A while back... ...I posted in the WELS Intersections Facebook group offering to critique/improve a logo. I had a lot of interest, so THANK YOU if you submitted yours. If this newsletter gets a positive response, I hope to do more in the coming months. Our subject today is the logo for St. Mark Ministries in De Pere & Green Bay, Wisconsin. If anyone from St. Mark is reading this, you won't hurt my feelings if you dislike what I come up with. 😉 I thank you for allowing me to do this! Here's...
4 days ago • 2 min read
The Church Marketing Playbook: Throwing Wide Open Your Digital Front Doors It was an absolute pleasure to present at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary this week. Here's the description shared with attendees: The Church Marketing Playbook: Throwing Wide Open Your Digital Front Doors Within the next 4 to 40 months, you can confidently say you'll be carving out Saturday mornings for church workdays, receiving emails titled, "Re: New lawnmower" from your grounds elder, and vacuuming cheerios off the...
11 days ago • 1 min read
I'm working on materials for my presentation at Mission & Ministry next week... While I'm at it, I thought I'd share this resource with you. Have you ever sat down to formulate a plan for promoting an upcoming event and thought... "Where should I begin?" Then... you get overwhelmed by all of your options, procrastinate, and end up throwing $30 at Facebook 6 days out from the event? This timeline & checklist was written to infuse a little more intention and strategy into that process. You'll...
18 days ago • 1 min read
Don't go digital for digital's sake. Go digital for the humans on the other side of the screen. Here are 10 ways that the internet intersects with traditional Word of Mouth interactions. 1) Write stuff that makes sense to share publicly. If someone reposts your graphic on their Instagram story, they, in essence, just sent that sentiment to each of their 500 followers. Take a look at this Instagram account. Pastors write enough content to create something along these lines—and, yet, many...
25 days ago • 3 min read
How to do search engine optimization on your website by yourself If you're DIY-ing your website or you just want to try your hand at a tune-up, follow the steps below to start to improve your own SEO (Search Engine Optimization). We do these things so that Google can understand what your site is all about. The ultimate goal is that Google knows how to recommend your site to people who are looking for an organization like yours! #1: Write custom page title and descriptions. This is the most...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
My new website is live! Ever since I launched my site in 2023, I've been looking forward to the day I could give it the love it deserved. It really has been a labor of love, and I'm so thrilled to share it with you today! Here's what's different (and the strategy behind each change): I added a new section to my site: a blog! Over the next few months, I'm going to copy over all of my past newsletters into this section. Right now, my archive is stored in my email service provider's ecosystem....
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Is AI going to kill Google Search? Oh no! I've seen a lot of discourse about this issue recently. As a marketer, this has the potential to disrupt almost everything I've built my and my clients' platforms on. But - keep reading to understand why you don't have to worry: So what's happening, exactly? Maybe if you've googled something recently, you've seen the AI Overview at the top of the page. Here's an example: My husband and I recently purchased a home (yay!) and I was looking up how much...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Do you struggle when you sit down to design a social media post? The blank page can be intimidating. You might know what you want to say, but you don't know how to make it look. Take some time to do a little work up-front and move forward knowing you'll always have a design to sit down to. If you enjoy taking a crack at design projects, try this formulaic approach to creating a graphics pack of your own: Pick 3-5 hex codes you want to use. One or two of them should be true colors... the other...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Build a newbie's Know/Like/Trust factor with an email automation In my humble opinion, the ideal digital marketing flow for organizations like yours looks like this: You have an engaging website with strong Search Engine Optimization ⬇️ People find you on Google as they search for "church/school near me" ⬇️ On your website, you offer something of value in exchange for someone's email ⬇️ When they subscribe, a new subscriber automation kicks off ⬇️ Over a series of days, weeks, or months, you...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Learn to manage a church's digital landscape in ~5hrs/week 📼 WATCH THIS INSTEAD OF READING: This has gone through many, many iterations, so I'm extremely excited to share with you that... ...In the spring, I’m running a free training program teaching you how to manage a church’s digital landscape in about 5 hours/week. I’ll teach you: Basic marketing best practices How to set up and run a successful social media account How to edit sermons and sermon clips How to format/write/send email...
2 months ago • 1 min read