Last week, John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing brought up a very good point that if you own a website, you should have control over your domain name. It sounds obvious, but many website owners don’t. With that said, here are three important lessons that I have learned from working at a Web design firm:
- Know the Information
It is fine if your website designer registers your domain name and secures your hosting, but be sure that you get vendor information, account numbers, usernames, passwords, and expiration dates for both your domain records and your hosting company. This information is necessary if you ever plan to have any other designers work on your website.
- If It’s Flash, Own It
If you own a 100% Flash website, be sure that you own a copy of the design file. This is not the file that is uploaded to the Web server (.swf file) but is a file that allows designers to make changes (.fla file). It is a good thing to have in case your designer drops off the face of the earth and you need another designer to update your site. To read more about Flash problems, SitePoint has a good article on the detriments of 100% Flash.
- If Necessary, Use a Safety Net
The task of managing account information can be difficult for some website owners. If you think you will have trouble remembering and managing important information like when your hosting or domain name expires, find a dependable designer or staff member who can help you manage it. Make them your safety net. Forgetting to renew an expiring domain name is not an enjoyable experience.
Seacoast Church recently launched Seacoast All Access which offers free graphics, sermon MP3’s and notes, and other great resources like small group study notes.
Also check out our previous posts about:
Southeast Christian Church offers free resources
LifeChurch.tv offers free resources
Special thanks to Churchonomics for highlighting Seacoast’s good news.
Email can quickly become frustrating if you are attempting to send a file over a couple megabytes. Some email accounts can send and receive huge files while others are restricted to a few megabytes. In most cases, physically mailing a CD with the attachments is an inconvenience and even impossible depending on time restraints.
Sending files does not have to be frustrating. You could always use YouSendIt. YouSendIt is a favorite resource among graphic designers that allows them to send a file up to a 50 megabytes for FREE! It is extremely simple to use. You can even send a 2 gigabyte file if you are willing to upgrade to your account for a monthly fee.
If you have not used YouSendIt.com yet, check it out. I can send large files to Alaska or Florida or anywhere I please at the simply click of a button.
Last week, Trends in Japan highlighted a new technology that allows paper to store and play audio messages. Although it is only 0.75 millimeters thick, audio paper is embedded with a small speaker, microphone, and battery. Currently, it is capable of playing a 20 second message about 50 times, and it already went on sale in Japan this past fall for $10.65 per sheet.
Other research is working to develop ultra-thin electronic displays that one day could possibly be implemented into books, newspapers, and advertisements. One company pursuing such research is E Ink, which is already working with Electronic Paper Display (EPD). They describe it as:
EPDs are a technology enabled by electronic ink - ink that carries a charge enabling it to be updated through electronics. Electronic ink is ideally suited for EPDs as it is a reflective technology which requires no front or backlight, is viewable under a wide range of lighting conditions, including direct sunlight, and requires no power to maintain an image.
Food for Thought:
This technology is still relatively new. It will only become more affordable and technologically advanced in the years to come. Perhaps, now is a good time to begin brainstorming what cool things your ministry could do with such technology.
Special thanks to Trend Hunter for highlighting Trends in Japan’s article.
The London School of Economics and Political Science researched the positive and negative effects of word of mouth and produced several interesting discoveries:
- A 7% increase in word of mouth advocacy unlocks 1% additional company growth.
- A 2% reduction in negative word of mouth boosts sales growth by 1%.
- Companies with above average positive word of mouth and below average negative word of mouth grow four times as fast as those with below average word of mouth and above average negative word of mouth.
That is a 400% growth difference between good and bad companies mentioned in the last point. The principles of word of mouth also apply to the church. If you give people something positive about your church to talk about, it will grow. Do not, however, rely on great advertising to be your catalyst for word of mouth and still expect it to produce church growth. Church growth begins with the marketability of your church. It is the core concept we presented in February’s Church Relevance newsletter, Marketability First. If you focus on a great ministry and church experience, you will create positive word of mouth.
Special thanks to Church of the Customer Blog for highlighting LSE’s research.
Ben Arment, pastor of History Church, wrote a great post yesterday about learning how to market your church from car advertising. He wrote:
“A great advertising guy once asked me, “If your church were a car, what kind of car would it be?” He was getting at the fact that cars are marketed demographically and sociographically. So if we could figure out a good automobile equivalent for our church, we could look at how they advertise and what they advertise for clues on what we should be doing.”
There is a lot of truth in those statements.
First, automobile manufacturers invest a great deal of money and research into learning more about their target audiences and how to appeal to them. Your church can learn much from studying your congregation’s consumer preferences.
Second, notice the advertising guy said the how and what they advertise are clues. It can give inspiration. It can give direction, but it can’t be considered a solution. You must learn to take the conceptual and stylistic insights and customize them so that they work for your church. For instance, History Church has focused on the fun, youthful, community friendly sense of adventure that the Honda Element, and they have sought to create a brand that communicates “having fun in community.”
As a note of caution:
When studying a successful company’s marketing, purpose not only to study “how” they market themselves but “why” they do it. Not understanding the “why” can create problems. Obviously, they know (usually) how to appeal to people, but their approach will vary depending on the response they are looking for. Many car advertisements are created to reassure post-purchase consumers that they made the right decision. Some retail environments are designed to slow prospects down. If you glean inspiration for your church’s facility from retail environments, observe and study how people respond to the environment because the last thing you want is to cause unnecessary traffic problems. If possible, discover the “why” in addition to the “how”. Then you will know how to appeal to the target audience and create specific results.
For those of you who like personality tests, try Personal DNA.
It’s free!- It has some cool testing methods.
- It is a great self-evaluation (at least I thought so).
- It is a great way to learn how to better interact with other people on your church’s staff (if you share your results).
Have fun!
USA Today published a recent article discussing the popularity of video games among adults. A few highlights include:
- “According to a new AP-AOL Games poll, 40% of American adults play games on a computer or a console.”
- “About one in six online gamers play more than 10 hours a week.”
- “Of those who play online games, nearly one in five said they had formed ongoing friendships or relationships with fellow gamers they did not know before.”
Video games have certainly become a noteworthy part of many people’s lives, and their popularity is growing. Early this year, another article claimed that one in three parents play video games, and “80% of that segment play video games with their children.” It is an unchartered issue by previous generations. Obviously, older generations successfully navigated life without video games, but these games seem to be a very integrated part of life for today’s younger demographics. Last August, a South Korean man died of exhaustion after playing video games for 49 hours non-stop. It wasn’t the first time. In 2002, another South Korean died after 86 hours of gaming. It has become a concern to South Korea as they learn to deal with 35% of their population being obsessed with gaming.
Without a question, video games are reshaping cultures and birthing entirely new cultures of their own. Will it affect the church? In some cases, yes. I am certain that gaming over attending church will tempt many the same way that a sunny day at the lake has tempted previous generations. At the same time, it also offers another platform of outreach. Many ministries, particularly youth ministries, have already begun harnessing the power of gaming to attract people to church and help create meaningful relationships.
