"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, and denounced because of Him.

We get an exact picture of what this kind of persecution looks like practically.

Why does He do this? Because someone experiencing this kind of persecution would sit up, ears perked, nodding in agreement going, "yep, that's me."

He'd have their full attention.

But imagine how much less impactful this statement would have been if Jesus had said instead, "Blessed are you when people don't like you because of the Son of Man."

This doesn't feel all that important or painful. It feels kind of blah actually.

We don't get a mental picture of what "not liking you" looks like from the words alone.

We don't resonate with it as strongly because it doesn't speak to our experience.

And so we go, "Well, that's not for me then. I can go back to thinking about squirrels."

And so the question is: Are you clear in your marketing message, or are you generalizing it?

In other words, do people have that "they're talking about me!" reaction when they encounter you?

So often, I'll see my clients trying to hide behind generalities, especially when it comes to audience, niche, or transformation.

"I'm a Catholic life coach for women."

"I make Catholic decor."

"We help couples thrive."

None of those make me sit up and think, "Oh, that's for me!" I just file it away in the folder of things that don't relate to me.

But now watch if we're more specific in each of these examples:

"I'm a Catholic life coach for women who struggle with social anxiety."

That level of specificity means that even if I don't particularly struggle with that, I go from thinking about no one in particular with "women" to 3 specific people I can refer to this life coach.

"I make saint-themed Catholic decor."

Now I have a specific picture in my mind of what I'm getting when I click on the shop!

"We help couples with young kids to stay connected outside of parenthood."

Super practical transformation that tells me instantly what the outcome will be.

With that last example in particular, do you see how adding the qualifiers of what kind of couples you help and what the outcome will be makes your message so much clearer?

Because that message would vary greatly if instead they were helping couples on the brink of divorce not hate each other anymore.

And that level of specificity helps you to then come up with relatable examples that let them know you're talking about them.

Like "You know that feeling when you walk into Bible study and don't know where to sit?"

Or "How to befriend that saint who's been showing up everywhere"

Or "Ever experienced being hated, excluded, or insulted because of Jesus?" 🙂

Personalization is one of the top places of growth in marketing for 2025, but it always doesn't have to be all high-tech and fancy.

It can be as simple as having a banner at the top of your post or ad that says, "Calling all Catholic moms with messy houses."

Because in all of the content we consume, that's all our brains are really trying to decide: Is this for me or not? So don't make them work to figure it out!

So your challenge for this week is to come up with one further qualifier in the areas of audience, niche (what you do/offer), or transformation.

For audience, try adding "who _____" (typically some kind of experience/feeling) at the end.

For niche, try adding one adjective before your industry/what you do.

For transformation, make it super practical, something they would instantly say "Oh I want that" and they can picture what that would look like.

Oh, but maybe make it more positive than being hated and insulted if you can. 😉

For His greater glory,

Emily