Buy Attention When It Is The Cheapest

Sounds so dirty doesn’t it? It sounds like some kind of marketing ploy. It certainly doesn’t sound like a way to approach anything from a church or ministry perspective.

But, if you want to show me something, there are times when it is easier to get my attention. Don’t try to tell me something important on a Sunday morning between services. Don’t try to ask me about church when I am fly-fishing. I’m not paying attention. Don’t try to get me to buy a swimsuit in December, or a winter coat in July. There are times when it is cheapest, or easiest, to buy my attention because I am more willing to pay attention to what you are trying to show me. Those times are the times I am looking in the general vicinity of what you want to present to me. Those are the times you should invest the most effort in trying to get my attention.

The same is true of the audience you are trying to reach. Sometimes they are more open to the idea you want to present to them. If you are a church, two of those times are December leading up to Christmas and March leading up to Easter. Christmas and Easter, two times people are more willing to try a new church or show up for the first time. These are the times of year to encourage people to take a chance and show up. These are the times you want to invest the most energy and resource into showing people who you are and what you are all about as a ministry.

When you invite people, don’t forget these three keys.

1. Always add value before you invite them.

2. Answer the questions they haven’t thought to ask.

3. Give a clear picture of what they can expect if they show up.

https://youtu.be/PnUVQwmXUkE

Merry Christmas! SAVE $100 on the Leverage Course, A Simple Social Media And Online Strategy To Grow Your Church. Use code CHRISTMAS100 at checkout. Click here!

Everything Has Changed And You Can Leverage It To Reach New People

I don't want to sound dramatic.  No one likes drama.  Especially leaders.  But, how we communicate and interact with each other has shifted.  Everything has changed.  If your church isn't growing with new people it is probably because people outside of your church just aren't paying attention to you.

You aren't necessarily broken.  You aren't doing anything wrong.  The problem isn't necessarily you, or your leadership, or your church.  So, before you go out and hire a consultant, or worse start comparing yourself to the guy down in North Carolina with the church of 16,000 or the guy down the street with the church of 1000, just consider that maybe the issue is a simple communication issue that can be fixed with a simple strategy. 

You can reach lost people with a simple shift in approach. You don't have to go door to door to reach people.  You also don't have to wait until they stumble into your sanctuary after just being clobbered by life.  You can reach them right now, through their smartphones and social news feeds. It isn't complex.  It doesn't cost a lot.  It is simple. 

And,  the return on investment is lives changed and souls saved.  Not to mention, your church will grow and so will your finances which will mean more resources to reach more people to see more lives changed. 

I have a course to help you learn and implement the simple strategy we have use to reach new people in our community.  We have experiences exponential growth from implementing this strategy.

The course is called Leverage and it is an online course you can walk your whole team through and use to onboard new team members and volunteers.  It is a great tool to use as training as part of your leadership meetings or to walk through individually.

If you aren't ready to take that step, these articles are so important and will get you started today!
5 Social Media Tips That Will Actually Grow Your Church
How To Grow Your Audience When No One Is Paying Attention

This stuff matters but you don't have to take my word for it...

Cedrick Brown is not only extremely gifted in leadership but he has one of the best pastoral hearts I have ever seen. Pastor Cedrick Brown is the Lead Pastor of Commitment Community Church.  Commitment Community Church is rapidly multiplying in their region. They have amazing leadership and they have been implementing this strategy since last February.  They are so good at implementing, when I have a phone call with their team at some point in the conversation I am the one who ends up taking notes.  

This is what Pastor Cedrick says about leverage, 

“Social Media and Online usage is not going anywhere in our lifetime. This is why I would recommend the 'Leverage Social Media and Online Strategy' by Josh Ott. It is amazingly simple, effective and sacred in its approach to reaching the lost and unchurched with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”- Cedrick Brown, Lead Pastor, Commitment Church

Get the course right here and start today. 

Course Tips:
Sign up for one account and use it for your whole team!
It also makes a great tool to onboard new volunteers and team members. 
Use the Coupon Code (available for a limited time) EDAMOVE at checkout to save your church budget $$$!

Introducing - Leverage To Grow Your Church

I am very excited to announce that the Leverage Course is nearing completion and I expect it to launch early in October. This course is about leveraging social media and a simple online strategy to grow your church. I developed this strategy and implemented it at my own church and the results have been incredible. God has used these tools to grow our church in every way. My hope is that this content helps you reach people in your community as well. I hope you find this content helpful as you think through what it means to pastor, to reach people and to communicate in a fast world that lives in a social online context.

Knowing your audience is huge. You cannot communicate effectively until you know who your audience is. Deep dive into your target audience and spend some time thinking through their fears, their frustrations, their dreams. What are they hung up on? What hurdles are they facing? What are they worried about this week? Get to it (after you watch this video from leverage.)

How To Upload Videos Directly To IGTV From Your Desktop

Instagram's IGTV is a new feature on Instagram that you should be paying attention to and using. 

If you are unfamiliar with this feature start to explore it by being a consumer.  Learn the ins and outs of IGTV simply by watching IGTV videos.  Follow your favorite creators and interact with content that you like.

Here is why understanding IGTV is important.  IGTV was designed by Instagram to try to compete with Youtube.com on mobile devices.  I think they got pretty close with IGTV.  IGTV is a great mobile video social sharing space and if it catches some momentum it is going to take off with consumers.  Instagram (owned by Facebook) is going to be investing even more resources to ensure IGTV's success.  Now is a great time to be creating content and experimenting with this feature on the Instagram platform.  

A lot of content creators create high quality videos on their computers.  To avoid having to transfer these videos to your phone before uploading to IGTV watch the video above.  Not only will this video save you time, but it will allow you to experiment with IGTV video descriptions which could play a role in future algorithm changes to the platform.

Hope this helps.

Your voice matters, 

Josh

5 Social Media Tips That Will Actually Grow Your Church

Our church is growing rapidly because we figured out how to leverage social media to reach people.

As soon as people learn about how our church more than doubled in size in less than 12 months largely through the use of social media, they immediately want to talk about the content we create and use.  What they fail to understand is that content is just one piece of the puzzle. 

It is true that if your content is terrible, social media does more harm for your ministry than it does good. 

It is also true that even if you have high quality, professional content the results from your social media efforts will be extremely limited if you aren't thinking about some other really important aspects to leveraging social media to reach people. 

The five areas below are absolutely essential to think through with your team before you ever do anything with social media as a ministry or church.

5 Social Media Tips That Will Actually Grow Your Church

The Strategy - Content is great, but strategy is greater.  If you really want to reach your community through the tool of social media you have to think about and develop a strategy. Ask yourself (or your team) "What are we trying to say?" and "How are we trying to say it?".  Clear and simple answers to those questions will help you develop and fuel your online social media strategy.

The Filter - Once your strategy is developed you will need to filter everything you do on social media through that strategy.  No more pot luck dinner announcements.  No more clutter.  If it doesn't fit with what you are trying to say and who you are trying to say it to, don't post it.  Spend some time deleting old content that doesn't fit the strategy you developed.  Filter all future content through your strategy.

The Focus - Social media really works well when you have a razor sharp focus on your target audience.  Clearly define the audience you are trying to reach.  Who are they? What are their fears or frustrations?  What are their dreams or desires?  What obstacles are they facing?  Use your focus on and understanding of your audience to drive your content creation.  

The Content - There is no excuse to put poor content on the internet.  We started leveraging social media with zero budget allotted for marketing and using free tools.  When you put out poor content you turn people off to your message.  Images should be modern and attractive without a lot of clutter.  Videos should be clear and steady.  Find someone in your church who is into photography.  Ask them to take pictures for you.  Get free stock photos at places like pexels.com.  Use free editing software apps like Canva.  There are a ton of tools available for you to up your content game.  Get on google and start searching.  Problem solve to improve the quality of your content.

The Health - If your church is unhealthy, if it does not have a healthy culture, if it has leadership problems, if it isn't focused on loving and reaching the unchurched, please don't use social media to try to grow your church.  Be honest and courageous enough to take a good hard look at the health of your church.  Take a good hard look at your health as a leader.  Don't make excuses, just work on the health and culture of the church.   If you use social media effectively and people show up to an unwelcoming, unhealthy church you actually cause more harm than good.   Your church won't grow.  You will create another barrier between people and Jesus making it harder for all of us to win influence and have a voice with lost people.   Please get healthy before you ever think about using social media to reach people.  Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. 

Hope you found this helpful.

Praying for you.

Your voice matters. 

Josh

thespeakingcourse.com

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