Right Around The Corner!

Christmas is over and New Years is yet to come. This time of year is generally a dead time. Most news stories coming out right now are end of the year compilations. A list of what famous person died, or what the major news stories were in 2010. Many people are in a lull. Work and life tend to be on hold. Often times due to the weather which has them snowed in, or depressed because of being overcast and rainy. Or they are Christmased out. And resting up for one more bang, New Years Eve party. They have taken their Christmas decorations down, or are thinking about it. Some are trying to figure out how to hold on to the season. Or they are starting to realize that a new year is almost here. Do you know what else they are doing? They are surfing the internet. Looking for deals, or maybe looking for a church to attend. Maybe yours if they attended your Christmas Eve services.

So what are you doing to get them to come back for a second look? What have you communicated to them that makes them want to give your church or business a second look or visit. What are you communicating to them right now as they are checking out your blog or website? Have you updated your specials? Have you removed your Christmas Eve sermon title and replaced it with your upcoming New Years event? When was the last time your posted to your blog or Facebook site.

Now is the time to get noticed. Now is the time to communicate creatively with your customers, your market. Think fresh, think new. Offer them something that will make them sit up and take notice. Don't provide something you've done in the past. That makes you look tired and so last year. If it is something old you are offering it's got to be so old that it is now retro and hip. People are in kick back mode and to bring them out you are going to need to give them something new. After all there is a New Year about to start. So offer them a give-away. Something free. Perhaps free movie tickets, or an iTunes download. Now's the time to get people to commit to doing something new. They are going to start thinking about New Year's resolutions, so why not get a word in edge wise and offer them a New Year's resolution that will connect them with your company or church.

And finally did I mention to update your website. I did? Well then do it. Now is the time to spruce it up. Rearrange things on it. Update links and make sure all the contacts, and staff photo's are current. And if you aren't going to update that blog, then kill it and remove the link from your website.

After all, 2011 is right around the corner.

Merry Christmas

Here's wishing that everyone who reads this has a Very Merry Christmas. As a Christian this time of the year is especially memorable as we celebrate God becoming human. It has been a challenging year for us, as it has been for many others. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. May the Lord bless you and yours this Christmas and throughout the new years.

Avoiding Cheesy in Order to Communicate Professionaly

What do you think of when you hear the word cheesy? It's hard to define, but we know it when we see it. And when we see it, we think unprofessional, small, out of date. Whether you are a small business, leading a small church, or are a small anything you know that to compete you can't present as unprofessional or small. how do you look unprofessional or small? By using stock clip art that comes in your PowerPoint software to create your signs or by using your sister Edna's son George to design your website because he just finished website design 101 at his junior college.

Understand that there is nothing wrong with being small. If you are small you can make changes quicker, you can turn around quicker, and you can be more flexible. You can offer personal service. But to often people equate small with not professional enough. And the last thing you want to present as is unprofessional.

Often small businesses or small churches present themselves as unprofessional, because they don't have the right resources to unleash their inner creativity. As a small business owner, or small church pastor, you rely on what you can afford or on what has worked in the past. You think you don't have the money or time to spend, accurately communicating who you are to others because you are to busy running your business. Yet part of running your business entails communicating who you are in a world that is constantly changing. Even a traditional institution like the church needs to be able to communicate its timeless truths in a manner that will help them reach people.

But I don't have as design team and I can't afford Adobe Photoshop, or Apple Final Cut, and if I did have them, I wouldn't know how to use them. So where can you go to find the inexpensive or free resources that will help you communicate yours business or church in a professional and up to date manner?

Well it's said that imitation is the best form of flattery. So if you want to see how to design an ad for your business, or how to develop a look for your next sermon series, then go see how others are doing them. We all have hero's we want to emulate, businesses that we want to be like. So look at what others are doing. Look at how ads are designed in the various magazines, watch commercials and see how they are edited and what they highlight to catch your attention. Don't look at business that are failing, or churches that are shrinking. Look at the ones that are growing, the ones that are making a difference in their communities. Why try calling them up and ask them for advice.

Now you don't want to copy what they are doing exactly, because you aren't them. And you don't want to get into any copyright infringement issues. But take what you see, how they use color, the fonts they use, the images they portray and develop your own message based around those key indicators. And since you don't have or can't afford the creative software tools they have, as my Christmas present to you, here are some websites that offer free or inexpensive resources that will enable you to improve how you present yourself in 2011.

filehippo.com - Free software available for you to download to include Photoshop like clones, such as paint.net or Gimp. You can also download openoffice.org that will provide you with a free clone of MS Office. 
creativemyk.com  -  Free graphics for churches, that come in a variety of formats depending on what you need. 
dafont.com  - free fonts to download to your computer. 
sxc.hu - free professional stock images. 
adobe.com - you can download functioning versions of all their design software and use it for free for 30 days. also many of there software is available at student rates which you can get by taking inexpensive classes at your local community colleges. 
brusheezy.com  -  Free photoshop brushes. 
vecteezy.com - free vector silhouettes. 
all-silhouettes.com - free vector silhouettes. 
Psd.tutsplus.com - Photoshop tutorials. Some free. 
movieclips.com  - free clips of popular movies to help you find that moving image that will illustrate what you want to say. 
creativity-online.com  - a website that you can watch the newest commercials that are being created.

How Can I Connect With My Community? (aka Hit My Target Market)

I want to zero in on some of the items I mentioned last week in order to help you connect with your community, or as marketers would say, your target market. Now the odds are that you could find people in all demographics who would be interested in your product or message, but the reality is that the manner in which you communicate your message or product will only target a niche of people in that demographic pie.  You need to be able to communicate in the best way to reach the largest slice of that pie. If you already belong to a large social group, say a religious, service, or business organization then you may have access to free demographic information. But if you've investigated that and found it lacking then you need to do your own research in order to be able to grow outside your immediate circle of influence.

So where can a person go to discover this information? Well you could certainly pay for that information, but if you are just getting your business started, or you are in a small church, you may not have the necessary resources to hire a marketing company to do your research for you.

You could walk around your community and look at the type of housing and businesses that it has. Knock on some doors and visit with people to ask their opinions. And though this may be feasible in a small community, it will require plenty of legwork.

A fairly inexpensive option would be to pay a couple of hundred dollars for a mailing list for about 5,000 people in the zip code areas you want to connect with. You could go to a company like Postnet for something like this. Or you could use an advertising mailer company. Such a list has provided me with information like average age per zip code, average income, as well as the percentage in that zipcode that consist of families with children.

Another excellent source would be the local chamber of commerce for your community or the  U.S. Census Bureau.  They have a wealth of information regarding the demographics of your community and beyond.

Alright, now that you've discovered the demographic of your market, how do you connect with them? Where do you discover the common cultural markers that connect with the people groups in those demographics? In today's world...the internet.

When I worked for a large church in the Pacific Northwest, part of my job entailed discovering cultural trends that would help the church connect with its surrounding community. So I would scour the internet looking for marketing information that was free that would enable us to do exactly that.

How would I approach that? Say I wanted to develop a message series or an ad campaign that would help me connect with the demographic we were targeting. In our case we were specifically targeting families with children. Next I would look for trends that would help me connect with them. I would go to websites like Arbitron, Billboard.com and Nielsen ratings website to see what people were listening to and watching. Next I would go to various marketing, video and graphics blogs to see what was being created to reach that demographic.
And with the information I gathered I would meet with our creative team and see how we could apply this to connect with our demographic.

The church I worked at had a history of being creative. And as summertime was approaching several years ago we were looking for a message series to run through that season. I started doing some research and discovered that more people played video games than went to the movies. So during our meetings, I suggested a series based on video games. It turned out that Microsoft was launching an updated version of their Xbox 360 so we decided to head that direction. We were aware that Microsoft greatly impacted our demographic here in the Pacific Northwest. Using creative license we developed a series called Xbook 365. This worked because the messages we shared were from a bestselling book, the Bible and the 365 had to do with the fact that Christianity was to be lived out all year long. We tied into the buzz surrounding the new Xbox video game system. We created some videos that played just before the sermon. We even had monthly drawings for free video games. People could sign up for the drawings by giving us their name and email address. The series was a big hit, it connected with people, gave us a lot of contacts and helped us to grow.

We did this kind of legwork for most of our sermon series. Some worked, some didn't. But what we were doing, based on the information we had gathered from the internet, was casting a broad net. You catch more fish with a net, then just one fishing rod. And more often than not, what we did worked. Of course making the connection was only the first step, closing the deal will be for another blog.

The end result of what we did was that in 2010 the church was listed as part of the fastest growing 100 churches in the United States and we achieved mega church size (a church with an attendance of 2,000 or greater).

So let me close with a list of websites that you can go through at your leisure. These are websites that I use on a regular basis to discover what companies are doing to grow their markets and connect with their communities. Some of them are also church websites which I list because of their creativity. Some are video or graphic design sites. The links are listed on the right side of my blog.  I encourage you to check them out and make your own list. What worked for me, might not work for you.

A good place to start to develop your website resource list is a website called Alltop.com. This was started by a businessman name Guy Kawasaki. A brilliant man who has keen insight on how to connect with people. He has authored several books that are well worth your reading. (Check out his blog at blog.guykawasaki.com). Alltop.com is a topically arranged site that makes it easy to arrange and customize the websites you want to keep tabs on.

So take advantage of the free resources available to you on the internet to help you connect with your community. I would be interested in learning what some of your own favorite website resources are. Post them in the comments section.

Christmas Panic

Who would start a blog in the middle of the Christmas season? Perhaps someone who was an adrenaline junkie; someone who is a perfectionist and a procrastinator...perhaps...

Christmas season, the time of innumerable office parties and end of year speeches where you have been chosen to give the talk and have been told to be motivational, make it short and don't be a bore.

The time of the year when pastors around the county are trying to decide how they are going to present the Christmas message slightly different than they have so many umpteen times. (And if you've waited until now to figure that out, you are behind the power curve and in need of an intervention.)

Where do you go? Perhaps you can download a copy of "The Speakers Sourcebook: Quotes, Stories and Anecdotes for every occasion." for your Kindle from Amazon.com.

You must care or you would be using the material provided in the liturgical calendar that your denomination sent you.

What do you do? Here are 4 things you can do that will help you be ready for the season.

First, answer the question: Who are you speaking to? You know, the people you have to give a speech in front of, the congregation you have to preach to this Christmas season. Who are they? What do they like? What do they watch on TV? What kind of music do they listen to? How old are they? Who are they? Answer these questions and you will find a common thread that you can build your sermon or speech around.

Second, find a common cultural illustration that matches their demographic. (Not all of them but most of them). Go to websites like billboard.com or the Nielsen ratings and find out what the current popular songs is. If it's Pop go to that chart. If it's Alternative go to that one. See what people are watching on TV. What's on the top ten for the past week? Then, go look up the lyrics to that song, or pull up a recent episode from TV on hulu.com or  youtube.com . 

Third, it's time to mix and match. If you're a pastor, find that Scripture that will speak to the people you are standing in front of and illustrate it with things that they have been watching on TV, downloading on Netflix listening to on their iTunes, or reading on their Kindles. By doing that you will be like the men of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:22. They knew the times and what they should do.

If you have to give that end of the year office speech at the Christmas Party, find that motivational quote from "The Office" and put it together with the stats from your business. Be brief, be genuine and be uplifting. When people are down they want to laugh. They need to be motivated. Statistics tell us that the Christmas season tends to be a time when depression peaks for many people. You could use an illustration from the movie "127 Hours" where determination overcame doubt, when the will to overcome adversity, overcame the pain and fear that Aron Ralston was enduring. Enabling him to escape a boulder that he was trapped under while canyoneering alone near Moab, Utah.

If none of that works for you go look up the November 15th episode of "Pearls Before Swine." And use that image. Here's the link comics.com/pearls_before_swine/2010-11-15/ Now that's perspective.

And Fourth practice your delivery. It may sound cheesy, but stand in front of a mirror and practice how you are going to say what you are going to share. Even record yourself. Practice, practice, practice. 

Then go get 'em. You'll do great.