EP214: Mark MacDonald & Creating Your Church's Content Strategy

So what are their biggest needs? What are their biggest concerns? What are the biggest goals?

And this is not the Sunday school answer. We know they need Jesus. What is their biggest concern?

They are concerned about going to heaven. What is their biggest goal? To live a good life. I mean,

like all of those Sunday school answers, like that's not what people are waking up concerned

about. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the

technological innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address

deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital

mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the

metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church,

or a startup church plan? The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a

multiplying church, digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover

a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your

host, Jeff Reed. All right. Hey, everybody. We got episode 214. My name is Jeff with the Church

Digital Podcast. I'm definitely excited to have this conversation with you all today. By the way,

hey, over at Digital Church Network, we are launching networks. We're launching these micro networks where

we're grouping together different churches that have the same mission and vision. We're gathering

together physical churches that are doing digital ministry. We're gathering together churches that are

doing, that want to be a church in digital space. We're gathering together metaverse churches.

And our hope by gathering these churches together is to help them get encouragement,

to get support, to be prayed for, to get accountability. Basically, we want to see our

churches multiply through Digital Church Network. And we're passionate about getting churches that are

really interested in understanding digital discipleship piece and to really take next steps in digital and

metaverse ministry. We want to get you guys connected with some others and some people that can help you

that journey. So, hey, if you're interested in this, we'll put the link in the show notes as well. Go

to digitalchurch.network slash lifeline. Digitalchurch.network slash lifeline. Yeah, that's probably a long

URL. Maybe we need to fix that. Maybe the comm guy we've got here is going to correct me with that here

in a second. But hey, let's get you connected. We do a lot when it comes towards digital ministry and

metaverse. But honestly, the idea here with the networks, I think this is the best thing we can do

to help your ministry, whether you're planting or working at established church. I think this is the

best thing we can do. So get started, get more information. Oh, it's free. Digitalchurch.network

slash lifeline. Well, hey, we're looking forward to this conversation. Episode 214 here.

We're diving into the idea of a content strategy. I'm going to make this just for two minutes. I'm

going to make this podcast about me. Hopefully this is okay. But I work at, I don't work. I volunteer

at a small church in town. I am an attender. Maybe I'm a leader. I kind of go back and forth on that.

But at the heart of this, I'm at a church plant down here in Miami. Easter, maybe we had 150,

200 people. Typically it's about 100, 150 plus or minus. So it's a smallest church. I mean,

in reality, we've probably been open six, eight months. There was totally a pun there if you got

it, but that's another story. But we've been open maybe six, eight, maybe 10 months at this point,

relatively new. And the lead pastor comes up to me one day and says, hey, Jeff, I need your help.

We're really excited. We want to develop a content strategy for our church.

And I looked at my pastor and I was like, okay, maybe. Sure. Let's think about it. Let's talk

about it. Let's figure it out. And just in the weeks since that conversation, it happened a little

before Easter. So it's been a little crazy. I've really been wrestling with, okay, so we're a small

church. We're just starting out. What would a content strategy really look like for our church? What do I

need to do? Then I started thinking about the massiveness of social media and a lot of the

noise that's happening in this space. And I started asking questions like, is content strategy even

effective for normal churches and larger churches? How do we manage this content? As churches, are we

really effective in getting content beyond the sermon? Do we need to do more stuff with sermon? Is there

ideas? I just had a conversation the other day with some guys that are doing a podcast that has nothing

to do with the sermon for their church. And so it's really starting to open some eyes for what's

effective and what's not in the season. And so, of course, I went to the best guy I know to have this

conversation and Ben Stapley wasn't available. So I went to number two, also a Canadian, Mark McDonald.

So, hey, Mark, how are you doing? I'm doing great. After that preamble, I just feel like I should call

Ben Stapley and get him on here. We joked before we got on to the recording how that you, Ben, and

myself, I mean, we could just probably sit and banter back and forth. Maybe that's what we need to do.

We need to do a podcast with the three of us. Oh, my gosh. Just a podcast with the three of us on no

topic whatsoever. Exactly. That would be interesting. Now, you're both, I don't want to make this totally

about you and Ben, but you're both Canadian, right? We are. I'm from East Coast, Canada, so way down

east. If you go all the way 10 hours north of Boston and then hook a right and go east, that's New

Brunswick, Canada, and that's where I'm from. Well, cool. Hey, as we're opening up here, Mark, not Ben,

tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I can't believe I get to do what I get to do. I feel like

I'm just a little kid from East Coast, Canada. I'm amazed at how many times, you know, when you look

back on a journey that you've had in your life and you think, oh, my goodness, like, I can't believe

I'm doing what I've landed in. I was senior creative director for one of Eastern Canada's

largest ad agencies. And through all of that, I just kept thinking, so why does the church not

know this stuff? And I started talking to pastors and pastors would say, I mean, that's kind of

marketing, right? And I'd say, yeah, it's kind of marketing. And in Canada, we call it marketing

communications or Marcom. And when we start talking about marketing communications, every

pastor way back then would kind of go, I know, I'm, I mean, we're the church, we don't need

marketing. And, and they push back so hard that I kept thinking, so there's got to be something

there. Why is it that the church doesn't want to do marketing? And, and then we had the opportunity

to come to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And that was 21 years ago. And we started an agency there

and started working with churches, became the national marketing arm for, for several large

pastor led organization, national organizations. I, through that, our agency helped them and helped a

lot of churches. I started writing articles, just written my 800th magazine article that's been

published. And, and then out of that, the book Be Known for Something came along and, and really

all Be Known for Something is, is just a restatement of branding and marketing that, that pastors don't

push back on. Because if I want to stop a conversation with a pastor, I ask them what they're doing for

marketing. If I want to start a conversation, I say, so what do you think you're known for in your

community? And every pastor says, Ooh, that's really good. I want, I want to talk about that.

So out of that, uh, once the book became an Amazon bestseller, which just, again, blows my mind that it

even is so popular. Um, I, I was asked by the Florida Baptist to come down and work with the 3000 Baptist

churches here in Florida. And I worked with them for a couple of years and I'm back doing the agency work

now working with all denominations, a lot of churches. And I'm also the executive director

for center for church communication, which influences about 10,000 churches across the country.

Wow. I didn't, I didn't realize the, the center for church communications. Uh, that was, that one's new

to me. Very cool. So I totally see what, what you did there. Cause you're like baiting and switching

branding for being known for something like that's, that's, that's interesting, right? Like how long did

it take you to come up with that one? Well, it was interesting because when, when I would talk to a

church, it's like, I, I always am interested in whatever I'm working on. Like if I'm going to

rebrand them, I need to know what their current perception is. And so trying to figure out, so what,

what are you known for? We make all of our decisions in life based upon what we know about something. If,

uh, you know, if we decide, so what type of phone are you going to use? Then quickly you go,

I want Android because of this, or I want iPhone because of this. And you gravitate towards things

based upon, um, what, you know, all the little things that you know about something. And so what

we, what we know is that people are making faster and faster decisions. So the more you can actually

state what you should be known for, the faster someone will actually make a choice towards you.

So let's, let's dig into the example here. Um, for me, like I said, making it about me,

we can shift away from this. I'm at a church for about a hundred, by the way, this is the best thing

you can do. Run a podcast and trick the guests into giving free advice right there. Write it down,

create your own podcast, use it as an excuse to get free advice. Watch this question right here.

Hey, yeah. So my church, uh, Mark, help me here. Um, a hundred, 150 person. Um, we've not been great

at creating content other than the weekend services. Uh, my pastor and the executive pastor that they

want to start, um, creating, uh, they asked me to help them create a content strategy.

Essentially. What do I need to do? What does that need to look like? What's, uh, coach me here. Uh,

and let's start to coach some other audience at the same time.

So I've been doing work with the church for 21 years. I've been doing marketing communications work

for, wow, like 35, 36 years. And, and what's interesting is that this whole idea of content

strategy has come along with the digital side, but ultimately we all have a content strategy. The

church, uh, even without a website, the church has a content strategy. Uh, over the years,

every church says, well, we need to develop content to get people through the doors. And,

and what I've found is that everyone tries to make it overly complex of what it, what does it mean to

have a content strategy? I think we need to quickly state what content strategy, what that definition

actually is. And it's as simple as developing content that achieves your organizational goals.

So, so over the hundreds, thousands of years that the local church has been, uh, around in local

communities. I mean, most times before it used to be the pastor would be the content guy. He would

create the sermon and we would get people to come through the doors. And, and if people like the

content, like the person, like the fellowship, then the content strategy works. But the problem

is, as you know, Jeff, I mean, it's just gotten way, way more complicated because there's so many

outlets. And especially if you're talking to digital church, like, you know, it's not just as simple as

we're going to have sermon series anymore. Instead it's like, okay, so how do we break that content into

all of the, the consumable things so that it actually, uh, allows the organization to, to achieve some goals.

Uh, so if, uh, so I always have little people sitting on my shoulder, the medium to large church that's saying,

I know how to do that. And then the small church, like what you're talking about that's saying, uh,

Oh my goodness. Like that's just too, too complicated. Well, I guess that let's, let's fall towards the

smaller church because we know that the vast majority of churches in America are under 200.

And so if, if we're looking at the smaller church, the pastor's probably going to still be the, the main

creator of content, but then how do you use that to help you achieve goals? And, and I mean, it really

just, it comes down to four things. I mean, the first thing, I mean, you just got to set some goals.

What do you actually want to do with this content? Is it, um, and, and I guess I call it a relationship

journey. If you think of it as a funnel, that's fine too, but like that whole relationship journey,

you know, how do you attract somebody from your community with your content? That's totally different

than, uh, keeping people in the pews or keeping people tuning in online. So you just need to set

some goals and, and I don't want to get too far into the weeds, but I don't mind if that's what you

want to do. I mean, there's ultimately three goals that you need to, uh, to have with your content.

I mean, is it awareness? Is it consideration or is it a decision? And, and I mean, this can all preach.

I mean, anyone who's putting together a sermon, you need to bring up the, the elephant in the room

and then consideration is just, okay, so how, what are all the options that are available to deal with

the elephant in the room? And then decision, weirdly enough, oftentimes we think, so then you just have

to make a decision. You have to have the altar call. You have to have anyone who wants this, put up your

hand. But the problem is, is that what we need to remember with decision-making goals is that

decision-making goals is eliminating or overcoming barriers. So there's probably a reason why someone

doesn't want to do what you want them to do. Even after saying, here's all the possibilities,

here's all the options, here's all the solutions, which one do you want? It's okay. Well, which one

costs? Do I need to get up from my pew and walk down the aisle and repent of my sin? And like,

you know, whatever, like for, I remember an evangelist used to say, the only thing keeping

you between, uh, sitting there and making a decision today is to get up and get the devil

off your lap. And, and there it is, there's the barrier. It's like, how do I make a public spectacle

in order to make this decision? And so what you need to do in the decision-making goals is just

figure out what are the barriers and then how do you eliminate them? So, so all of that,

like just set some goals. Like, do you want to get people to come in from your community? How many

people do you want to have come in from the community? How many people do you want to have

tune in online? How many people, like, what is the bar that you're going to set? And if it's just

awareness, a lot of people don't even know that you exist. So, so set up a website so that you can

attract people who don't know that you exist, or is it the consideration stage? And at the

consideration stage, they're just looking for all the options. And then the decision is to eliminate

the barriers. So that's number one. That's just sex, just set some goals. I'm a goal oriented person.

I like, I, I am amazed at how many people resist setting goals. Goals doesn't mean you have to set it

up to put it on your website or on social media or hang it out in front of your church. It just means

set some, set some expectations that you can actually measure over time so that you know whether

it's working or not. Cause a communication strategy or a content strategy will cripple you if you really

don't know whether it's working or not. So let's just pull that thread right there.

What analytics, um, what, what am I basing it off of? How do I know whether it's working?

Yeah. And, and analytics are a godsend. I mean, Jeff, I mean, I say this all the time and I'm sure

you think this all the time. What a time to be alive. I mean, back in the day, 30 years ago,

when I started working at the agencies, I, I would create lots and lots of brochures and I would hope

that people read them. In fact, I would have people say, Oh my goodness, we printed 10,000 of these and

they're all gone. And then the, the client would immediately think, so 10,000 people have looked

at my brochure. It's kind of almost as foolish as saying, um, yeah, our church prints 200 bulletins

and we give them out. And so therefore 200 people know everything that's in them. Like we know that's

not the case. In fact, two thirds of the people who receive a print piece of, uh, uh, communication,

never even open it. So what we know is that analytics are wild because we can now know when

we create a digital brochure or a digital website, we know how many people actually look at things

and we know where they look. We can do eye tracking technology. We can do analytics of, of demographics

of who is it that's looking at certain things. What are they clicking on? What's the next step?

Do they get to one page and then bolt and bounce away from your website? Like all of that stuff,

the more information you can glean, like just take it in. So, okay. So I,

uh, during COVID we, a lot of churches went online and they went with a, a YouTube style

video where they're posting. A lot of those churches came to us and said,

would you mind watching the service and tell us how you can do, we can do this better? And I said,

I would love to do that, but I want you to go into your YouTube analytics and see where people

join the conversation and where they leave the conversation and see if there's some type of a

trend. And what we found was most people do not stay the entire time during the service,

which tells me one thing, uh, that our services are too long. Our sermons are too long. Our worship time

is too long. A lot of times everything just feels longer when you're watching it online versus when

you're in the room. And that is a huge, huge wake up call to the church that's wants to go digital

is that we've got to figure out how do we shorten those periods of time and have them so that they're

somewhat optional in the sense that I only want to tune in for really great worship, or I want to tune

in for just the sermon, or maybe it's not a 25 minute sermon. Maybe you should be doing three

episodic style sermonettes that are joined together under the, the, you know, the guise of a full

service. Wow. Breaking up into three different sermonettes. Are we allowed to do that? I'm pretty

sure that's like anti-biblical, right? I mean, I, I, I feel like like so many people are doing the 40

minute sermon that there's somewhere in, in something it says that the sermon has to be 30 to 40

minutes, all constrained together in live. If they concentrate on the intertestamental, uh, in between

the old and the new Testament, there were certain rules that were allowed to be broken. And it was one

of them. You can do sermons in three rather than a one sermon. That's gotta be the same place where it

talks about how all new technology comes from the devil, because I've had that quoted to me a couple

dozen times as well. Uh, because that's biblical. Uh, it comes from fallen angels. Um, sorry, chip,

chip, you've got people, I've got chips. So we'll, we'll brush that off and, and, and move on.

Nice. So, Hey, you've got, uh, you've got, it's man, you sound like you're, you're really,

what you're talking about is, is maximizing our weekend services or the content that we're creating

pastor. You're putting so much energy into creating the sermon. Let's maximize that. Let's break it up

into clips, put it on social media, get it on YouTube and create that, that digital strategy. You know,

some, some of the stats coming out of Barna. Um, if people are lost, the people called to Christ,

they're not connecting with, with our buildings and they're not connecting with our online services.

People called to Christ. They're either asking their friends about Jesus, uh, that they think

may have an answer to their spiritual questions. Um, or they're going to Google. And so by really

utilizing our, our content, but breaking it up into ways that's more searchable, um, then now we can

start to maybe even have a digital strategy that's part of our evangelism strategy. So I'm excited about

that, but talk to me a little bit here because I think there's opportunities. Maybe it's the right

word to start to do stuff outside of the weekend service. Like what would, I I've got this friend

that's, like I said, he's starting a podcast, uh, where he's just telling stories about the church

or, you know, somebody that wants to write blogs, uh, for, for the church. And, and I feel like I've

seen that be successful in some places. And I feel like I've seen that be a train wreck if I'm honest

in, in, in some other places. So how, how do you coach beyond the weekend service? How, how would you

handle or approach some of the other content that's non-weekend based?

Well, remember, so there's, there's four things I want to talk to you about. The first one is

goals. What you talked about. Oh, we didn't get past goals, but you just had goals and, and what I

hear you leaning towards is bringing people in. So that whole connection, that could be a goal,

but ultimately I think that we need to, uh, have, have maybe three or four goals and what we need to

make sure that we do effective communication rises and falls on how well, you know, your audience

every single time. If I know who's listening to this podcast and I can talk directly to them,

then, then I will, I will engage with them and they will, they will want to listen to me. So,

so number two, after goals is number two, do your research. And I know it sounds boring,

but you really do need to know your research. And so that's kind of multiple, uh, paths as well, but,

but like, and it's going to sound like this, you know, crazy marketing communications guy

who harps about knowing your audience and then stereotypically describing them. So

that's called a persona. So just try to figure out who, who, uh, in your community would be attracted

to this. Now, when he gets on the digital side of things, I mean, we have the world's limits. Talk

about what a time to be alive. I mean, we get to reach anyone we want, but if you try to reach

everyone, you'll reach no one. So you want to make sure that you create a small persona that you say,

you know what, I, I can speak to that person. And, and what you want to do in that stereotypical

description is you need to create needs, concerns, and goals. So what are their biggest needs?

What are their biggest concerns? What are the biggest goals? And this is not the, the Sunday

school answer. We know they need Jesus. What is their biggest concern? They are concerned about

going to heaven. Uh, what is their biggest goal to live a good life? I mean, like all of those Sunday

school answers, like that's not what people are waking up concerned about. And so we need to figure

out what is it, if you're going to stereotypically describe a persona and the smaller, the group,

the easier, the reach. So, so like, just make sure that there's enough there. Like you don't want to

have, I want to target young families with 12 gerbils. Like, I mean, they're just not going to be enough.

But if you said young families with the average two children who just moved to the area,

or just moved away from their support system, like immediately, as soon as you start talking

about needs, concerns, and goals, you immediately think, okay, so I think I could probably figure out

what they're looking for, but you just need to, you need to describe that persona and you can have a

primary persona and a secondary persona, and you can even have a tertiary persona, but the more

personas you have, the harder it becomes because you want to try to figure out a thread that unites

those personas.

So the tension that, that I hear in this regularly with the idea of personas, and I agree with you,

and even in digital context, digital churches, you know, I have the conversation all the time.

You try to reach everybody, you reach nobody. You know, Seth Godin says, marketing guy,

you're not going to reach a billion people. A billion people don't care about anything you have

to say. You want to create a message specific for someone, get them to hear it, own it, get them to

understand it, get them to tell somebody else. And so like the idea of, of a persona is makes,

from a marketing standpoint, from a, a be known for something standpoint, uh, from a, uh,

communication standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. Uh, I, I've seen a lot of churches and a lot of

pastors be anti that idea. Um, you know, Paul's, uh, be everything to everyone so that some may know,

uh, seems to be kind of like the, the ideology that's kind of pushed out, um, when, when kind

of battling against this idea of creating personas, you know, you can talk about Saddleback Sam all day

long, but you know, there, there's still, there's hesitancy there. How do you, how do you address that

hesitancy? Yeah. And usually what I say is, how's it working for you? Because almost everyone,

almost everyone who is struggling and, you know, 80 to 85% of churches are in stagnation or decline.

And it's because they're just trying to reach everyone. And, and if they were to specifically

target, you know, create some rails so that they know who is it that we're really trying to get

through the doors and who is it. And when I say through the doors to your website as well, but

how, how you keep them is so much easier if it's a clearly defined group. And, and once, you know,

needs, concerns, and goals, like if you think, so what are the greatest needs of everybody? What are the

greatest concerns of everybody? What's the greatest goals of everybody? I mean, choose one. And the

problem is, is that you might choose one direction that, and that's not the band, but the one direction

that, uh, 95% of the people that are listening to you will be bored and not want to listen again.

And so that's where you want to try. And it sounds, it sounds like a crazy saying, but give them what

they need on the backs of what they want. And if we can figure out in that small group, what is it

that they want? What is the solution to a need or a solution to the concerns or a path to the goal?

If you know, okay, so if we go back to our, our young family who has just moved away from their

support system and they've just moved into a new area, I mean, one of their biggest goals is I need

to get my kids into a really good school system and I need to get them to, to get friends so that they

can be, you know, acclimatized to, to wherever they are. Well, if your church can come alongside of

them and say, we want your kids to have good friends. Well, all of a sudden every parent goes,

that's, that's what I'm looking for. And then you think, well, that's pretty soft for a church,

but if you can attract them and attract the engagement from what they want, then once you

have that engagement, then you give them what they need. So oftentimes the church just jumps right to

what they need, you know what you need. And they, they tune out and, and it's hard to get them back.

So tell me about number three.

Yeah. And I, can I just finish two just a little bit though? Cause I,

I'll wake up in the middle of the night going, I should have talked about, so we need to make sure

you get the right keywords. So based upon your persona, that research, cause two remember is

research, make sure you get the right keywords. It is, especially in the digital world, um,

figure out what they're looking for. So if a person, if your persona, like if you were looking for young

moms, like here's a, here's a really simple, easy to use practical thing. So open up a browser,

go to google.com, you know, they, they rule the world and start typing in young mothers want,

and then Google will supply the language and they like, you'll have that little tumble down thing.

And so what they've done is they've said, okay, so when people are searching for young

mothers want, or young mothers need, or whatever you want to say, um, they know what, what young

mothers are Googling. So they'll, they'll give you the answer to what you should be known for.

So oftentimes you can look at that and say, Oh, so you know what they want small groups or they want

groups or they want other young moms, or they want tips for children or whatever those things are,

look at how, like go down the list and say, so is there something there that we can actually

use as a keyword and, and keywords now, as you, I feel like I'm, I'm speaking to the choir here.

So let me just turn around and talk to the choir. So Jeff, you, you know, all about this. I mean,

it's not just a key word anymore. It's a key phrase. So we need to, we need to have a phrase that's,

you know, three, four or five words that you can own, but you can own it in your digital content.

And it's also something that people are Googling. So if you can get that, like, that's what sets up

your content strategy for, for actually winning. So it's, it's really doing the keyword research.

Keywordtools.io is a great, uh, free place and you can pay to get, uh, you know, a little bit more

information from that, but just going to google.com is a great way to be able to do it.

Great. We'll put links to keywordtools.io and, and, and Google, uh, evidently young mothers want

encouragement that, that just popped up number one.

So if young mothers want encouragement, um, then what you do is you create that as a key phrase,

and then you make sure that you have either a URL that has a slash keywords or with that key phrase

spelled out afterwards. So that a page is actually called that. And then you want to make sure,

oh, so let's just jump to number three. So after research, we've got to create some content

and part of creating that content is to offer them solutions. And you do that through all of your

digital channels. And this is where it, again, is not that complicated. Whatever your key phrase is,

your page should be named it. Your headline should contain it. Your first paragraph needs to have it in

the closer to the front of the sentence, the better. And then if that, so H1 content is like your main

headline. If you're a pastor, you, you understand H1 because H1 is the sermon title. Then you have

your three points underneath. Those are your H2s. They're supporting to your H1. And then your H3 are

your sub points to your H2. So that's the way every page, every page needs to be set up that way. So

your H1 contains your, your key phrase, your first paragraph, which is your P tag. If you're,

if you're following tracking along with the whole website set up, whatever is the first P tag on like

paragraph standard stuff, no one will read it except they'll look at the first of that paragraph. And if

you supply that key phrase, which is the solution, then people go, Oh, I'm on the right page. And then

they'll not read the paragraph and then they'll jump down and they'll look at the outline, the H2s and the

H3s. And you want to make sure that you contain your phrase two or three times on each one of those H2s,

H3s. Not on everyone, but just every so often. And then we also know in that scanning that again,

write it in paragraph form, no one will read it. And then you just want to make sure everything else is

a scannable and that you add links so that it takes you internally add links. So it takes you

externally, at least one time on every page. And then you also want to add signal words,

those things that everyone loves in sermons, where you start by saying, initially, we need to know

initially is a signal word to say, we're at the beginning of all of this. It's what I did where I

said, we have four things. So the first thing that's a signal word. And then when I finally get

to four, and I say, finally, we'll deal with finally is a signal word. So all of those things,

Google just loves, loves, loves signal words, because it means that you've thought through

the content, you've edited the content, added in signal words so that people who are scanning

can quickly know where they are on the page.

Okay, so signal words was new to me. I thought I was up on SEO stuff. Very interesting. Thank you for

that. What I would even just add to that in a lot of times being in web design,

people look at H1 and H2, and they use H3s, they use them as design, but they don't understand that it's

not about design. It's about how Google is interpreting the text. It's about SEO.

That Google does not know the size of your H1, H2, H3. And oftentimes the size kind of dictates,

oh, I need a little bit smaller. So you go to something else. No, what Google does is it,

it extracts from that a good outline. So if you, you know, I always say, don't set up your content on

your page first, uh, set it up in Word and don't add any other formatting or anything. It needs to

quickly say, oh, okay. So you have, remember when we were in high school, when they taught us that

Roman numerals are the big one. And then you underneath that, you go with one, two, and three,

and then you have A, B and C. Whatever structure you have, those structures then have to, to, uh,

correlate in the H1, H2, H3. That's so good. Yeah. But by the way,

what's this word you speak of? I don't, I'm a Mac guy. Why would I use, what's word? I don't.

I never use Word except for when I'm writing for magazines who always require it in Word. But I,

I actually write in pages. They're magazines. They're PC guys. They don't know. I mean,

come on. I have, I have a higher standard for you by my friend. I can't believe.

So really, I mean, and, and just as a signal word, I mean, so number one is set some goals

that are measurable and achievable. Number two, research the heck out of your personas and your

keywords. I would also add in there, your competition. And I know that in the church

world, we really don't have competition, but when you're, when you're concentrating on a need,

concern and a goal, or if you're thinking about a solution to a need or concern or a path to a goal,

somebody else is out there offering a solution, the same type of solution

that might not be on the spiritual side, but it might be on the more temporal side.

Know what other people are when they Google who else is popping up there and you really

need to do it better than them. So jump in, look at their, look at their, the way that they've

structured their pages. Why is it that Google gave that page over your page and, and really break it

down to say, so is it SEO? Is it good content? Is it that, oh my goodness, they have so much content

that there, there's no way to even catch up to it. If that's the case, you might want to back away from

that solution or, or, you know, that pain in your persona's life.

And then, so after research, then you just got to start creating. And part of creating is what you're

talking about, Jeff. Look at who you have for a team and can they really do it? Yeah. A pastor can

create a sermon. I've been in a lot of churches where the pastor can barely create a sermon, but that's

like a whole other thing. Uh, and, but the thing is, is that it's tough to, to create good content.

Every pastor, I can hear them saying amen in the background, especially when you have all the other

distractions and on digital, there is a ton of distractions of other people saying, I can give

you something better. I can do this. I can do that. And so you need to have really, really good,

good content. That's SEO quality that rises to the top, but does you, can your team actually produce

it? And when we thinking about content as a strategy, I mean, we're talking about blog posts,

about eBooks, uh, case studies, templates, infographics, uh, and like the king of all content right now is

video. So do you have somebody who can do good video and edit it and get it out there?

Uh, podcasts, what we're doing, social media posts, like all of that stuff.

I know every church goes, yep, we're going to be just like life church or just like seacoast.

And, and it's like, okay, so how many people are on your team? Well, we have one volunteer who gives

us two hours a week. Well, you ain't going to be like life church because life church has a whole

bunch of people working on their team. So, so what you need to do is put it through the filter of your

team to say, what can we do extremely well so that it will rise to the top and maybe you can't do it

all. And I know that that hurts, but it's better to do some things really well than to try to get

everything done in an extremely not so well way.

Let me ask this. You, you, you said video, I mean, obviously video is king right now. I say that

obviously if you're not in the audience or if you're in the audience and you didn't know that video is

king right now, but beyond video, I'm wondering what else is true. Like if there, is there a hierarchy?

Is, is there a ranking? Like what, what else is playing strong? Maybe not as strong as video,

but, but stronger than others. Do you have any, any feel for, maybe I don't have a video guide,

but I should focus on this next.

Yeah. So, um, weirdly enough, I, I know that there was a research study just done about what type of

content are people requesting from certain organizations. And I know that by far video

was the number one that they could, they could actually select several, um, video, I think was

like 56% said that that's what they're preferred. So it's, I mean, it's, it's the majority, but it's

still not like a 100% because there's still a lot of people, including myself to, to be totally honest.

Um, when I just have a video and I sit down and I think, Oh man, I need to, Oh my goodness is like

90 minutes long. Are you kidding me? I, how on earth? And there's no chapters in there. There's

no breakdown. Like I, I look for something that I, that's really scannable, which is on the blog

side of things, which is actually the least preferred method. So we have video at the top

and I know that blogs are at the bottom. And I think it's because people suck at doing blogs. Like

they, they just don't do good, good scannable content. I think it's like 17% said blogs. Um,

and then everything in the middle, I, I know, um, emails rank about in the middle, but again,

like they don't qualify. What does it mean? Cause content, uh, just because you say I have content

doesn't mean it's good content. And so an email that's written properly with one point and one ask,

uh, and is like about 50 words is really good content and people would prefer it. But the problem

is in the church world, our emails are, are usually close to 900 words and they are talking about several

different things. And by the end of it, you're thinking, so what do they want from me? Like

seriously. And, and that's when you usually close it. You don't read any of it.

So is it easier or harder to write a 50 word email than, than a 900?

Okay. So I taught a Sunday school class in North Carolina before we moved to, to Jacksonville,

Florida. And, uh, I mean, we had like 160 adults in that Sunday school class and our thread, the thing

that kind of, you know, the big solution because it was 40 and 50 year olds, it was, okay, life is

complex. This class is going to be simple and it's going to be simple, but practical. So simple and

practical became our big thread. And, uh, uh, I spent probably three days thinking about everything I could

say. And then, uh, when, when, when push comes to shove and I'm trying to come up with the one point

that's going to make this simple. And then how do I make it practical? That editing process is the toughest

thing, you know, eliminating all the unnecessary. And I know that this is a long form discussion. Um, if you were to

say to me, can you just sum this up in one paragraph, it, it will take me, uh, probably about an hour to do

that, to take a long amount of content and, and get it into a small, in the same way, your emails that

are going out, it should take you longer to write your subject line than it takes you to actually write

the email because it's the subject line that will determine whether someone will open it or not on

your headlines. You, the research to figure out what is the key phrase that needs to go into that

headline should take you longer than writing the whole content. Uh, it's, it's really tough. And that's

where you need a good communications person. I mean, to be honest, like you, you just pulled the thread

for me. I love to communicate. I hate communications. Like I, and I, I've played communications role several

times. Um, um, um, I am, I'm actually operating as a communications director right now for a, for,

for a Christian nonprofit and, um, digging in to where you like, okay, I've got this idea. That's 150 words.

I need to, I need to slash this thing down to 50. It's hard. It's painful. Honestly, it takes more

time than I want to do, than I, than I want to give to it. But the stuff that goes viral, the stuff that

has the response rate to it, the stuff that isn't, that I have engagement on, it's all centered around

the things that I have cared for. Um, you know, even some of the, even the blogs through the church

digital, the ones that are effective are the ones where I took the time to do the, the H2 tags,

the ones where we structured it in such a way that, that it was, uh, valued on the SEO. And we've seen

massive results on, on some of this stuff. Uh, but it's where we didn't rush it. We, we took time

to get it structured in such a way for it to be effective.

Well, to give you a, an idea of, um, of just keyword research. I mean, our website, we've had our website

for a long time and I was, I was speaking at, at some conference and, and I mentioned to my team

who helps me with the website. And I just said, so we've done the research, right? Like we have the

right key phrase that our, our website's all about. And they're like, Oh yeah. And I said,

why don't we do it again? Well, come to find out. So we, our key phrase was church branding.

And, and I thought, okay, well that's, that's really tough to actually, you know, if someone's

looking for a church branding group, there happens to be a few others out there, not as good as us,

but I digress. Uh, but when we did our, our research this time, the weird thing is anytime

that someone's looking for church branding, they're looking for church logo branding and that,

that three word key phrase. So we ended up, we, uh, we went from top to bottom of our website and we

added logo between church and branding. We got six times the amount of people coming to our website

by, by adding that one word in the middle of church and branding. So, so like, like just spend the time.

And if you don't like the research, uh, figure out somebody who will like find somebody who loves

that, that keyword searching and getting deeper. And then like, just go through every one of your

pages on your website and, and make sure that the content has the key phrase. What would, what is this

page all about? And make sure that it's on your headline, your first paragraph and in your H2 and H3

tags. Awesome. So good. By the way, that's why. Okay. So we're at four. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it.

What's four. So number one, set goals. Number two, uh, research. Have I mentioned research enough? Like

just, it's boring. I know, but if you do it right, it will, it will really work well. And pastors need

to do that research too, for their sermons. Like put some keywords in there that someone in your

congregation would actually want to listen to. Uh, and you'll have more people listen to it. And then

three is create really good content. And four is timing. You just got to get the timing, right?

What's really kind of crazy is that again, it goes back to, to your team as well, but there's

gotta be a rhythm. Imagine if, if, uh, you, you discovered your new network TV show and you say,

oh my goodness, it's just so good. And then every week it's on at a different time. If you don't have

a DVR, it would drive you absolutely crazy. And in the same sense, if you're pushing content that

people really like, they need that to know when it's coming out so that like, what is doable?

Is it one to two times a week? Is it one time a week? If, if you do a, you know, church service,

you do it Sundays, usually, maybe it's a Thursday and a Sunday, but just create a rhythm that you can

keep up with and then make sure it's sustainable. Make sure that, that whatever you decide to start

with, that it, that you can do it. Because I think every person who decided to write a blog says,

you know what? I could probably write a blog every day. And it's like, no, you can't write a blog

every day. I, I can barely write. I'm doing one to two articles a week. There's, I have a hard time

keeping up with that when you have to do all the research and, and get everything spell checked and

grammar checked and make sure that it's the content that people are looking for. So make sure that that

the, the rhythm is there and that the sustainability is there. And then ultimately figure out what

channels you want to be known on and, uh, and limit yourself, like get it down to, to some place that

you're going to get really good success. You know, Joe Rogan, he's on Spotify. Like he, he didn't decide

to go on many different platforms. People will find you and find that content. And then once you get a

following, then you can add on a few other things, but, but especially for the small church, just make

sure that you're, you're on a channel that, you know, your personas are on and then ultimately know

when your personas are bored. And so when they're bored, they're going to probably go to content

and, uh, or needing motivation. Um, if you're going with young families, do not do it early evening

because they, they are busy with their kids. So figure out most kids go down at nine o'clock. Nine

o'clock is a great time to be posting on social media. Yeah. And even that's a, that's a digital

ministry tip there too. A lot of your online small groups, things like that, know the audience and, um,

six o'clock in the evenings, a bad time for, for most people, uh, during business hours is a bad

time as well. Cause most people have jobs during the day. And so, um, a lot of that engagement,

a lot of the conversation. And if you do on demand stuff, like that's, that's just a whole other bird

than, than doing live stuff. Um, if you do live, I would make sure that you have it on demand as well.

Um, and then watch the analytics to see, are more people watching it when

it goes, uh, you know, on, on the demand on the archive. And maybe you don't need to do a live

performance. Maybe you need to have more of a structured edited piece.

And consistency. And you, you alluded to that earlier as well as so key, um, stick with it,

be consistent, evaluate, don't be afraid to pivot or shift, but, um, it's going to take time.

Well, and let me even ask that question. Um, so I'm trying something, how long do I really evaluate

before I'm like, Hey, that's not working? Yeah. And a lot has to do with goals. So I would,

I would at least try something for a quarter. Okay. So a quarter of the year, that's why,

you know, most businesses have switched to quarterly reports. Um, take a look at the end of the quarter

and say, was it really worth it? And if, if you think that there's a little bit of traction and you

really enjoy doing that content, then I would try it for another quarter. But if you're in stagnation

or decline, and, and I mean this, this, we could do a whole podcast about this, but if you're in

stagnation or decline, either you're trying to get the wrong group of people in and interested in your

information or the information is wrong or the timing's wrong. So, so you need to, you need to

figure out, so what's broken and what's working and, and especially at the very beginning, like

tweak and, and fix things. If you're in stagnation, you really are in decline. So, um, you know,

you have two audiences, you have internal audience, your congregation, and you have your external

audience, which is the community, the potential audience, um, focus on the potential and don't

always give in to the internal. Uh, because most times if you focus internally, you'll end up in

decline. So, so good. All right, well, let me ask this. How do I get started? Uh, make, make it about

me for a minute. I, I got, I got limited volunteer crew. I don't have time. Um, I want to experiment.

What, what would an experiment look like? Um, I mean, is, is, is three months necessary? Like,

can it, can it, can it, would a shorter span span work? How would somebody maybe even get started doing

this? Yeah, I wouldn't go too short because there's a lot of content out there and to break

through, you need to have some track record. Um, you know, be known for something is all about

discovering your thread. I find that most churches are saying far too much and that they need to figure

out what is the one thing that you can become known for. And if that thing is relevant and needed in the

minds of your persona, then, then they'll start relying on you. So, so what would I start with? I

would start on discovering your thread, try to figure out what is that one thing that we can

communicate over and over and over and over and over and over so that everyone who samples any

portion of your content will hear that over and over and over and over again and say, you know what,

that's good stuff. I need to be there. And then it also gives words so that if somebody else that

they're talking to says, you know what, all I need in life is this. And it's like, you know what, um,

who's the guy that talks about that? And, and then we'll, we'll know you because you have a thread

that unites all of your ministries and that you become a branded house rather than a house of brands.

So, so really try to figure out like what is that thread, that beneficial thread that everyone in

your audience needs and, and it'll just work and it'll also calm things down and you can say less

and people will listen more.

Branded house versus house of brands. I mean, that's, that's a whole other conversation

unto it, unto itself. So, well, Hey, this has been, this has been awesome. This has been a huge help.

Um, I'm still not exactly sure what I'm going to do, but at least I have more information

as I'm walking into that. So, so thank you for the free coaching. I mean, podcast that we did here,

uh, for the church, uh, digital audience. This was great. Hey, um, I mean, you got your,

if you're watching on YouTube, you see the video or excuse the, you see the book, uh, be known for

something as wrapping up, maybe just talk a little bit about the book and, uh, we'll put links in the

show notes for that, but I know that's, that's been a big deal for you. So, uh, maybe just share

a little bit about what the book's about there, Mark.

The book really just walks you through, how do you discover your thread? How do you figure out

your personas? How do you figure out what their needs, concerns, and goals are? What are the

solutions to those needs or paths to the goals? And then how do you structure that tagline that

becomes a thread so that it works through all of your ministries? The cool thing about the book is

that it's written as a workbook. So at the end of every chapter, there's, there's lots of questions

that says, okay, you, you've been nodding along, but here are some things that you need to have

written down in order to make sure that, uh, you can go into that next chapter. So it's a great team

read book. If you, uh, if you have a small team that you want to walk through. Um, and the cool

thing is, is that if you, uh, well, Amazon has it, if you want single copies, if you want, uh, multiple

copies, you can go to our website, be known for something.com and click on books or be known book.com

will also take you to that page. Uh, and, uh, and you can buy multiple packs that, uh, at a discount.

So, so that you can, uh, team read it. Well, Hey Mark, thanks for, uh, for jumping on the time

here. Um, we will have to do a podcast with our good friend, Ben Stapley and find some topic to do

that here, uh, in the near future. He's, uh, further up the coast now up in, uh, Jersey. Uh, and so we,

we miss him down here in Miami, but, uh, definitely looking forward to this. Thank you for this time.

And we're going to wrap. So, uh, for audience out there, uh, for Mark, uh, my name's Jeff,

obviously with the church digital and, uh, digital church network. Thanks for jumping on the show

here and we'll see you next time. The pod. You all have a good day.