.240 where you need a good communications person. I mean, to be honest, like you, you just pulled the thread 00:47:12.240 --> 00:47:19.660 for me. I love to communicate. I hate communications. Like I, and I, I've played communications role several 00:47:19.660 --> 00:47:25.400 times. Um, um, um, I am, I'm actually operating as a communications director right now for a, for, 00:47:25.520 --> 00:47:34.960 for a Christian nonprofit and, um, digging in to where you like, okay, I've got this idea. That's 150 words. 00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:42.160 I need to, I need to slash this thing down to 50. It's hard. It's painful. Honestly, it takes more 00:47:42.160 --> 00:47:48.840 time than I want to do, than I, than I want to give to it. But the stuff that goes viral, the stuff that 00:47:48.840 --> 00:47:54.980 has the response rate to it, the stuff that isn't, that I have engagement on, it's all centered around 00:47:54.980 --> 00:48:00.500 the things that I have cared for. Um, you know, even some of the, even the blogs through the church 00:48:00.500 --> 00:48:06.520 digital, the ones that are effective are the ones where I took the time to do the, the H2 tags, 00:48:06.640 --> 00:48:13.860 the ones where we structured it in such a way that, that it was, uh, valued on the SEO. And we've seen 00:48:13.860 --> 00:48:21.880 massive results on, on some of this stuff. Uh, but it's where we didn't rush it. We, we took time 00:48:21.880 --> 00:48:26.000 to get it structured in such a way for it to be effective. 00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:35.420 Well, to give you a, an idea of, um, of just keyword research. I mean, our website, we've had our website 00:48:35.420 --> 00:48:44.440 for a long time and I was, I was speaking at, at some conference and, and I mentioned to my team 00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:50.360 who helps me with the website. And I just said, so we've done the research, right? Like we have the 00:48:50.360 --> 00:48:55.500 right key phrase that our, our website's all about. And they're like, Oh yeah. And I said, 00:48:55.780 --> 00:49:01.720 why don't we do it again? Well, come to find out. So we, our key phrase was church branding. 00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:09.480 And, and I thought, okay, well that's, that's really tough to actually, you know, if someone's 00:49:09.480 --> 00:49:15.280 looking for a church branding group, there happens to be a few others out there, not as good as us, 00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:23.780 but I digress. Uh, but when we did our, our research this time, the weird thing is anytime 00:49:23.780 --> 00:49:29.700 that someone's looking for church branding, they're looking for church logo branding and that, 00:49:29.700 --> 00:49:36.940 that three word key phrase. So we ended up, we, uh, we went from top to bottom of our website and we 00:49:36.940 --> 00:49:44.080 added logo between church and branding. We got six times the amount of people coming to our website 00:49:44.080 --> 00:49:52.300 by, by adding that one word in the middle of church and branding. So, so like, like just spend the time. 00:49:52.300 --> 00:49:59.640 And if you don't like the research, uh, figure out somebody who will like find somebody who loves 00:49:59.640 --> 00:50:07.720 that, that keyword searching and getting deeper. And then like, just go through every one of your 00:50:07.720 --> 00:50:15.900 pages on your website and, and make sure that the content has the key phrase. What would, what is this 00:50:15.900 --> 00:50:22.520 page all about? And make sure that it's on your headline, your first paragraph and in your H2 and H3 00:50:22.520 --> 00:50:27.780 tags. Awesome. So good. By the way, that's why. Okay. So we're at four. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. 00:50:27.820 --> 00:50:35.220 What's four. So number one, set goals. Number two, uh, research. Have I mentioned research enough? Like 00:50:35.220 --> 00:50:41.920 just, it's boring. I know, but if you do it right, it will, it will really work well. And pastors need 00:50:41.920 --> 00:50:47.540 to do that research too, for their sermons. Like put some keywords in there that someone in your 00:50:47.540 --> 00:50:53.300 congregation would actually want to listen to. Uh, and you'll have more people listen to it. And then 00:50:53.300 --> 00:51:00.780 three is create really good content. And four is timing. You just got to get the timing, right? 00:51:01.520 --> 00:51:08.120 What's really kind of crazy is that again, it goes back to, to your team as well, but there's 00:51:08.120 --> 00:51:17.660 gotta be a rhythm. Imagine if, if, uh, you, you discovered your new network TV show and you say, 00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:23.100 oh my goodness, it's just so good. And then every week it's on at a different time. If you don't have 00:51:23.100 --> 00:51:31.000 a DVR, it would drive you absolutely crazy. And in the same sense, if you're pushing content that 00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:37.700 people really like, they need that to know when it's coming out so that like, what is doable? 00:51:37.700 --> 00:51:45.100 Is it one to two times a week? Is it one time a week? If, if you do a, you know, church service, 00:51:45.100 --> 00:51:52.180 you do it Sundays, usually, maybe it's a Thursday and a Sunday, but just create a rhythm that you can 00:51:52.180 --> 00:51:59.540 keep up with and then make sure it's sustainable. Make sure that, that whatever you decide to start 00:51:59.540 --> 00:52:07.800 with, that it, that you can do it. Because I think every person who decided to write a blog says, 00:52:07.940 --> 00:52:12.240 you know what? I could probably write a blog every day. And it's like, no, you can't write a blog 00:52:12.240 --> 00:52:19.600 every day. I, I can barely write. I'm doing one to two articles a week. There's, I have a hard time 00:52:19.600 --> 00:52:25.120 keeping up with that when you have to do all the research and, and get everything spell checked and 00:52:25.120 --> 00:52:30.160 grammar checked and make sure that it's the content that people are looking for. So make sure that that 00:52:30.160 --> 00:52:36.180 the, the rhythm is there and that the sustainability is there. And then ultimately figure out what 00:52:36.180 --> 00:52:44.280 channels you want to be known on and, uh, and limit yourself, like get it down to, to some place that 00:52:44.280 --> 00:52:52.740 you're going to get really good success. You know, Joe Rogan, he's on Spotify. Like he, he didn't decide 00:52:52.740 --> 00:53:00.120 to go on many different platforms. People will find you and find that content. And then once you get a 00:53:00.120 --> 00:53:05.800 following, then you can add on a few other things, but, but especially for the small church, just make 00:53:05.800 --> 00:53:13.880 sure that you're, you're on a channel that, you know, your personas are on and then ultimately know 00:53:13.880 --> 00:53:19.780 when your personas are bored. And so when they're bored, they're going to probably go to content 00:53:19.780 --> 00:53:28.060 and, uh, or needing motivation. Um, if you're going with young families, do not do it early evening 00:53:28.060 --> 00:53:35.940 because they, they are busy with their kids. So figure out most kids go down at nine o'clock. Nine 00:53:35.940 --> 00:53:40.200 o'clock is a great time to be posting on social media. Yeah. And even that's a, that's a digital 00:53:40.200 --> 00:53:45.200 ministry tip there too. A lot of your online small groups, things like that, know the audience and, um, 00:53:45.200 --> 00:53:49.900 six o'clock in the evenings, a bad time for, for most people, uh, during business hours is a bad 00:53:49.900 --> 00:53:55.440 time as well. Cause most people have jobs during the day. And so, um, a lot of that engagement, 00:53:55.440 --> 00:54:01.680 a lot of the conversation. And if you do on demand stuff, like that's, that's just a whole other bird 00:54:01.680 --> 00:54:09.660 than, than doing live stuff. Um, if you do live, I would make sure that you have it on demand as well. 00:54:09.980 --> 00:54:15.120 Um, and then watch the analytics to see, are more people watching it when 00:54:15.120 --> 00:54:21.780 it goes, uh, you know, on, on the demand on the archive. And maybe you don't need to do a live 00:54:21.780 --> 00:54:26.680 performance. Maybe you need to have more of a structured edited piece. 00:54:26.680 --> 00:54:32.800 And consistency. And you, you alluded to that earlier as well as so key, um, stick with it, 00:54:32.860 --> 00:54:38.660 be consistent, evaluate, don't be afraid to pivot or shift, but, um, it's going to take time. 00:54:38.660 --> 00:54:44.900 Well, and let me even ask that question. Um, so I'm trying something, how long do I really evaluate 00:54:45.040 --> 00:54:51.000 before I'm like, Hey, that's not working? Yeah. And a lot has to do with goals. So I would, 00:54:51.200 --> 00:54:57.260 I would at least try something for a quarter. Okay. So a quarter of the year, that's why, 00:54:57.260 --> 00:55:03.600 you know, most businesses have switched to quarterly reports. Um, take a look at the end of the quarter 00:55:03.600 --> 00:55:09.580 and say, was it really worth it? And if, if you think that there's a little bit of traction and you 00:55:09.580 --> 00:55:16.340 really enjoy doing that content, then I would try it for another quarter. But if you're in stagnation 00:55:16.340 --> 00:55:22.140 or decline, and, and I mean this, this, we could do a whole podcast about this, but if you're in 00:55:22.140 --> 00:55:29.080 stagnation or decline, either you're trying to get the wrong group of people in and interested in your 00:55:29.080 --> 00:55:36.020 information or the information is wrong or the timing's wrong. So, so you need to, you need to 00:55:36.020 --> 00:55:43.200 figure out, so what's broken and what's working and, and especially at the very beginning, like 00:55:43.200 --> 00:55:52.580 tweak and, and fix things. If you're in stagnation, you really are in decline. So, um, you know, 00:55:52.580 --> 00:55:56.840 you have two audiences, you have internal audience, your congregation, and you have your external 00:55:56.840 --> 00:56:04.560 audience, which is the community, the potential audience, um, focus on the potential and don't 00:56:04.560 --> 00:56:11.500 always give in to the internal. Uh, because most times if you focus internally, you'll end up in 00:56:11.500 --> 00:56:19.620 decline. So, so good. All right, well, let me ask this. How do I get started? Uh, make, make it about 00:56:19.620 --> 00:56:27.080 me for a minute. I, I got, I got limited volunteer crew. I don't have time. Um, I want to experiment. 00:56:27.080 --> 00:56:33.920 What, what would an experiment look like? Um, I mean, is, is, is three months necessary? Like, 00:56:34.100 --> 00:56:39.220 can it, can it, can it, would a shorter span span work? How would somebody maybe even get started doing 00:56:39.220 --> 00:56:45.560 this? Yeah, I wouldn't go too short because there's a lot of content out there and to break 00:56:45.560 --> 00:56:51.680 through, you need to have some track record. Um, you know, be known for something is all about 00:56:51.680 --> 00:56:59.440 discovering your thread. I find that most churches are saying far too much and that they need to figure 00:56:59.440 --> 00:57:06.960 out what is the one thing that you can become known for. And if that thing is relevant and needed in the 00:57:06.960 --> 00:57:13.940 minds of your persona, then, then they'll start relying on you. So, so what would I start with? I 00:57:13.940 --> 00:57:19.200 would start on discovering your thread, try to figure out what is that one thing that we can 00:57:19.200 --> 00:57:24.300 communicate over and over and over and over and over and over so that everyone who samples any 00:57:24.300 --> 00:57:30.500 portion of your content will hear that over and over and over and over again and say, you know what, 00:57:30.560 --> 00:57:37.820 that's good stuff. I need to be there. And then it also gives words so that if somebody else that 00:57:37.820 --> 00:57:44.620 they're talking to says, you know what, all I need in life is this. And it's like, you know what, um, 00:57:45.120 --> 00:57:52.640 who's the guy that talks about that? And, and then we'll, we'll know you because you have a thread 00:57:52.640 --> 00:57:58.000 that unites all of your ministries and that you become a branded house rather than a house of brands. 00:57:58.080 --> 00:58:06.160 So, so really try to figure out like what is that thread, that beneficial thread that everyone in 00:58:06.160 --> 00:58:13.380 your audience needs and, and it'll just work and it'll also calm things down and you can say less 00:58:13.380 --> 00:58:14.700 and people will listen more. 00:58:15.220 --> 00:58:18.920 Branded house versus house of brands. I mean, that's, that's a whole other conversation 00:58:18.920 --> 00:58:24.660 unto it, unto itself. So, well, Hey, this has been, this has been awesome. This has been a huge help. 00:58:25.080 --> 00:58:29.580 Um, I'm still not exactly sure what I'm going to do, but at least I have more information 00:58:29.580 --> 00:58:36.100 as I'm walking into that. So, so thank you for the free coaching. I mean, podcast that we did here, 00:58:36.100 --> 00:58:41.200 uh, for the church, uh, digital audience. This was great. Hey, um, I mean, you got your, 00:58:41.200 --> 00:58:46.000 if you're watching on YouTube, you see the video or excuse the, you see the book, uh, be known for 00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:50.620 something as wrapping up, maybe just talk a little bit about the book and, uh, we'll put links in the 00:58:50.620 --> 00:58:55.380 show notes for that, but I know that's, that's been a big deal for you. So, uh, maybe just share 00:58:55.380 --> 00:58:57.180 a little bit about what the book's about there, Mark. 00:58:57.180 --> 00:59:02.880 The book really just walks you through, how do you discover your thread? How do you figure out 00:59:02.880 --> 00:59:07.360 your personas? How do you figure out what their needs, concerns, and goals are? What are the 00:59:07.360 --> 00:59:13.760 solutions to those needs or paths to the goals? And then how do you structure that tagline that 00:59:13.760 --> 00:59:20.140 becomes a thread so that it works through all of your ministries? The cool thing about the book is 00:59:20.140 --> 00:59:25.240 that it's written as a workbook. So at the end of every chapter, there's, there's lots of questions 00:59:25.240 --> 00:59:31.160 that says, okay, you, you've been nodding along, but here are some things that you need to have 00:59:31.160 --> 00:59:38.180 written down in order to make sure that, uh, you can go into that next chapter. So it's a great team 00:59:38.180 --> 00:59:44.460 read book. If you, uh, if you have a small team that you want to walk through. Um, and the cool 00:59:44.460 --> 00:59:51.420 thing is, is that if you, uh, well, Amazon has it, if you want single copies, if you want, uh, multiple 00:59:51.420 --> 00:59:57.620 copies, you can go to our website, be known for something.com and click on books or be known book.com 00:59:57.620 --> 01:00:04.760 will also take you to that page. Uh, and, uh, and you can buy multiple packs that, uh, at a discount. 01:00:04.760 --> 01:00:09.840 So, so that you can, uh, team read it. Well, Hey Mark, thanks for, uh, for jumping on the time 01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:15.760 here. Um, we will have to do a podcast with our good friend, Ben Stapley and find some topic to do 01:00:15.760 --> 01:00:22.560 that here, uh, in the near future. He's, uh, further up the coast now up in, uh, Jersey. Uh, and so we, 01:00:22.560 --> 01:00:27.320 we miss him down here in Miami, but, uh, definitely looking forward to this. Thank you for this time. 01:00:27.620 --> 01:00:32.420 And we're going to wrap. So, uh, for audience out there, uh, for Mark, uh, my name's Jeff, 01:00:32.600 --> 01:00:37.380 obviously with the church digital and, uh, digital church network. Thanks for jumping on the show 01:00:37.380 --> 01:00:39.740 here and we'll see you next time. The pod. You all have a good day.