If you've been around for a bit, you all know my love of the Rule of Seven, and how it really kick-started my research of how Jesus and the apostles used marketing in the Bible. If you don't, read this first. Now, the Rule of Seven is a becoming a bit more of a minimum — depending on how big your ask is, it might take a lot more than seven touchpoints to convince someone. But I wanted to show you a real life example of what the Rule of Seven looks like and why it's so important. During the...
10 days ago • 4 min read
In a past ministry job, it was once made very clear that my value in a particular person's eyes was directly tied to how many people were in a group I was running. Not the good work we were doing. Not the impact it was having on the people who were attending (which, by the way, wasn't such a small amount that would make it not worth it to keep going). But just on the number of bottoms in seats. Thankfully that sentiment was not shared by everyone, but that encounter still stings years later,...
17 days ago • 3 min read
The average person goes to 130 websites per day and spends less than a minute per page. We spend a lot of time in marketing talking about how to get people TO your website...but all of the traffic is pointless if they aren't actually converting. For reference, a "good" conversion rate on a website is 2-5%, which means for every 100 people on your site, we want to average 2-5 people taking some action. (It's like when Jesus fed the five thousand...we'd expect that 100-250 people would take...
24 days ago • 3 min read
You know how I spent last week's email going on and on about Lenten devotionals and how there were so many of them this year and the marketing lessons we can learn from them? Well...I'm excited to introduce to you... . . . ...not another Lenten devotional. 😂 (Sorry, couldn't help it.) I DO want to talk about Lent though and ask a favor. You know how you just sometimes get a random idea and instead of just thinking "Huh, interesting thought" like a normal person, you go crazy and create a...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
This year, I feel like EVERYONE, from big to small ministries, was offering a Lent devotional. Beginning in late January, I was bombarded with emails about them. There were ones with certain themes, those meant for very specific audiences like those grieving or singles, and every format possible: books, video series, audio series, and in-person events.I almost bought several different ones. But after my Advent mishap, I ended up buying......none of them. (I actually still don't know what I'm...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Yes, it's Tuesday. I'm sending this today in the hopes that you were off yesterday and enjoyed a long weekend! Okay, so did you make your Ash Wednesday marketing plan yet? If not, go read last week's newsletter first. Once you know the type of person you're trying to reach, the next step for them, and how to encourage it, you need to do one more thing: You need to send them home with a flyer with next steps. Yes, an actual physical flyer. Why? Because you can't scroll past a flyer that's been...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
"Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man." - Luke 22 Not exactly the best marketing pitch for following Jesus, huh? But what if it was? Notice what Jesus does here in the Sermon on the Plain, which we heard during the Gospel readings yesterday — He's super blunt. He's not sugarcoating it. He tells it exactly like it is, that He is specifically speaking to people who are hated, excluded, insulted,...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
I saw the phone light up with a call out of the corner of my eye. My heart stopped when I saw the caller id — my daughter's preschool. Where she currently was. Smashing the accept button, I answered the phone, already moving towards the door with Mama Bear mode activated. "Is this Mrs. Ricci?" I heard the secretary ask. "Yes," I replied. "Everything's okay," she said quickly. Instantly, my heart calmed. "Everything's okay?" I repeated as I stopped in my tracks. "Yes! I just wanted to talk...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
As far as the eye can see...people are packed in. Most stand in line, shuffling forward every 15 seconds, some even braving the cold as the line goes out the door. They're tired from a long day at work and chauffeuring the kids around, but they're still there. They wouldn't dream of missing it. All for a 5-second interaction. No, it's not a celebrity sighting or the release of the newest iPhone — it's to get a smear of dirt on their heads. Ash Wednesday is in less than a month, the exact...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read