Web or Print?
Met with my real estate agent this morning to list our house for sale. We’re taking steps to move closer to West Ridge near Atlanta. My agent was talking about the marketing plan for our house. Primarily, that includes a sign in the front yard and listings on a variety of websites including realtor.com.
And then he made an interesting statement. He said, “I still use some print advertising just to make the sellers happy, but almost all of my leads come from web marketing.” In other words, he places newspaper and magazine ads to placate his customers, but the ads don’t really work.
Remember… I live in Anderson, South Carolina. We’re two hours from metro Atlanta. We’re 30 minutes from “metro” Greenville. (if there is such a thing.) We’re in the boonies. I’m pretty sure this is one of the last locations that Al Gore installed the Internet. Whatever you imagine high-tech, web savvy communities to look like, I’m pretty sure Anderson would be on the opposite end of that spectrum. Yet web advertising is still the primary way to reach this market.
That, of course, prompted me to think about how churches invest their communications dollars. Think of the money you invest in bulletins, brochures, flyers and other handouts. Now think about how much money you invest in your web strategy. How do those numbers compare? Here’s my guess. I’ll bet you’re spending quite a bit more on print communications even though the web is where you’re more likely to find “your leads.”
Feel free to keep investing in print communications if your highest priority is keeping your “internal customers” happy. Just thought you should know that other organizations are using the web to reach the same people you’re probably trying to reach in your community.
Good thought. Here’s my insight as a print/web designer; I think print will always have a place in marketing, however, I’m sure it will look different than it does now, and churches (just like everyone else) will really start to get creative with how print is used. Many find that it is a good idea to print small and use it to point people to the web.
Nice thought
Hear is my thought. It comes down to your market. People are used to looking for houses on the internet. That is the place they can see more houses at once, people know and understand it. People know they can get the information they want, all the specs, pictures, etc. Unlike most church websites.
I think the church market is different. Here are my thoughts that came to mind.
Tony,
Great point. Do you have any examples of web marketing that you have seen churches do? What is working? What is not working?
I think websites have the unique ability to create interactive relationships with people, if they are setup correctly. A website should be more than an online version of your church bulletin.
With a vast majority of people using the internet daily, we have a unique responsibility to interact with them at a level a printed flyer can’t do. For the sake of the kingdom, setup a website that you can interact with and draw in lost crowds. A website should be open and inviting and changing… printed material can’t change.
I’m a designer web and print, with a stronger passion for print. I’ve seen so many business, people, students using more websites that I create then printed postcards or business cards… Churches get on the ball!
We had this same conversation in a staff meeting yesterday as we went through our analytics of our church website and realized not only the effectiveness of our SEO and web efforts, but the value vs. the resources we allocate for that exposure.
Even helped a buddy of mine with the sale/rent of his home in the Athens area – http://houseforrentathensga.com/ – to tap in to SEO for his house when traditional print strategies were not producing the desired results.
As usual, nice application of real world practices to the church Tony.