In my last post, I wrote about  WHY your church should be putting out a press release about the great things your church is doing out in the community.

Press releases are something most churches have no experience with. . . Partly because it’s a craft that’s engimatic and not very easy to understand.   And partly because of a conceptual allergy to practices that are embraced by the marketplace.  “The church has no business doing business,” some might say.

Since most churches don’t have people on staff that have really done much official PR before, the big question that arises usually is:

So just how/where do you send out a press release?

Well, I personally recommend that you try at least once with one of the Tier-1 press release syndication services.  I’ve used PR Newswire numerous times in the past, each time with very good results.

(1) Here’s an insider’s tip though:  If you’re a non-profit organization (501-3C, or listed in Guidestar), you qualify for non-profit discounts for PR Newswire press release distribution.  Yup, churches qualify for this discount too.

eReleases newswire service acts sort of like a reseller of PR Newswire and they have a product called CAUSEWIRE that offers the non-profit discount.

For example, I just picked-up a pre-paid credit for a press release for $179 (for a standard 500 word press release.  It costs $100 for each additional 100 word block of words in the release).  This goes out over the national wire service via PR Newswire as well as two industry specific lists.  In past jobs, I’ve had to pay extra for these industry lists (and that alone cost more than $179).

The only catch is that you have to schedule the release 3 days in advance of when you want it sent out.  If you need immediate release scheduling, you have to pay the regular rack rates, but even then, the standard pricing is cheaper than if you went to PR Newswire directly.

(2) Another option is Christian Newswire, which prices several sub-lists separately a la carte style from $65 (for 400 words, then 50% more for each group of 100 words over 400 words) and up each.  It’s much more affordable, but know that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison to using PR Newswire.

(3) I’ve also been considering using a service called PR Web.  They were originally a free press release web distribution service, that grew up, and then got bought out by a big company called Vocus.  Now they partner with BusinessWire, which is a competitor of PR Newswire.  Just as eReleases sends your press release over PR Newswire, PR Web sends your press release over Business Wire.  Does that make sense?

Anyway, PR Web offers various levels of service.  But the lesser priced ones aren’t really worth much since they are simply auto-syndicating/posting your release on a bunch of partner sites that take their feeds and push them live.  This might yield decent traffic results in the short term, but as Google continues to move toward weeding out all that duplicate content out there, content farms and similar strategies are going to loose their visibility in the search engine rankings.  PR Web  does have discount pricing if you commit to volume — one package I know of offers 2 releases a month for under $140 each.  That’s pretty affordable, and I’ve asked PR Web to let me test out the service under these packages to personally see what type of results they bring.  Stay tuned on if they respond.

I’ll add some details about what else you need to consider for a basic pr campaign in an upcoming post, but for the time being, these are the 3 biggie newswire service options that non-profits and ministries should consider.

Does your church work with any outside community groups on a service or outreach project?  That’s where I’d start with crafting the story to tell the world.

QUESTION: What is your resistance to sending out a press release about an upcoming event or program your church is planning?  Can you articulate it in a comment below?

There is one marketing tactics that I believe most pastors think should be off-limits (or rather don’t ever think about) for getting the word out about the great stuff their ministry is doing.

What could that be?

It’s the basic press release.

But a press release will accomplish several things at once.  In addition, what you think might be newsworthy only on the local level might actually be interesting to national media outlets in telling the story of what’s on the pulse of the nation.  One press release we sent out recently got the attention of 175+ local news stations across the country.

Consider just a couple of the following benefits, and let me know what you think:

1) Press releases gets your news out on the web.  Everyone talks about search engine optimization and marketing, and press releases in a very efficient way to get your ministry and corresponding links to pages on your website sprinkled across the web in front of new audiences.  This benefit is for more than just the immediate timeframe, as the links will help drive incremental traffic over time as people find the older releases and click through to your site, even years after you have sent the press release out.

2) If you want your local and regional community to take notice and talk about your ministry, a press release alerts local papers and hyper-local news outlets like the Patch, and radio stations.  Without a press release, it would be almost impossible for them to proactively find your ministry efforts so that they can share with their audiences.

3) If you write your press release in a very targeted manner, you will be able to insert yourself into the conversation people are already having around the water cooler about what they find in various media outlets.  If you are able to be strategic in relating your news or activities to the current zeitgeist, you’ll find yourself become immediately relevant to new audiences in a fresh and interesting way.

By the way, did you notice something that’s common to all three points above?  How about the fact that one of the major benefits of sending out a press release as a part of your church marketing activities is that it gets your ministry in front of new audiences.

If you start with this objective in mind, you might find that a strategically planned press release distribution and follow-up plan might do your ministry some good in getting new people to cross that threshold.

Have you considered sending out a press release regarding your church?  If not, what questions do you have about press releases and your ministry?  Leave them in the comment section below and I’ll try to answer them in the next post on PR.

For the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, Liquid Church commissioned a new song by songwriter/singer Dave Pettigrew. Its called “There Is Hope”

You can find the lyrics and free mp3 download form on the Liquid website here.

The song itself received great exposure, making its way to Sirius/XM Sattelite Radio and beyond. Some of the feedback the song received was amazing. It has touched a lot of hearts and helped in healing for many that have heard it to date.

Now, the song has lived on beyond September and has broken into the Top 50 at IndieHeaven.com. Would you help the song reach more people by clicking a few clicks and vote up the song?

Here’s exactly how to do it:

Music is such a big part of people’s lives and it takes on meaning of its own for many of them. Seeing the journey that this one song has taken is been wonderful. This is just one of the innovative ways we are trying to reach more people outside the walls of the church, and it seems to be working.

Do you have a song that has been meaningful in your life? Would you share your story with a comment below?

Kinetic Typography — that’s the official name of the motion graphics you’ve been seeing pop up all over the net these days. It’s powerful when done right.

Now you’ve seen a lot of great motion graphics on the web. Here’s one example to set frame of reference:

But there’s a specific flavor of motion graphics that deals with moving typography. Temporal typography to be more specific. And here, we have something called KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY which is produced by a new type of creative producer called a kinetic typographer these days. So get ready for more kinetic typography in the months and years to come.

Here’s some examples of great kinetic typography I’ve seen recently. And a big bang at the end.

And finally, we’re also seeing some of this format being applied within ministry media applications. I’ve included a fabulous one as the last one in this listing below as a “TRUER & BETTER” final example. . .

. . .

And finally, the true and better example featuring words of truth by Rev. Tim Keller by Peter Artemenko:

Do you know of any other examples of amazing motion graphics – kinetic typography? Share a URL below!

It’s Good Friday. And Sunday’s Coming.

Tim Keller put this weekend all in perspective: “Easter means that Christmas worked.”

Now that’s something to be happy about. 90 percent of people who celebrate Easter buy chocolate. You know those 90% of the people know there’s an upswing to all of this.

Perhaps the 10% that ain’t buying no chocolate need to hear a specific message that is imprinted in my mind every year when Good Friday comes around. . .

Tony Campolo’s famous “It’s Friday” sermon is a classic, and it just makes you wanna shout in response, doesn’t it?

Email is still the killer app in terms of marketing communications tools.

While everyone is going crazy about social media, email marketing is the good old standby that works well if you know how to work it well. But which email list building service should you be using?

Constant Contact, iContact, Aweber, MailChimp all are popular and widely used. But there’s one more option that I am highlighting that non-profits and ministries in particular might want to take notice of.

Why? Because this email vendor has released a non-profit version of their commercial email marketing services and a price that is non-profit friendly — $0.00.

That’s right! A full access account that’s priced at. . .  free.

There’s only one limitation with this offer, but for the majority of ministries and service organizations that qualify of this free email service account, it won’t be a factor at all.

Here’s a video where I walk through some parts of their website including the application page so you can see what I’m talking about:

Tools That Rule Links:

• Program information
• Application

QUESTION: What email service is your organization using right now? How often do you send out emails to your list(s)? Would it be helpful to learn more about using email list building and marketing more efficiently and effectively?

Whether you are in a ministry situation where you are a solo pastor, team-based ministry or non-profit organization, there’s one thing everyone surely shares in common: tons of stuff to do on your plate.

Overworked, burned out ministry leaders are everywhere. You can see them a mile away – they are ineffective, impersonal, rough on the edges and just plain old not fun to be around.

One of the key success factors for a vibrant personal ministry is not taught in seminary: Adapting your own personal workflow so that you become more productive over and over again.

Here is one method that I find very helpful when coaching others that are seeking a way out from the overwhelming demands put on them(selves) in their vocational roles: (more…)

Spring is in the air! After over 70 inches of snowfall around here this winter, I’m ready for spring.

Even though there’s still melting snow in our driveway, it’s time to get busy with spring time activities — including some spring cleaning.

So today, I decided to clean house a bit…online. And the first place to attack was one of my Twitter accounts. There are many different strategies for who to follow or followback. But one rule that’s probably agreeable to most is to remove people from your follow list that are inactive or MIA from Twitter.

I personally like UnTweeps.com since it lets you filter your Twitter Follow list for people who haven’t sent out a tweet in ____ days.

If you really want to be conservative, you can try something like 180 days (no activity in 6 months kind of makes them as good as any other non-user, right?). But I go for the 30 day threshhold and see how many come up.

In one fell swoop you can chop off dozens and dozens if not hundreds and hundreds of inactive twitter accounts from your follow list. While some people might want to hang on to everyone on their list, this actually does help your twitter friend ratio of following to follower ratio which is used by some measurement apps out there.

AHHHH….that feels better.

TOOLS THAT RULE:  UnTweeps.com

Everyone pretty much knows how stinky-winky the NIV Bible can be because of copyright issues.  Yuck.

It’s not like the King James version, whose text we can use freely anywhere, whenever we want. Nope, the using the NIV means you’re up against all the commercial interests of the entity behind that very popular translation.

So can you imagine my excitement to hear that for a limited time only – during a specific 400 hours to be exact – I’ll be able to download the entire NIV legitimately to my iPhone this coming weekend.

Yup, YouVersion has done it again to provide great value, accessibility and practicality by striking the deal.

Here’s the details to get the New International Version of the Holy Bible to go with you wherever, whenever you want on your iPhone. . .

. . .a special 400-hour promotion made possible through a partnership with Biblica and Zondervan. Exclusively through the Bible App™ you’ll be able to download the New International Version (NIV) using an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Android device…absolutely free. Downloading the NIV means you’ll be able to read it anytime, anywhere—even when you can’t connect to your service provider or the Internet, and after the 400 hour promotion is over. This special offer only lasts for a limited time, starting THIS SATURDAY, February 12, at 8:00 PM Eastern and ending at 12:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 1, marking the first availability of the NIV update in print.

All you have to do is go into the YouVersion HOLY BIBLE APP and follow these three steps:

QUESTION: What Bible have you been relying upon on your iPhone, Droid or smartphone?  And will you be downloading this free NIV Bible during this next week?

Part of effective ministry work is learning how to maximize your efficiency.

There’s tons of angles on this topic, but one of them is to find the right tools that help you be your best.   As someone who wears the technologist hat at times, I am asked quite often about which iPhone apps people should download and utilize.

While I’d normally post this kind of content over on my personal technology tips blog, I’m going to try and share a selection of technology tools and resources I personally reply upon here on Godvertiser.com.  The hope is that you begin to reconsider your own workflow processes as you do your ministry work and strive to find iterative ways of improving your personal productivity.

So here goes, first in a series of posts sharing what works for me. . .

When you’re constantly on the go, it’s imperative to find ways to be productive when and where you can.  Being able to block out the world and focus on a task right in front of you is key.  Location is key.  But sometimes, you don’t have much of a choice.  Even Starbucks can become a party zone with chatter that distracts beyond belief — not the conceptual “break time” place you were hoping for when you walked in the door.

I’ve been using a white noise generator app on my iPhone for awhile now, and it’s one of my most used utilities.  In fact, I turn to it almost on a daily basis because it really helps me mentally drown out all environmental distractions and just focus.

The paid version is awesome with 40 different sounds and mixing capablities, but White Noise LITE is good enough with 10 free background noises.  You can adjust pitch, volume, balance, etc.

If you need some zzz’s and are using the white noise app to zone out completely, you can set a sleep timer to shut off automatically after a period of time.

There’s even a digital clock that you can put on the screen while you are listening so that you have a clue as to how long you’ve been in another world.

They have versions for the other major mobile platforms in addition to the iPhone/iPad iOS – Android, Crackberry, Palm, and Window Mobile. Here’s a video that gives you a peek at the app directly:

I personally find the Crashing Waves and Rain sounds the best for my own use, but others like Airplane and Fan are good ones too.  There are 10 to try out and adjust.

At my desk, I’m running it right now through my iPhone dock sound system.  It really has upped my game when I want to sit down and work.

QUESTIONS:

(1) Have you ever used a white noise generator?

(2) What do you do or use to get focused when you sit down to work?

Please share your comments and suggestions below!