Marketing is kind of a paradox: You need time or money (ideally both) to do it well.

If you don't have money, you need to spend lots of time learning it and then marketing on free channels.

If you don't have time, then you need money so you can pay for results or for someone to market for you.

But what about when you don't have time or money?

Yesterday's Gospel gives us a clue.

In the famous Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus tells the disciples to feed the crowds that have gathered to hear Him preach and heal the sick.

They respond that they only have 5 loaves and 2 fish, which of course Jesus is able to miraculously multiply to feed all in attendance.

No doubt you've heard the spiritual reflections before: We just have to give Jesus what we have, and He'll make up for the lack. He'll supply the rest for His glory.

So that's the answer: If you don't have a lot of time or money, give Jesus the 5 loaves and 2 fish you do have and offer those to Him, and if this is a calling from Him, He will magnify those efforts.

Basically, give Him whatever you've got.

Which is a lovely thought. There's plenty you could pray on and journal from with that thought.

But what does that look like practically? What does offering your 5 loaves and 2 fish to Jesus look like when it comes to marketing?

(I'm going to focus on time here because I'm going to guess 90% of you have more time than money, but these steps apply to both!)

Step One: Figure out your time.

Before we pick platforms and come up with a marketing strategy, I have people in my Market Like Jesus course figure out how much time they actually have.

Because when we feel like we have no time, and Jesus asks us what we have, we're going to be tempted to say, "Nothing."

But He's not asking us to evaluate our offering in light of what we think we need to give Him to meet the goal. He's just asking for facts.

Oftentimes, even when we say we "have no time," we can be creative enough to find 2-5 hours per week for our marketing.

It might not be all at once.

It might not be at the ideal time in the ideal environment.

It might be one-handed voice dictating on your phone while pushing a stroller with the other.

But Jesus isn't asking for a LinkedIn-worthy time blocking routine of focus work. He's just asking you to give Him what you have.

So first, actually figure out the answer: How much time do you have? Write it down. Schedule it in your calendar if you can.

(If it's actually the case that you have no time, then that likely means you need to put your business or ministry into maintenance mode or end it.

Unless you are in a niche that is searched on often AND you've already put in the time and effort to set yourself up for SEO success, or you have an incredible pipeline of word of mouth referral traffic already running well...you're going to need some time for marketing. It doesn't need to be 10 hours a week. But it needs to be something.

You haven't done anything wrong if the answer is truly no time. But it does mean you should bring the entire business or ministry to the Lord and ask Him if this is still His call for you, or if He's asking you to lay it down.)

Step Two: Figure out the best return on investment for the time you have.

​I alluded to this last week, but we have to let go of the marketing we want to do or that seems the most flashy and lean into what's actually going to work best when we have limited time.

In other words - this isn't the time to be playing the lottery with your marketing time by rolling the dice of the Instagram algorithm and hoping it works in your favor if it never has before.

Once you have the amount of time determined, then you have to look at the platforms you have and determine which one is the easiest to capitalize on for maximum effectiveness.

(Limited time is not the time to start on a new platform unless you are starting from scratch and have no online presence. Figure out how to use what you already have so you're not sucking time learning a whole new platform plus trying to market on it.)

Jesus obviously could have turned anything the disciples gave Him into food for the people.

But they didn't hand Him wood chips. They gave Him really practical materials to work with: Bread and fish.

So look at your stats. Which platforms have historically given you the best return for your time investment?

Do you mostly get sales from in person events? Or search? Or email? Then spend the majority of your marketing time on that.

(I help my Market Like Jesus students evaluate which platforms to pick based off of their unique time + audience + content creation ability quotient.

Then, based off of that, we try to pick at least one "reach" platform - how you're getting traffic - and one "conversion" platform - how you're getting people to take action. Not all marketing channels work for each goal.)

Be sure to pay attention to not just which ones have the best "vanity" metrics like views, but which ones are actually getting you results like sales, sign-ups, new clients, donors, etc.

So your second step is to figure out the practical materials you're going to hand to Jesus to maximize: Your email list, your social media accounts, SEO, blogging, etc.

Step Three: Have a plan.

I know, I go on and on around here about having a plan, but it's really important:

The less time you have, the more you need a plan.

Yes, I know that making a marketing plan takes time.

But I promise that it saves you so much time in the long run.

In the Johannine version of this Gospel passage, John remarks that Jesus only asked them the question about what they had to feed the people with because He already knew what He was going to do.

Likewise, we know that Jesus is going to ask us for the five loaves and the two fish. And we also know that we can trust He is going to multiply them.

So make a plan for what you're going to do when He asks.

When you have little time, knowing exactly what you're going to do in your marketing next means you don't waste time spinning your wheels trying to figure it out in the moment.

Things can feel a lot more cohesive, even if you're doing them in 15 minute chunks here and there throughout the week.

So step three is to make sure you have a marketing plan. It doesn't have to be a flashy presentation like the templates you can grab from Canva (in fact, I'd say that probably won't help you at all if you're a small business or ministry).

But knowing who you're serving, what your goals are, and what your messaging focuses on means marketing flows a lot more naturally and easily on the public-facing side, even if it doesn't look perfect on the backend.

Step Four: Work and praise

Jesus didn't just take the bread and fish and immediately multiply it.

He broke it and gave it. He took action on it.

Whether you want to or not, whether you knew it was part of the deal when you dragged your feet kicking and screaming signed up for it when God called you to it -

Marketing is necessary for growing your business or ministry.

We have to put in the work.

But first?

We have to praise God.

Before He broke and gave...Jesus blessed first.

Before you do ANYTHING in marketing...I highly encourage you to pray first.

Make up your own prayer. Say a Glory Be or Come Holy Spirit. Make the Sign of the Cross with Holy Water.

But whatever you do: God can only maximize our efforts if we offer them to Him first. He's the ultimate Gentleman. He's not going to force Himself on our work if we haven't invited Him into it.

A final note about the 5 loaves and 2 fish -

We often think that if we offer our efforts to the Lord that we will see the fruit of them.

We think it will look big and grand - like poof! Suddenly we offer it to Jesus, and everything is magically working!

But if we go back to the story...it doesn't sound like the disciples really saw how the miracle happened.

Jesus blessed the bread, handed it to them, and they just...didn't run out.

Which means they had to trust, even as Jesus was seemingly handing them the same bread back, that something new had happened.

They saw the transformation more by the effects of it versus the results themselves.

(Kind of like the Eucharist, if you think about it.)

Sometimes, we hand the Lord our 5 loaves and 2 fish in marketing, and it still seems like it isn't enough. Nothing changes.

But we have to trust that what we are giving to the Lord is transformed even when we don't see the results directly with our own eyes (or bank accounts).

And that one day, we will get to see the glorious effects of that trust, even if it isn't on this side of heaven.

For His greater glory,

Emily