“Make your marketing so useful people would pay you for it.” —Jay Baer
Are you active in your church—any church? Why or why not?
My reference to church in this article is meant to include any religious institution, not limited to Christian congregations.
That’s something to think about. The purpose and main goal of most churches is to help people live better lives, either by helping them out when life gets hard, or by providing spiritual teachings to help them improve themselves. It doesn’t matter what religion we’re talking about. If you look deep enough, this is the purpose of any church, mosque, or synagogue.
Why are churches struggling? Google that and you get 20,300,000 results. There must be a problem somewhere. And this is an institution dedicated to doing good in the world.
Why aren’t you active on a regular basis at your church? If all were well, you would be—after all, churches are dedicated to helping people.
How about your business? Is it struggling or thriving? Are you dedicated to doing good in the world? Are your key precepts as obvious or widely known as those of your church?
I want to suggest that most church struggles and business struggles are related.
The challenge is that the church and your business don’t have a share of your target market’s mind. Neither is providing value to their audience in a way that the audience cares about.
Have you looked around? Do you realize how many constant distractions there are in the world?
How many people do you know who don’t have a smart phone? I know only a handful, and their numbers are getting smaller every month.
Think of the effect this has on people. It gives them constant entertainment at the push of a button. Smart phones have more options to draw you in than I can count.
Look at how it’s affected parenting. Many babies are playing with tablets and can access their favorite apps before they’re two, or even younger.
What about young adults? We all know the stories of them living on their phones; we witness this as we see a group of them in the same room, all texting—or, more likely, Snapchatting—each other.
We think it stops there, but no.
The other night at dance class, my wife and I arrived a few minutes early, and I looked around. Over 60% of the people there were on their phones, not talking to the person they were with or to anyone else. The average age of these people was well into the mid-forties.
The phones know no age limit.
What does this have to do with churches and your business?
Well, what are you doing to combat this? Or how are you using this to your advantage?
As I mentioned in a previous article, it’s your job to stay in front of your audience. Click here to read that article. It’s not your audience’s job to remember you.
This holds true for a church or any nonprofit organization, just like it’s true for your business.
If a church or nonprofit stops reaching out to people and staying in front of their supporters, they are going to start declining.
It’s even more true for a business. If you don’t have a plan in place to stay relevant to your customers and prospects in a way they want to be reached, you will soon find your business declining.
It’s no fun to be forgotten—and yes, I’m talking from experience, both in business and over my many years of involvement in my church as it has cycled through many challenges.
Most of your customers aren’t thinking of you as an institution devoted to doing good in the world, they are thinking of you as a business that can help them solve their problem. When you do, you’re a hero; when you don’t, you’re a bum.
Develop a plan to stay in front of your customers affordably. Make sure that you’re strengthening your relationship with everyone in a way that you can sustain, and watch your business grow.
Ignore this and watch your business decline.
One way that you can stay in front of all those people on their smartphones is to use Facebook, both organically and with paid marketing.
When I look at the reports for most of my clients, I’m seeing that, in most industries, over 86% of the traffic comes from phones. With the proper strategies, you can place great content in front of your target audience, and start and maintain great relationships.
If you want some ideas about how to get started using Facebook for your business—or your church, if you’re so inclined—set up a complimentary consultation call and we’ll talk together for 45 minutes and put together a Social Media Marketing Blueprint that’s designed for you and your situation. Click here to access my calendar and get your time scheduled.
If you want to know how to get results with very little tech needed, you want to spend limited money, and you work with people in a limited area, I can help you. If you want to design an elaborate multi-step system that shepherds people from “I just met you” to “Here’s my money” on a nationwide or worldwide scale, I can help with that—and everything in between.
Again, go to https://gosocialexperts.com/schedule to access my calendar. The call is complimentary, and when we’re done you’ll have a Social Media Marketing Blueprint of your own that you can implement by yourself or with my help.
Have a great day!