I teach Catholic churches, businesses, and ministries how to market like Jesus. Every Monday, I send out the latest musings on Catholic marketing from my position as a Catholic marketing professional, former parish employee, and regular old Catholic mom trying not to lose my mind while raising saints. Subscribe if you want to learn how to apply the strategies Jesus and the apostles used to grow the Early Church to your own marketing work today!
Want to share Christ's love through your marketing? Do this.
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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 registration." As my heart returned to a more normal pace, I couldn't help but smile as the secretary's understanding. She knew her target audience — worrisome moms — so well that she made sure she eased my fears before launching into why she was calling. I truly saw Christ's love in just that simple acknowledgement. And that's how your target audience feels when you see them. Because in a world where it seems like everyone's out to make a name, a fortune, and convenience for themselves... ...your acknowledgement of the other person and their feelings, simply thinking about others and expressing it, stands out. It creates change and causes action. And it's not just critical in marketing; it's the epitome of love that Jesus taught us in the Gospels, which is at the heart of Catholic marketing (aka other-centeric marketing). And you can't do that by being general. Not because you want to be exclusive, but because you can't know how you're specifically called to serve someone if you don't know specifically who they are. That's why I'm so passionate about making sure you all know your target audience really well, because without it, all the other marketing stuff will fail (and feel a lot harder). The things like
For all of those questions, my first question in response is always going to be: "Who are you trying to reach?" And if you can't answer that in specificity, we need to start there. If you're struggling with that (or other marketing foundations like knowing what you solve or figuring out your customer journey/value ladder), you can still grab the free replay for my webinar last week, "5 Ways Jesus Used Marketing (That You Can Use to Grow Your Business or Ministry)." Or if you signed up, this is your friendly reminder to go watch it! (No judgement, I do that all the time too — sign up for free stuff and then forget to actually watch it!) Just click right here and I'll send the replay your way! For His greater glory, Emily |
Market Like Jesus: The Catholic Marketing Newsletter
I teach Catholic churches, businesses, and ministries how to market like Jesus. Every Monday, I send out the latest musings on Catholic marketing from my position as a Catholic marketing professional, former parish employee, and regular old Catholic mom trying not to lose my mind while raising saints. Subscribe if you want to learn how to apply the strategies Jesus and the apostles used to grow the Early Church to your own marketing work today!
We've all heard the stat: 8% of your parishioners are doing the vast majority of the giving and volunteering. So we're probably tempted to think that from a marketing perspective, they are the most valuable group of parishioners we have. They're not. (Again, from a marketing perspective only. Obviously, every single person is valuable as a beloved child of God.) The most valuable group for marketing purposes? Your converts and reverts. If you want to grow your parish (and win more souls for...
In my first run of the Market Like Jesus course + community last year, my favorite section was somehow NOT the target audience section. (IYKYK...but let's be real, target audience was my second favorite, followed closely by Rule of Seven.) No, my favorite section was something I'd never taught on before: What the Catholic Church teaches about marketing. Specifically, what it teaches about the ethics of marketing. Because yes, there are actual Church documents that address marketing and...
The past few weeks, we've been talking about how to market when it's not a "busy season" so you don't have huge breaks in your marketing consistency. (Find part 1, part 2, and part 3 here.) Is it best to be consistent and keep up marketing? Yes. But, life happens. What do you do if you've already taken a significant break from marketing? Instead of tell you, I thought I'd show you. In October of 2025, I had our third child. I am stereotypically horrible at actually taking a maternity leave,...