I'm pretty sure it was my first Easter Vigil I'd ever worked. I was assigned as sacristan for the vigil that year, and though I'd been attending Triduum liturgies for years prior, I'd never actually attended the vigil before working it. I thought it would just be like a regular Mass, just a little longer. Let's all give a pitiful laugh for poor, naive, just-starting-out-in-church-work Emily. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure how it happened. All I know is I WAS in charge of the very intricate...
12 days ago • 2 min read
It's happened to all of us. We get a great idea that is next Great American Novel level, how-has-no-one-thought-of-this, mind-blowingly amazing. (Probably in the bathroom because, let's be honest, that's where most good ideas are thought up.) So we make it happen, get the offer out there, and... ...crickets. Complete bust. And so we go through the litany of a failed campaign: → Was it the price point? → The quality? → Did I not market it well enough? → Did I not get the right people to see...
19 days ago • 3 min read
And just like that...we're suddenly less than a week from Holy Week. Aside from prayers that your palm arrives on time and a reminder to go find the Easter Vigil taper candles if you haven't already, here is a brief overview of how I'd go about marketing the various Holy Week liturgies: Palm Sunday This is probably the only time of year that many of your parishioners attend Mass two Sundays in a row. You have a huge opportunity here to make it a pattern with three in a row, so think now about...
19 days ago • 5 min read
April fools! It's Tuesday, not Monday. 😂 But I didn't get a newsletter out yesterday, so here we are. Every time I don't get a newsletter out on a Monday, I get at least one email on Tuesday, if not more, asking the same thing: "Are you okay??? I didn't get a newsletter from you yesterday!" And this proves two things: 1. I have the sweetest newsletter subscribers ever, checking in on me. ❤️ 2. Be consistent long enough, and eventually people will seek YOU out, not the other way around. I know...
25 days ago • 2 min read
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...
about 1 month 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,...
about 1 month 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...
about 2 months 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 2 months 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...
2 months ago • 2 min read