Blaming the spoon for being fat is like blaming your marketing for lack of growth.  When your growth is lacking don’t look to your marketing efforts or lack of marketing effort as the problem. Take a big deep breath and look in the mirror. Your lack of vision and or lack of communicating your vision on  consistent basis is your problem. Perhaps your marketing is all over the map and you have two problems, whatever the case start with the visionary and have them or you look in the mirror. This is  usually the stem for more than the marketing outreach or communication problem you have within your ministry or church.

For the past couple of months, really ever since the NRB Educational Session we did in Nashville on Spending  Less and  Reaching More, I have been so excited about delivering a Media Plans to our Clients. I am shocked how much the ministry is inefficient at this level. I want change this fact about the ministry, over time we will be delivering a comphrehnsive media plan that is both sexy to navigate and cost effective to use.

“Poor Planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part”

-Anonymous

 

We should be formulating our plans at least 4 months out of the year then working our plan the remaining eight months out of the year. Their are very few ministries who fail in this category.

“A fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan, but you really are a fool without a plan”

 -T Boone Pickens

The largest category in your advertising budget is likely to be your media costs–the dollars you spend for air time on radio or for ad space in radio spots, TV spots, Television Program, Internet SEO, Billboards and Banner ads or any other medium  and more.

Because of this, it makes sense to have a sound plan to manage that investment. You’ll want to set goals. You’ll want to describe strategies for achieving them. You’ll have to organize the day-to-day tasks of carrying out the strategies. The tool you’ll need to do this is a media plan that begins with an overview and works its way down to the details. It will help you with every phase of your advertising.

Here’s how many ministries  manage their media buying.

The person in charge(Pastor or Media Director or in most cases volunteer) of the budget starts saying yes to the salespeople who call. Advertising appears here and there as a result. When the budget’s gone, the person in charge starts saying no, and the ad campaign is over. It’s a method, but you wouldn’t call it a media plan. And if that approach sounds familiar, you can bet you’re passing up opportunities to maximize your return on investment.

Media planning is the process of choosing a course of action. Media planner in the business world typically develop yearly plans that list each media outlet–print, broadcast or Internet. Planning then gives way to buying, as each separate contract is negotiated, then finalized.

The media plan is a document in sections. A ring binder notebook is a good way to keep a media plan, because it’s easy to update and easy to refer to. Or excel spreadsheet if you prefer to work on computer, simply think in terms of folders and files. The sections in your notebook will be:

• Media outlets (TV, Radio, Internet, Magazines). This section lists all of the media in which advertising will be placed.
• Goals. This section describes the goals of the advertising, and explains why and how this plan meets these goals.
• Audience. In this section, collect all the information you can about your target audience. You will want statistics by demographics or lifestyle; your professional association can help you find this information, as can trade journals or your banker. Look for any relevant articles or information about your potential buyers. Pay attention to everything that helps you imagine an individual buyer who is typical of the whole.
• Strategy. You will write a statement of strategy backed up by a rationale. The action steps you describe here will guide a year’s activity.
• Budget and calendar. Your media plan will outline what money is to be spent where, and when.

The document you’ve compiled in this notebook or excel spreadsheet guides you in the execution of the plan throughout the year.

Over time, these plans provide a history of your advertising. If you make alterations to the schedule in the course of the year, be sure to record those decisions in your notebook.When you make changes update your files, so you will know what mistakes or success you can learn from next year.

When you’ve finished this section, you will have an overview and the tools you need to create a media plan for your business. Let’s start with basic vocabulary. The term you’ll hear most often is CPM, or cost per thousand. CPM analysis is the method media buyers use to convert various rate and circulation options to relative terms. CPM represents the cost of reaching one thousand people via different types of media. To calculate CPM, you find the cost for an ad, then divide it by the total circulation the ad reaches (in thousands). By finding this information and calculating this cost for each of your options, you can give them a numerical ranking for comparison. CPM is a basic media concept.

Print advertising prices are based on the circulation of the publication in question. Publications will quote you a circulation figure based on paid subscribers. The audited circulation figures are verified by monitoring organizations. The publications will try to convince you that actual circulation is higher by including the free copies they distribute and the pass-along readership they claim. Sometimes these claims of “bonus” circulation are valid–for example, magazines distributed on airlines get at least eight readers per copy. Still, you should be wary of inflated circulation figures.Remember circulation does not mean readers, just like subscribers don’t mean viewers, be cautious when analyzing these numbers.
Audience is the equivalent of circulation when you’re talking about broadcast media. Audience size varies throughout the day as people tune in and tune out. Therefore, the price for advertising at different times of day will vary, based on the audience size that the day-part delivers.

Penetration is related to circulation. Penetration describes how much of the total market available you are reaching. If you are in a town with a demographic count of 200,000 households, and you buy an ad in a coupon book that states a circulation of 140,000, you’re reaching 70 percent of the possible market–high penetration. If, instead, you bought an ad in the city magazine, which goes to only 17,000 subscribers (households), your penetration would be much less–8.5 percent. What degree of penetration is necessary for you depends on whether your strategy is to dominate the market or to reach a certain niche within that market.

Reach and frequency are key media terms used more in broadcast than in print. Reach is the total number of people exposed to a message at least once in a set time period, usually four weeks. (Reach is the broadcast equivalent of circulation, for print advertising.) Frequency is the average number of times those people are exposed during that time period. To make reach go up, you buy a wider market area. To make frequency go up, you buy more ads during the time period. Usually, when reach goes up, you have to compromise and let frequency go down. You could spend a lot of money trying to achieve a high reach and a high frequency. The creative part of media planning comes in balancing reach, frequency, and budget constraints to find the best combination in view of your marketing goals.

In developing your media plan, you will:

Review your marketing objectives through the “lens” of media planning.

Review the options available.

Evaluate them against your objectives.

Set your minimum and maximum budget constraints.

Create alternative scenarios until you uncover the strategy that accomplishes your objectives within those constraints.

Develop a schedule describing ad appearances in each medium.

Summarize your plan in the form of a calendar and a budget.

Negotiate with media representatives to execute your plan.

“Media analysts and bloggers are warning that fresh efforts to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine could go too far, following a report that one prominent Democrat is looking into ways to apply the media control standards to the Internet… Click here to read full article

Craig Parshal (NRB), Janet Parshall(Janet Parshall’s America), Erik Stanley (ADF), Jay Sekulow (ACLJ), and Larry Seacress recently participated in a panel at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. Fairness Doctrine was a key topic as they discussed the coming changes with the new administration.
Listen to it here

Here is an audio file of the Spend Less Reach More Session at the 2009 National Religious Broadcasters Convention. Includes Brian Smith (Jentezen Franklin), Laura Horton (Billy Graham), and Dave Jones.

Click Here to listen!

So here we go, what is the correct answer? Do you build the brand off of the Pastor, Church Building or the Mission of the Church. I wish I could give you a down and dirty answer to the question. However the answer has so many variables to be able to give a direct answer. Here are some things to consider

1) Don’t do this yourself, outsourcing is great option or build a team
2) Your decision making should have the end result in mind
3) Understand your core demographic
4) Understand who the Pastor thinks their core demographic is?
5) Know the The Church mission
6) Know the Pastors Vision
7) Nail down a date to have an answer
This is a big decision… Treat it it that way
9) This decision can’t be avoided, you are spinning your wheels and creating indecisiveness in your marketing team if you don’t make decision.

I am looking forward to the NRB. This year I am looking for some type of media briefing on Hate Crimes, White Space, and Fairness doctrine. I am also looking forward to meeting with several clients and ministry leaders across America. NRB is a time to get filled up for the next year. Connect and reconnect with the movers and shakers of Ministry leaders.

The secular world and christian world are all asking the same question…. “How to I expand my business or ministry via the internet”. How do I embrace this great technology and expand my vision, increase my donors, increase my giving and or increase my exposure.
In order to answer this question, we have to take the time to understand what it is we are trying to accomplish. Or better yet, how is God working through me to accomplish his goals. What is it that I want to accomplish?

Could it be that easy? Well sort of….. its a start actually… its the end. let me explain

We must know what the end looks like so we can begin with a media plan to accomplish a goal. So is Facebook, Myspace, and You tube your final destination for your media campaign? Maybe.
Should you put together a national media campaign and spend $25,000 a month? Maybe. What do you want to do what is the ending look like, what is in your spirit.
As marketers we need to know the goal, and who you are trying to influence. Should you be embracing the internet and its new technology and all that it brings? Maybe? Maybe not? is this where your core demo is spending most of their time. Or are they watching 7 1/2 hours of television a day? Figure out these questions and your medium what it is your suppose to do will be revealed to you.

Phil cooke recently blogged on his site about engaging the community interacting

“Think of a world that’s experiencing a two-way conversation instead of the traditional one-way model. The next generation wants to communicate, and are using media that’s “always on.” As a result, they want to participate – to have a voice. After all, they grew up picking the next “American Idol” by texting into a cell phone. They want a voice and they want it now. And it will impact everything from media to how they experience worship”

Part of engaging the community involves giving people definitions and not explanations. A definition is short and concise, where as an explanation is longer more through explained story, and it just so happens that an explanation takes more of time. Now that God is shortening time, as a society we are not in a positon to hear and explanation, we just need to hear the definition.

I am sensing a trend of confusion in ministry which seems to be escalating so with the start of a new year, I’d like to “call out” this distressful trend. Ultimately my mission is to help ministries spend less money and reach more people. I hope you read my blog for this reason. Ministries need a “Media Director” but what that individual does seems to me to be an area of great confusion. First of all, let me say that having a graphic designer, web programmer or video editor on staff is does not fulfill the obligations of a media director’s job description. In fact, an effective media director does not edit, design or write code. They manage projects and unify people to complete these projects! I would repeat this if we were in a meeting together, but since we are not, you can just read this line again.

“A good media director is does not edit, design or write code”.

Here are the qualities of an effective media director. Great people skills, communicates early and often, understand great design, understands the visionaries goals, understands how to run a profitable ministry or business, must be able to network people together and build teams, and lastly he or she must be accountable. Accountable to meeting times and retuning phone calls, early and often – to the visionary, the team and vendors!

My job description of Media Director:

An effective Media Director is in charge of coordinating all media, video, web, graphics, audio production and helps define the ministry brand, and be a good steward of the the brand promise. They need to be accessible. They must understand the ministry goals, and objectives and be able put people in place to accomplish the goals and objective. A Communications degree is recommended but not required. The ability to multi-task and communication are essential to the success of this job.

Why is your “Media Director” ineffective … see above.