There is no question that the Internet has become a major source of acquiring information, about topics and about people.  As a result, many pastors are discovering that it behooves them to have a sub-stantial presence on the Internet, a Five Star Footprint, if you would, that helps to further the church they serve and the ministry that it offers.  With that thought in mind, I have put pen to paper to help those individuals who do, in fact, want to accomplish this particular goal.

The first thing a pastor needs to do is decide is whether they want to be “covert” or “overt” when it comes to the Internet.  If, as you are reading this, you decide that your decision is to be “covert” you need not bother reading any further, as this article is being drafted for those individuals who want a higher profile when it comes to the Internet.  If you have not yet made this decision, a major determining factor is this:  If you believe that many people choose a church because of how they feel about the Senior Pastor, you will definitely want to develop an overt persona, to ensure that you are not a “mystery” to potential new members.

It must also be understood that, like it or not, the Internet will contain information about you. Understanding this basic fact is pastor and Church Marketing 101. The question is, if people check you out online what do you want them to find?  Do you want them discover a random jumbalaya that Google assembles, or a concentrated effort that you have orchestrated and put together?  If you opt for the latter, what you will be doing is developing your own online profile rather than relying on what Google might come up with.  The thing to remember is, if you leave it up to Google , what viewers see might be positive, benign, or adverse.  Google doesn’t filter the material, they just display it. But effective internet marketing doesn't leave these important matters to chance.

My contention is that if you are going to be “overt” you might as well be ubiquitous as well!  So, to create a Five Star Footprint you will want to begin with the Search Engines, of which there are three main ones: Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Google is the dominant engine, and in that channel there are several “Google Searches,” and you will want to make sure that you show up in all of them. 

1. Tackle the Search Engines, Google First - Your first step is to show up in a “general” Google Search, which displays everything on the Internet.  There is also an Image Search, a Video Search, a Local Search (known as “Maps”), a News Search and lesser searches such as Books, Blogs and so on.  As a result, your number one priority in establishing your Five Star Footprint is to “tackle” Google.  Once you have done that, you can then concentrate on Yahoo, Bing, and other places.

To begin the process, “Google” yourself and see what shows up.  In doing this, use every variation of your name as possible:  Rev. Bob Smith; Rev. Robert Smith; Rev. Robert E. Smith; Pastor Bob Smith; Pastor Robert Smith; Pastor Robert E. Smith and so forth.  Once you determine what shows up for you in these searches you need to identify the items you feel positive about.  For example, if GOOGLE displays your FACEBOOK page and you like your FACEBOOK page, this is a web property you need to concentrate on developing further.  You do this by adding content to that web property first, then finding ways to build backlinks to it. Make this your pattern: Concentrate on developing web properties that already show up in a Google, Yahoo or Bing search that you have control over. They are low-hanging fruit that you can more easily influence.

2. Take on the Social Networks - Other channels where you will want to make sure you position yourself by developing a presence include: creating a FACEBOOK Page and possibly a FACEBOOK Profile; make sure you have an account on LINKEDIN, that you have a personal website, a Twitter Account, are on YouTube and possibly Vimeo.  Once you have opened all of these Accounts and continue to add content to them they will most liekly show up as well on a GOOGLE search of your name.  If you don’t currently have any videos you need to start doing them - - on your sermons, or a “Scriptural Seconds” series.  Videos can get you listed in a both a general set of search results as well as Video Search resuls. 

3. Populate the Web with Your Photos - Displaying photos of yourself is another good way to develop a Five Star Footprint.  If you don’t have a Flicker Account get one as soon as possible.  Upload your photos so that they are “optimized” to your name.  You accomplish this by entitling the files “PastorRyanSmith_DesMoinesIowa” rather than “img9356.jpg".  You can also get into FLICKER and write a Title and a short paragraph about each photo.  Remember, GOOGLE “interprets” text, not images, so once you upload your images, give it a proper file name, proper title (Pastor Smith Preaching in Pedusky), and description. Then, if someone searches “Pastor Smith,” GOOGLE will potentially bring up the photo in the display results.  You can also put photos on your Blog (make sure they are titled properly too!) and on your FACEBOOK Page.  Be sure to back link from Flicker, FACEBOOK, and your Blog to your website.  By posting and optimizing your videos and photos onto the web in these various places, like Facebook Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, etc, you are providing the internet with images that you want people see, rather than leaving matters to chance.

4. Move into Advanced Footprinting - Once you've begun to get your web properties, social networks, videos and images populating the web on searches for your name, you can move into advanced areas of branding and footprinting. These would include things like regular blogging using a ministry blog or  premier blogging service, Facebook posting, tweeting, article submissions, link buidling, social bookmarking, local listings, and so on. You might even graduate to targeting keywords beyond the variations of your name, or using online marketing tools like SEOMoz, aHREFs, SheerSEO and others. In many of these cases, you may even want to retain the professional services of a non profit consultant, like Pathmaker Marketing.

You may want to take a few moments and Google the following individuals to see how they have established their Five Star Footprint. Evaluate each person to see what is showing up. In some cases,  you might be able to replicate their paths to success. The first, Dr Michael D Evans, totally dominates “page one” rankings on Google Search, Google Images, and Google Video, which, obviously, is a very good position to be in! But others do too, and you can as well, with some time and effort taken to get yourself there.

Dr Michael D Evans

T D Jakes

Billy Graham

Bill Hybels

Luis Palau

The importance of establishing a Five Star Footprint, as we previously mentioned, is that it allows you to control what people find when they Google your name, rather than leaving what they discover to chance.  As people rely on the Internet more and more to help them make decisions of where to go and what to see, ensuring that you have a positive presence online is not only a good idea, it is a veritable must!

Disclaimer: The process above can go quickly and smoothly for some pastors who have uncommon or unusual names. For those with common names - ones that many other high profile people share - the process will be more protracted and results deferred. Don't get discouraged by this. Most of these results take time to developed, meaning 6-12 months or longer to get establish a pervasive, ubiquitous Five Start Footprint developed. If you want my personal assistance in this regard, call me at my office at 623-322-3334 or Skype me at Pathmaker.Marketing

A prayer wall is a web application where you can conveniently post prayers and pray for others as well. It’s so easy to use and the convenience will put prayer chain to shame. Updates on past prayers are easy to do; you don’t need to send hundreds of emails to keep people informed. Talk about Church outreach ideas, this is the best there is. Here is how to use it:        

1. Post your prayer request like a tweet - The best way to post a prayer is to make it concise so that those who will pray for you will not have a hard time remembering your request. Added to that, there are also details that you want to intentionally miss out especially if they are too personal. You can think of this as a tweet except that it’s a prayer.

2. Post a prayer for others too- Don’t just pray for yourself, pray for others as well. Intercession is a virtue that is highly encouraged in the church and what better way to help your brethren than to pray for them and encourage others to pray for them too? 

3. Avoid correcting the prayers of others  - If you disagree with other peoples’ prayer request, there is no point in correcting them. You have to remember that the prayer wall is a public environment and making a public correction to someone else’s prayer is just too insulting.

 4. Avoid gossips in your prayers requests - It’s easy to fall into this trap. What was intended to be a genuine concern that needs to be prayed for progresses into a gossip. If you think that a request is a gossip in the making, you can flag it as such. The admins of the church website will then remove it from the prayer requests and decide if it is indeed a gossip. Just like other Outreach Ideas, this too has to be protected from misuse.

5. Truly pray - If you want to pray for a request, all you need to do is press the “pray” button and the number of those who prayed will increase. On the downside, you can actually just press the button without actually praying and the person on the other side will actually believe that the number of those who prayed are actually a lot. This just defeats the purpose of a prayer wall and should be avoided. We have to remember that we are accountable to God and dishonesty just doesn’t pay.

 A prayer wall is just a web app that makes the job of prayer warriors a little easy. This will encourage more prayers and a great way to see your ministry being fruitful. All you need to do get in touch with Pathmaker Marketing and have it installed in your Church's website or ministry blog. If you have any other Church Outreach Ideas, we would like to hear about it too.

5 STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL BLOGGING

Blogging is an excellent way to use the Internet to promote you and your business, church or charity.  As with any “tool,” however, to be most beneficial it has to be used properly.  Below are five basic thoughts you need to keep in mind when using blogging as a effective internet marketing tool.

 1)      Write About What You Know About—in Detail!

Blogging helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field.  As a result, you will want to concentrate on making sure your posts demonstrate your areas of expertise.  The key is to share in-depth on a particular topic rather than addressing a lot of topics without sharing any real information.  The catch phrase here is “Depth is more important than Breadth.” Be as articulate as you can, because for many prospective clients, your blog will be your first impression to them, and you want to demonstrate your areas of expertise.

If writing content is a real challenge for you, you may want to opt to have someone ghost write your posts, either someone on your staff with more flair for copywriting, or by retaining a professional. You could constent to be interviewed on your topics of expertise, so your specific thoughts come through in the final copy.

 2)      Be Genuine—Not Promotional!

This is not a time to “hype” yourself and/or your company.  Share real information regarding the topic you have chosen.  For example, if you are operating a sporting goods store and are blogging about the five best flies for trout fishing in June, elaborate on the various merits on the different flies, not on why everyone should come to your store to purchase them!  If your blog is a ministry blog, then make your outreach real, not just hype or hyperbole, If you share valuable and valid information in your posts, people will be drawn back to your blog and, eventually, to your website or online store, or even to the phone meet you in person and get more information—and, hopefully, the five flies too!

3)      You need to be Consistent—and if possible, Prolific!

Blogging is often like exercise—we know we should do it, and have every intention of doing it—when we can get around to it!  Also like exercising, it is only truly beneficial when we do it consistently.  A minimum of one to two blog posts per week will give you the kind of content quantity you need, but if you can ramp up to three-four a week, that would be even better. In other words, be consistent first, then increase your volume over time. One rule of thumb to consider is that Google will start to notice your blog after about 50 posts, and then revisit you for updates. Once your blog is initially spydered and ranked, you can train Google to return more frequently, by posting new content consistently.

4)      Choose the Right Blogging Tool

There are two basic blog services you can use—fee-based tools like Compendium and free blog tools like WordPress.  While the latter has the upside of being free, the former may be far more beneficial for your needs.  Understand that a major goal of blogging is to win “Page Rankings” in Google, Yahoo, Bing (and lesser Search Engines) on your target terms.

It's important to remember that tools like WordPress, Blogger, Typepad may require you to manually search engine optimize your posts to puruse your page rankings, while a Premier Blogging Service like Compendium is engineered from the ground up to optimize your posts for targeting  keywords.  Based on return on investment in getting you search engine rankings results, Compendium is generally a better blogging tool than WordPress, even though it costs, because of the fact that it helps you search engine optimize your blog posts while writing in order to succeed at getting your desired page ranking results. In other words, a free blog tool is a great deal, only if you are getting ranked in the search engines, or you can generate readership independently. 

In truth, our company uses both, with Compendium being the premier blogging service tool we lean on most, and consider to the best blogging service out there, while WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal and others are also used frequently or judiciously, when budget or other reasons need to be carefully considered. See a side by side comparison I did recently on the topic recently.

5)      Pick the Right Terms to Blog About.

Using the right search terms by targeting keywords in your business or ministry blog posts will result in increased page rankings in the search engines.  This is accomplished by determining your winnable keywords via careful and comprehensive keyword research, and then incorporating those words and terms into the text as you write.  You can do this keyword research on your own, using the Google keyword research tool (Google: Google Keyword Tool), which is one of the best keyword research tools to start with. You can also retain a pro services company like Pathmaker, that is adept at the process, to ensure you get it done correctly. Once proper research is done, any company can usually identify a total potential keyword pool of about 1500 terms to pursue. Then you have to rank those terms by winnability: determining their potential for you to win a page one ranking on each of them. Some will be winnable. Others will not be winnable without an enromous budget.

And here's one final bonus step to Successful Blogging:

 
 6)  Protect Your Content

WordPress has a documented habit of just closing down blog sites if they determine that the user has violated their usage standards for one reason or another.  Unfortunately, bloggers often don really know what those “standards” are, nor do they give you the opportunity to change your content to adhere to their prerequisites, once your site is down.  This is one of the hidden little secrets to the free tools out there...you could lose all your content since it's hosted on their servers, not yours.

The best way to protect your content is to install a tool like WordPress on your own web server rather than on theirs.  Then blog away. Your content resides on your own servers, not theirs, and you can rest easier knowing that it's safer.  A simple task, this is truly a worthwhile endeavor as a precautionary measure to protect your content. Obviously, you should always have local PC backups too for all content posted on your company or church blog.

For more assistance with blogging, don't hesitate to call Pathmaker Marketing, LLC in Phoenix, Arizona at 1-623-322-3334, and we'll be happy to help you sort this out further.

            At the request of my Pastor I created a 20 Step program for Marketing our Church on the Internet. To make it as inclusive as possible, I recruited the assistance of Randall Mains, CEO of Pathmaker Marketing LLC. Realizing that the results of our efforts would be beneficial to a number of churches, I decided to do a 20 part series and place it on the internet so as many people/churches as possible can be blessed by it!

            In the first installment I mentioned that it would be wise to launch a blogging process. In that, I alluded to the fact that you need to Target Keywords that are winnable, and explained how to do so. The next thing I think you need to concentrate on is doing keyword research.

            Knowing that comprehensive keyword research is the foundation of an effective search engine marketing program will allow you to understand that, basically, you need to “chase down” the people who need the services and programs that your church offers and lead them to your website. The whole idea is to ensure that your church comes up when people type in their search terms.

            You may think that there aren’t all that many words and/or terms, but actually quite the opposite is true. The typical comprehensive keyword search will yield a minimum of 1500 or more keyword variations! Through a variety of filters, you can narrow the number down that you will want to concentrate on regarding your website and your blog posts. The key, of course, is to find “winnable” words, and then prioritize them for your benefit.

            While I certainly can’t list 1500 words/terms here, I will give you an quick example of what I mean, using the top 20 terms found when using Chicago churches as our local example:

churches
bible study
catholic churches
orthodox church
youth ministry
church chicago
church in chicago
willow creek church
willowcreek church
chicago maps
churches chicago
churches in chicago
bill hybels
catholic churches in chicago
catholic churches chicago
baptist churches in chicago
catholic church in chicago
churches chicago il
churches in chicago il
church chicago il

Once you have your list composed, you will want to chose the terms that best describe your ministry, whether it be to teens, seniors, street people or other. These are the terms you want to concentrate on as your church Staff compose their blog posts, and as you “tweak” the copy and contents of your website!

That brings me to my next point - - once you complete your keyword research and acquire your final winnable keyword list the real task has just begun! It will take months - probably six or more - to get you to a point that when an individual types in a term/phrase on your list that your church will come up. Remember I said that this list is the “foundation” of an effective search engine marketing program? While the list is the foundation, the “structure” you will build on it will be all the blog posts that you and your staff write! It is those Church Blogs that will help you acquire page rankings from Google, Yahoo and Bing, and that is what will drive people to your website and eventually your church, making the internet an effective church outreach tool for you! 
                While it may rankle us to have to admit it, “Church Marketing 101” is one of those paradigm shifts that we just need to learn to live with, and Targeting Keywords is one of those internet marketing ideas that will, in fact, allow this to be a viable church outreach idea.

            In closing, I would suggest that you read Part III, as we will deal with SEO - search engine optimization - and how to ensure that your website will, in fact, get Google, Yahoo and Bing page rankings!

          Floyder - - I don't even know what a bloghead is!

          Jim looked pretty pathetic, to say the very least. Somewhat loud, though never obnoxious!, Jim is truly a sensitive soul and that is why the comment that had been leveled at him had been so devastating. It seems that last Sunday, in front of a whole group of people, his pastor slapped him on the back and exclaimed, “Well, Jim, why don’t you head up the committee for Internet presence. After all, you’re the biggest Bloghead in the congregation.”

            “Floyder, will you call Pastor and ask him why he would say something like that about me?”

            His puppy-dog brown eyes made it impossible to say “no,” so I gave Pastor a call. I surmised, and verified, that all Pastor meant was that Jim used Blogging as an Internet Marketing Tool for his business more than anyone else. The fact that “Bloghead” sounds suspiciously like “Blockhead” had made Jim feel like he was being ridiculed, which, of course, was not the case. Finishing up with the call, I explained it to Jim.

            A visual sigh of relief crept across Jim’s face, making it as placid as a crystal clear lake. As I watched, however, the metamorphosis continued, and the placidity was replaced with a look of total confusion. I waited, as I knew another question/ request would be forthcoming.

            “Floyder, is there such a thing as a Church Blog?” indicating by the question that he was accepting Pastor’s offer to head the committee.

            “Certainly, Jim,” I assured him.

            “Well, what does a church Blog about?”

            “Oh,” I explained easily, “there are several ways a church can use a Blog as an outreach tool. They might want to simply employ Christian Blogging to post content that is relevant to members of their congregation. Or they might want to develop their blog into an outreach tool, so that in that case it actually becomes a Ministry Blog.”

            “How would that work?”

            “Well, it could actually take several forms. For example, they might use the Blog as a discussion forum to facilitate small groups discussions on the pastor's weekend sermons.

            “They might also use the blog to feature and highlight the special ministries a church offers their community, such as children's activities, helping the homeless or their outreach to military families.”

            "Or they could use the blog as a vehicle for outreach, discussing subjects that matter the public at large, with a biblical point of view.

            Jim cogitated on what I had said for a while, and then asked,

            “Floyder, should I seek Pathmaker’s help?

            Jim was referring to Pathmaker Marketing, which promotes a Premier Blogging Service for churches (LEARN MORE >>). Jim and I have discussed numerous aspects of Internet Marketing, and, on several occasions, he retained Randall to help him with suggestions.

            “Well, it wouldn’t hurt.”

            Jim smiled and went to a world of his own where he was contemplating his course of action. Me, I was just glad he no longer looked pathetic!

A virtual tour can be an interesting and valuable addition to your website, and if you do it properly, it can be a valuable part of your internet marketing ideas.

But if you’re thinking of adding a virtual tour to your non profit website design, you’ll need to take a number of issues into account before getting started.

1. What is the goal for your tour?
If your Internet marketing idea is to showcase your business, then you’ll want a lot of photos of your campus – this is a more informational type of tour. But if your Internet marketing idea is to tell the inspiring story of how your ministry, church or business started, you’ll want to have more drama in your tour – and this could add to the bandwidth as you include more sound effects and perhaps video.

As you begin to compile information for this particular Internet marketing idea, you’ll want to always keep your specific goal in mind and organize that information in the tour so that it will be easy to present and experience. And you’re going to want to focus on what makes your campus, business, product, etc., unique.

Whether you include a virtual tour in your website as an informational or inspirational Internet marketing idea, you’re going to need to provide a real guided tour – not just drop people off and make them find their own way around on their own. This brings up another point, some people will want to be dropped off and explore, meaning you're going to need a visible map so anyone can find their way around ... and include the words "Begin Here" in the map.

2. Who are you trying to reach?
If your non profit is a university primarily for people directly out of high school, this Internet marketing idea should showcase the sorts of things that appeal to younger people. But if you have a combination of younger students plus people coming back for some mid-career training to stay relevant, you may be talking about two different tours. You need to think this through so filming day takes the approach for the generation you’re attempting to reach, and you’ll want your script, and the narrator, to have the voice of the generation you’re trying to reach. Any information you provide is going to need to be relevant and interesting to your specific audience – from their point of view, not yours.

3. What kind of interactivity will your audience most appreciate?
Some people, especially younger people, want to be in control of their browsing experience. They’ll appreciate choices – where can they click to find out more information? Some older people may want the tour to completely load and allow them to sit back and watch with few needs on their part for making choices. Your tour should be more than QuickTime videos with some text. It should be a special production that integrates many different kinds of media – videos, text, maps, photos, etc.; but these should be done in a seamless way so the viewing experience is appropriate for the audience and flow well. And provide choices for people who want to sit back and watch your tour as well as those you want to get dropped off and do a more self-guided tour.

4. What kind of bandwidth will you be working with?
Your IT department will be very unhappy if a virtual tour suddenly goes online that you have not discussed with them because they have a specific amount of bandwidth to work with, and you need to make sure your project is going to be well served without taking from other functions of the server.

Pathmaker Marketing is a professional fundraising company that serves ministries, non profit organizations and a for profit businesses. We offer search engine optimization services, fundraising services, blogging services, business marketing promotion online, and many Internet marketing ideas. Give us a call at 623-322-3334 to see how we can assist you, whether with a virtual tour or any other kind of website design or online fundraising services.

Why Use an Outside Marketing Firm for your Christian Marketing?--Part Two
As a small business owner or ministry leader, you may have considered how best to handle your Christian marketing efforts.  Should you hire a person in house?  Contract with an agency?  Or try to find time to spearhead your Christian marketing efforts on your own? 

As you consider how best to address your Christian marketing concerns, you can ask yourself if you have the ability to create strategy, collaborating with a variety of players in your plan?  Are you able to move swiftly with your marketing efforts, sometimes setting aside all the other issues of your business in order to develop strategy and pull it off?

If you answered “No” to any of those questions, you may want to check out a Christian Marketing team like Pathmaker Marketing LLC to help you reach the valued customers and donors you seek to attract.

Collaboration—In House and Out
Collaboration and innovative partnership are among the freshest buzzwords in the business world today.  Our team of seasoned veterans brings a strong background of collaboration and willingness to partner in any way that will benefit our client.  We’ll listen to your concerns, research the issues that are impacting your online presence and we’ll work with you to devise strategies that are fresh and effective. 

Speed of Delivery—We Can Get It Done
We understand the difficulty in trying to launch a project or campaign using your own in-house creative and I.T. teams—if you have them!  They can be overloaded with the daily concerns of the company and getting in the queue to be serviced by them could mean a wait of several months to a year or more.  Or, if you are a start-up or a new ministry, you are probably scrambling just to design stationery and build a website. 

Pathmaker Marketing has an internal team that is poised and ready to move quickly to provide you with research, web presence, email marketing, social networking, back links, Search Engine Optimization and much more.  Your needs are our team’s highest concern, so we are able to produce exactly what you need when you need it.  We’ll do our best not to make you wait! 

Cost Effectiveness—Our Specialty Brings Relief!
Companies that seek to do their own Christian marketing in highly specialized areas like social networking risk losing valuable productivity as employees struggle to understand all the ins and outs of the new world of social media. 

Pathmaker Marketing has social networking specialists on the team.  We employ them at reasonable rates and keep them focused in this key area.  Using our specialists will relieve your staff and save you time and money. 

The New Marketing—Our Specialty
The Internet has changed virtually every aspect of Christian marketing.  Compended blogging, social media, back linking, search engine optimization and text messaging have all been used to market successfully.  When we found that Christian publishing giant Tyndale House Publishers did not have a significant footprint on the Internet, Pathmaker Marketing used state-of-the-art online tools to find a solution to the problem, creating a compended blog and filling it with content that will help strengthen Tyndale products’ search engine rankings.  Our approach is holistic and comprehensive and we view the concerns with an outsider’s objectivity. 

Our staff can “work” social networking accounts, inviting people to be followers, friends, etc., and following up.  We also invite them to your online events and auto-flow your blog content to your social networking accounts, further broadening the reach of your social networking efforts. 

We will research your online presence and give you the good news and the bad regarding your search engine rankings.  We are experts in being able to help you build your Internet assets. Our compended blogs will help drive up your rankings with Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. 

Pathmaker Marketing LLC is grateful for the opportunity to help so many ministries and small businesses with their Christian Marketing, applying our expertise to the needs of our clients.  If you are uncertain about your ability to tackle Christian Marketing on your own, give us a call at 623-322-3334 or visit our website to learn more.  You can sign up for our free Christian Marketing eNewsletter HERE. 
 

Nothing can inspire donors to give like the power of a good story, told well, whether you are raising funds with a Saturday morning car wash or you are one of a handful of powerful fundraising companies helping clients raise millions. 

In last week’s blog post I talked about the importance of connecting the donor to the end recipient of their generosity using Internet--just like Heart For the City does on this page of their website.  You can see touching photos of families benefitting from the Thanksgiving “Adopt A Family” effort. 

We also encouraged you to create interactive areas on your site that allow donors to tell the success stories of the effort themselves, like this page from the National Prayer Campaign for the Jerusalem Prayer Team.  You can read last week’s entry on fundraising company Pathmaker Marketing’s blog page HERE. 

In this posting, I offer two more ideas, drawn from the experience of fundraising companies and the professionals who run them.   

3.  Don’t overlook traditional forms of storytelling like newsletters and snail mail appeals.  Stories collected on your website—or via letters and emails—can be used (anonymously, if needed) to keep the ministry’s efforts fresh in the minds of those who read them.  PathMaker Marketing can help you develop an eNewsletter that will build your email list—and keep the powerful stories of your ministry in the forefront of your efforts as a professional fundraiser. 

4.  Create an event.  Use awards, presentations, speeches or other “special moments” to connect givers to those they help and share them in your communication efforts.  RISE, International is a ministry that builds schools in Angola.  When an American couple raised and extraordinary amount of money to build one school in a rural village—$50,000—Lynn Cole, the ministry head (who is the professional fundraiser for the group--they do not use a fundraising company) took a photo of the family, enlarged and laminated it and hand carried it to the dedication of that school months later.  She told the boys and girls in the Angolan village, who were overjoyed about the opportunity to now receive an education, about the family as she showed them the enlarged photo.  She photographed the eager learners with the image of the Americans in a powerful ceremony that will remain unforgettable for both sides. 

Sharing the fruits of your ministry with those who donate to make it possible will bring your fundraising efforts “full circle” and will further strengthen your professional fundraising initiatives.  Pathmaker Marketing is a professional fundraising company that will listen to your needs and help you tell your story.  We'd like to give you a free website analysis--get in touch with us today.   

Fundraising professionals, no matter what their cause or kind, understand that they must, at some point in the fundraising stream, connect donors to the end-recipient of their giving.  Stories, testimonies and images all can work together to bring that powerful sense of gratification to donors who want their dollars to truly make a difference in the world. 

Whether you are raising funds for your local church, a street ministry or the building of hospitals overseas, those who give to you want to see how their gifts are helping.  If, as a fundraising professional, you’ve lost sight of this meaningful principle, here are some ideas to help get you back on track with the important discipline of “telling the stories.” 

1.  Use the Internet.  It’s relatively inexpensive, and you pay the same, no matter how many individuals read the testimonies you share.  Bring the faces and stories of those who are impacted right onto the pages of your website.  Make sure your storytelling is rich with images and effective words, using first person accounts whenever possible.  Let the fundraising professionals at Pathmaker Marketing help you build a website (or re-design your current one) to motivate and encourage your donors. 

2.  Provide interactive opportunities that will tell the story for you.  Are you giving your supporters interactive ways to be involved with the ministry other than giving?  Prayer is an energizing way to draw constituents in and create community.  And, it will truly strengthen your efforts!  Let us help you create a prayer area on your website using our interactive prayer walls, prayer requests function and more.  Just seeing the many heartfelt prayers that build up on the prayer wall will serve as a form of testimony that will go a long way for you, as a professional fundraiser, to encourage your stakeholders. 

We can also help you create an area on your website where both the friends of your ministry as well as those you serve can post their stories and testimonies, much like this one of Gregory Dickow Ministries and this one from Jewish Voice.  These accounts will help strengthen the link between donor and recipient as readers see the impact of their giving.

Check back for my next blog post to read two more great ways you can strengthen your efforts as a professional fundraiser by telling the powerful stories of your ministry or group. 
 

Integrating your online and offline communications is our strategic non profit marketing tip for today.

    One important mistake that many ministries make is to consider online communication to be separate from offline communication. But these days, savvy marketers put their web addresses on all printed materials and even in their radio and television ads. Likewise, your website should contain toll-free phone numbers and mailing addresses. Cross promote as much as possible. You should also put your web address in your catalogs, on your brochures, business cards, in your radio or television program. You get the idea. 

    Another good strategy is to cross-pollinate your monthly direct mail appeals with an online fund raising effort. Our typical email fundraising approach, when synergized to snail mail, is to start Split Testing 10 days AFTER the snail mail arrives in homes, then go to full blasting 3 days after that. The email will stand on its own results, plus give LIFT to your snail mail this way.  After reblasting and remarketing for another week, you can have your email efundraising efforts done in 10-13 days total, and be out about 1 week before the next fundraising snail maill effort arrives.

    The combination of the two channels – direct mail and email fundraising -- working in tandem with each other to promote the same initiative will raise the water table overall on your results. Combine telemarketing in this mix and you have a powerful one-two-three punch for your fundraising efforts.

   This topic — maximizing your nonprofit fundraising efforts by combining traditional channels with online marketing tools — is quite detailed and I plan to expand on it in future blog entries. For now, I’ll wrap up this series by again leaving you with these words:

    A strategic online communication plan will use integration to strengthen existing donor relationships while building new ones to enhance your ministry and expand its outreach.

Build interactivity into your website to improve your non profit marketing.

    To keep people coming back to your site, you’ll need more than just good design. You need a hard-working site, and you must update it regularly. Many of today’s most successful websites are interactive, meaning they allow people to participate in the content in some way.  The best example is Wikipedia, where up to 7,000 volunteer contributors update and monitor the encyclopedia daily to ensure accuracy and prevent abuse.

    Many other sites develop interactivity by providing games people can play. An extreme example of this is Second Life, where you participate in a virtual world online:

http://secondlife.com/

 
    An example more relevant to not for profit organizations might be a Prayer Wall, such as the Prayer Walls at Presidential Prayer Team that we’ve discussed, or the Prayer Walls at Gregory Dickow Ministries. This online initiative provides effective internet marketing, a way to interact with your members, while also retaining relevance with your ministry site objectives. At GDM, each Prayer Wall is sent an email thanking them for their participation and welcoming them to the broader GDM ministry through their electronic Welcome Series.

    Other interactivity vehicles such as chat rooms, forums, contests, blogs, libraries, photo sharing, and wikis can get people coming back to your site – building a community of people interested in your topics and endeavors. 

    If you'd like some help to establish a ministry Prayer Wall on your website, or improve your non profit marketing, contact Pathmaker Marketing today for assistance in getting started.

What you really want out of a premier blogging service is to see it deliver results, right?

Well, consider this.  With four posts to this compended, Keyword Blog system, I've already gotten to a Top 10 position on Google for this Keyword phrase: Premier Blogging Service. And I intend to stay there by talking about all the merits of this keyword marketing, compended, premier blogging tool.

For one, it flows my blog posts automatically onto the appropriate keyword blog categories. That saves me a ton of time and effort that I get to spend in other areas of my life. This unique feature is called compending. Said in another way, it auotmatically "populates" each appropriate keyword blog every time I post to my main blog.

Secondly, it search engine optimizes all my blog posts, guiding me to create content that makes the search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, very happy. Plus the content is targeting keywords on the internet.

Thirdly, I can have unlimited users on my system so other friends, staffers or colleagues can help me in the blogging process. That doesn't cost me anything extra. And I like the extra help. It gives my blog the edge in developing ongoing, relevant content.

Fourthly, it allows me to generate content that gets flowed all across the internet. In doing so, it finds me new friends, who like what I have to say, and want to consider further the services I have to offer.

Fifthly (is that a word?), I can autoflow all my blog posts from this system onto my other "free" blog accounts.

Finally, it's so easy to use, I just love it. And it comes with complete tech support so that if anything ever goes wrong (which it never does), I'm covered.

If you'd like a Free Demo on this exceptional internet marketing tool, (which can easily become your church blog, ministry blog, church outreach, christian blogging tool, christian marketing tool, non profit marketing tool, or small business blog service), please call me today at 1-623-322-3334. Ask for Randall Mains, and I'll be glad to share my enthusiasm with you about this fine product that you can take advantage of too.

If you are using a Premier Blogging Service, like this compended marketing tool that I'm promoting here, for your ministry blog or church blog, you can also autoflow your blog posts across the internet for maximum church outreach and internet business marketing promotion.

Once you've got your core blog services established and you are blogging away, consider the following process for leveraging your content across the internet.

1. Establish a new account with ping.fm
2. Establish a new account with twitterfeed.com
3. Create a new feed in twitterfeed that pulls content from your source blog and autoflows that content into your ping.fm account.
4. Choose the accounts you want to establish in ping.fm

For example, blog acounts include: Wordpress, Blogger, Xanga, LiveJournal and Vox.
Social accounts include: Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, Linkedin, Jaiku, Tumblr, etc.

Doing this will populate your blog posts into your free blogging services, and into your social networks, without any need to spend extra time.  You can then begin to implement efficient, effective internet marketing.

You can also just use the ping.fm account on its own.  This is relatively simple process but it requires you to create a simple message every time you want to flow content out. So it's mildly more involved but still a superior method than updating all your accounts one by one.
I like to autoflow my blog posts across the internet, then use ping.fm for additional messages that are not part of my blogging process.

If you need professional help to get this done for your church outreach or small business, don't hesitate to call me directly at 623-322-3334 and Pathmaker Marketing will be happy to perform the process on your behalf. 

Installing an effective ministry blog or church blog can be a simple decision.  Do you want to go the free route, using a service like Wordpress or Blogger, or do you want to go with a premium service like Compendium which costs something but is a real marketing tool for your ministry?

I would argue to go with the premier blogging service first.  Then add your free blog services later.  Let me explain why I feel that way. 

The compended blog tool that I use is a superior outreach and promotional vehicle for my company and could be for your ministry, church or small business as well.  It gives me the following advantages in effective internet marketing:

1. It allows me to establish multiple Keyword blogs. (See my Category list down the right sidebar of this column). Each of these Keyword blog terms has been carefully researched, then run through 2-3 serious evaluation layers, giving me a high degree of confidence that my Keyword Blogs can bust into a Top 10 listing on Google, Yahoo or Bing.  As long as I stay committed to developing relevant content for my keywords, this tool assures me a fighting chance for a Top 10 listing on my terms. It could do the same for you.

2. It populates all my Keyword blogs automatically as I create my primary blog posts.  This saves me a hige amount of time and energy.  It effectively leverages my writing effort dozens of times over.  For example, once I finish writing this blog post, the system will automatically "compend" it to these other relevant Keyword Blogs (Blog Services, Ministry Blogs, Church Blog, Premier Blogging Service, Ministry Blog, Christian Blogging, etc). Do you get that incredible advantage?

3. Each Keyword Blog is also fully Search Engine Optimized on that term for Google, Yahoo and Bing.  That begins with each blog having a unique URL. It also includes a nifty color bar tool that enables me to create each post in a way that my copy is fully optimized for my terms.  I would have to do these steps manually otherwise, a time-draining process at best, even for a marketing firm like ours.  For those who don't understand the SEO process at all, this advantage would be out of reach. If you paid someone to Search Engine Optimize your blog, it would cost you hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars of income.  It might even be money well spent, if it gets you a top listing for your blog, but the point is, I don't have to spend any money on SEO with this tool, because my blogs are already optimized for every keyword in our system.  Yours would be too.

4. It allows me to have unlimited blogger accounts. I can open up the blogging process to as many staffers or writers as I 'd like, at no additional cost to me.  This gives me the advantage of getting content from multiple sources rather than just relying on myself or a few dedicated writers. If you're a church, for example, you could have your Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor, Youth Pastor, Worship Leader, C.E. Director, even Deacons and Elders all blogging ont eh same system, under one account.

5. It notifies the search engines each time we update our blog.  This process, called pinging, keeps Google informed that there is new content available for evaluation. It does this step so you don't have to.

6. It is actively fighting to get me visibilty on my keywords -- it's a true marketing tool.  The compending and optimization process, by intent and design, is looking to establish a presence for each keyword in my blog in the Top 10 results of a Google search. This primary goal recognizes that if I get presence on my terms, I will get qualified traffic from those terms to my blog. Qualified traffic to my blog means qualified names added to my email lists, new leads to my church, new sales for my business and/or gifts to my ministry.  This system is prospecting for new customers for me even as it establishes me as an authority in my areas of expertise.  It would accomplish the same strategic objective for your company.

7. It allows me to autoflow my content to the free blog services.  Once my premier blogging service is installed, then I also have the option to begin flowing my blog content automatically into numerous other free blog services like Wordpress, Blogger, Xanga, LiveJournal, Vox, etc.  This way I get all the advantages of my superior marketing tool and maintain a presence in the other blog services, without any additional effort on my part.
You would establish a substantial presence across the internet with this tool in your marketing lineup.

8. It allows me to control the posting process.  Each post that gets submitted from my bloggers goes into a qeueu waiting for my approval. This allows me to oversee the posts, perform quality control if necessary, and approve them before they go live. You would ahve the same measure of content control.

9. It comes with a superior team of tech support professionals. Although it's really a turn-key process, if you need help in getting to success using this superior tool, the Pathmaker Marketing team and Compendium are both available to help you.


For a Free Demo of these online marketing tools, call me today at 623-322-3334, and I'd be more than happy to discuss in more detail how this resource could be implemented for your church ministry, non profit organization or small business.

Social networking has grown up very quickly. It was just a couple of years ago that Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace were mainly used by high school and college kids. But as more and more people discover the ease and convenience of the Internet—whether it’s to connect with family and friends, stay up to date on news and information, or donate to their favorite nonprofit organization—social network sites are now firmly in the mainstream. So if you haven’t already incorporated this area of Internet marketing into your nonprofit outreach ideas or small business marketing strategies, you should give it serious consideration.

You might be thinking, “Well, most of our organization’s supporters are older. They prefer traditional direct mail, and probably don’t know what a tweet or blog post are.” Think again: According to the Inside Facebook website, the fastest-growing population of Facebook users is women over age 55. Over a six-month period, from fall 2008 to spring 2009, the number of users in this category rose by 550%, to 1.5 million.  

Many older people are joining social network sites to keep up with their children and grandchildren. Others are finding fellowship and community that they might not otherwise have. In a recent New York Times article, a housebound 73-year-old named Paula Rice, who spends up to 14 hours a day chatting online at Eons.com, says that the site for older baby boomers “gave me a reason to keep on going.”  

Furthermore, if your supporters are older, what better way to introduce your organization to young people—whole new generations of potential supporters—than by utilizing these sites?

“Okay,” you’re saying. “But we already have a web site. Why do we need to create pages on another site?” One big reason is for the new marketing channel.  If people—whether older or younger—are already spending hours a day interacting on Facebook or receiving Twitter updates, you can easily reach out to them right there. No need for them to make a special visit over to your site to see what’s going on. Non profit organizations are creating pages on Facebook and Twitter that allow followers to instantly see their latest news, ask questions, and interact with each other. Twitter is a site that’s quickly gaining popularity as a new channel for posting brief updates for your followers and supporters and allow them to respond.

Still not convinced that social networking sites are a must-have online marketing tool? There’s a Web site and an e-book (available for $5) titled The Reason Your Church Must Twitter. Perhaps its author, “technology evangelist” Anthony Coppedge, can convince you. (Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book myself yet, just came across it while Web surfing.) Aside from that, here are a few immediate examples of how not for profit organizations and ministries are harnessing the power of Facebook, YouTube, and other social networking sites:

Compassion International has a Facebook and a Twitter page. The Facebook page features profiles of staff workers, sponsored children, and children still in need of sponsors. The Twitter page includes updates, prayer requests, and posts that link to longer articles.

Compassion Facebook
Compassion Twitter

World Vision posted a short video that graphically illustrates what it would be like to only have dirty water available—the situation facing millions around the world. The video went viral and helped increase traffic to World Vision’s main site by 11%.

World Vision Facebook

Here’s the Facebook page of the Forefront Church in New York City:

Forefront Church Facebook

    If you have any questions about how to get started using social networking sites to spread your message, contact Pathmaker Marketing at 623-322-3334. As specialists in effective Internet marketing, Pathmaker can get you going in the right direction in no time.
Or for further information visit our Twitter accounts:

PathmakerServes Twitter account on church outreach ideas
_pathmaker Twitter account on general business marketing promotion online
RandallMains Twitter account on internet marketing ideas

Hard times tend to bring more people to church. According to a December 2008 article in The New York Times, evangelical churches around the country have experienced a swelling in their ranks by up to 50% with each recession cycle since 1968. This current recession is definitely no exception! So what can you do on the Internet to extend and leverage your church outreach efforts to reach both your new members and people looking for a congregation to join?

First, effective church outreach on the Internet necessitates a great website. That doesn’t mean bells and whistles. It means the site is easy on the eyes, offers simple and clear navigation throughout, and provides content that is both useful and fresh.

Useful church outreach content answers the question, “What’s in it for me?” Sure, people need to know your service times, who is the pastor, and when to show up for upcoming events, but they also need to know why they should come to your church rather than the one down the street. What is it about the pastor, ministries, and congregation that will help the reader’s family get though these tumultuous times with peace and tranquility? How does your youth ministry influence the reader’s teens to stay out of trouble and grow in Christ?  How are people helped through grief, whether by losing a loved one or getting laid off from a job they held for 30 years? You get the picture. Speak to the reader, not yourself.

Second, effective church outreach requires that people can easily find your site, and they want to keep coming back. Once you have a website that speaks to the reader’s needs, there are some simple online church outreach strategies you might want to try.

1. Sign-Up – You need an email list for the strategies below to work. You can ask people to provide their email addresses in various ways, including through your church bulletin. You can also invite people to sign  up online, asking for their first name and email address in exchange for some benefit, such as a free download of some kind … a special message, a regular eNewsletter, etc. The sign-up form needs to be located in the upper left of you home page because that's where people's eyes first go. The form needs to link to More Info on a dedicated landing page that outlines the benefits of signing up.
    
2. Traffic Conversion – once you get people to sign up, then you want to pull them deeper into the goings on of the church. You can get more contact information by offering to send something in the mail … a book, a bookmark, a prayer journal, etc.
    
3. eWelcome Series – This is an online church outreach version of your welcoming committee. The intent is to introduce people to your church and its ministries. You can send one email a week for 5 to 7 weeks. Each email introduces a different portion of the website or the church –all spelling out the benefits to the reader of the various aspects of your church, ministry, congregation, and church outreach.
   
   
4. Autoresponder Plan – Pathmaker Marketing LLC has worked with a large church in Chicago that challenged people to fast from wrong thinking for 40 days. We helped them set up a 40-day autoresponder system to allow people to participate in the fast from wrong thinking and receive a daily email message about a topic from which they would fast for that day. What kind of multi-day message could your church develop to minister to people during these tough economic times?
    
5. Prayer Walls – Pathmaker  has helped several ministries install an interactive Prayer Wall to their websites. This is an effective church outreach strategy because it specifically ministers to people in a non-threatening way, and it helps people realize that they are not alone. The Prayer Wall invites people to leave a prayer so others can pray for them – and of course to pray for others who have left their prayer requests and praises.
    
6. Blogging Tool – Pathmaker uses a blogging tool that is a powerhouse for getting your website seen in search engines. It’s based on extensive keyword research. We help churches and ministries develop keywords that are strategic to their church or ministry, and then help them develop a blog that will maximize their church outreach by multiplying each blog entry into several entries that entice search engines to, “Come find me.” This not only increases the visibility of your site in search engines, it provides ministerial content that can benefit readers around the world.

The tough economic and political times in which we find ourselves have people searching for your church. Your church outreach efforts can be extended and leveraged when you employ the strategies listed above. Pathmaker is experienced in helping ministries implement these tools. Call 623-322-3334 to schedule a time to discuss how we might help you.

So many people are talking about blogging these days … bloggers … the ever-powerful blogosphere …  that you may be wondering if Christian blogging can help you reach your church or other ministry goals. No doubt, Christian blogging is a powerful outreach tool! But you may want to start at the beginning, in case you're now too embarrassed to ask the question you should have asked five years ago: What’s a blog?

According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, a blog is a contraction of the term “web log.” The “web” part of the contraction indicates that your Christian blogging is done online - it’s a website. The “log” part of the contraction refers to the fact that a blog is basically just a log of entries – related or not. You could opine about your trip to Jamaica one day and then evaluate all 31 flavors of your neighborhood Baskin Robbins the next, and all your friends and family could keep up with your musings without you having to write to each one separately. And they can comment on your entries.

And that’s not a bad strategy if your blog is meant only for friends and family. But for church or ministry outreach purposes, you might want to take a more strategic approach to your Christian blogging.

1. Invest in a good blogging tool. There are several free blogging tools available, but I recommend a tool that will turn your Christian blogging into an outreach power tool for your church or ministry. People have to see your Christian blogging efforts for that to happen. Getting seen by people looking for a church or ministry like yours requires getting your blog listed on the first page of search results on search engines like Google and Yahoo. And that requires being strategic in your use of keywords that relate to what your church or ministry does. To do that, you need a “compended blog.” Pathmaker Marketing LLC blog uses an unique and powerful blogging tool. For a free demo on how this tool can help you in your Christian blogging, call for a free demo at 623-322-3334.
   
   Those free tools might seem like a good deal, but they don’t compile each of your blogs into multiple blogs and then optimize them to secure page one listings on search results. You have to do that yourself (and, believe me, it’s a lot of work!). This will make your Christian blogging easier, faster and more effective.
    
2. Invest in keyword research. When Pathmaker set up our blog, we gave Compendium a list of strategic keywords that people would search when looking for a service like ours. The Compendium tool automatically compiles our posts into multiple blogs under all appropriate keywords, not just the one into which we posted it. This work-leveraging feature also optimizes the posts to tell the search engines to, “Come find me.”
   
   Pathmaker helps clients select keywords that not only are used by people searching for their services but also (a) get a lot of searches and (b) don’t have too much competition for you to break into. We also help clients evaluate where they currently stand in search results for those keywords and then develop strategies to improve those standings.
    
3. Develop ministry-oriented content that uses keywords. Not only do you want people to find your blog entries, you want them to find the information useful enough to convince them to visit or contact your church or ministry and get the benefits you offer them. Christian blogging should be ministerial in nature, and you should provide contact information so people who need the ministries you offer can easily find you.

When you use the right kind of blogging tool, put adequate time into choosing keywords and develop concise but helpful content using those keywords, your Christian blogging can become an effective online extension of your church or ministry outreach efforts.

Choosing a Premier Blogging Service makes all the difference in the world.

The blog post that you are reading right now is part of a 50 Keyword, Compended Blogging system.  It's a high -powered outreach tool and ministry marketing machine rolled into one.  It could easily be adapted as your church blog, ministry blog or christian blogging system.  To see how this superior blogging tool works, review the posts on my page, notice the categories that are targeting keywords in the right sidebar, click on my calls to action, and enjoy the overall professionalism of this incredible ministry tool.

Consider this as an upgrade to your church outreach online. See it as a major player in your non profit marketing lineup.  Consider it thoroughly as one of your key outreach ideas.  Add it to your core set of small business marketing strategies. Use it as an outlet for preaching or teaching from your pastors, elders, deacons or lay leaders.

Here's how the blog services work:

1. I do strategic keyword research to find those golden search terms that I want my blog to appear in the top 10 results on Google, Yahoo or MSN.
2. I faithfully and thoughtfully blog about internet marketing ideas three times a week or more on my keyword categories (I add other users as I want at to help push up my weekly postings).
3. The compending system takes my posts and appropriately distributes them (compends and re-allocates) onto my 50 keyword blogs in a search engine optimized fashion, notifying Google about my new content, and saving me tons of time and effort.
4. After about 50 posts Google starts to notice me and display by blogs in my keyword results.
5. After 200 posts I'm getting seen as an authority on my subject(s) so I begin to get significant traffic on my target search terms. This goes on forever if I keep on blogging.
6. I work to convert the qualified traffic that visits my blog into lists, leads or sales through calls to action like Whitepaper Downloads, Case Studies, Webinars, Email Signups, etc.
7. I watch my business grow because my blog establishes me as an authority in my field and brings me qualified search traffic every single day.
8. I buy groceries and clothes and other stuff for the wife and kids.
9. I go to sleep happy as my business grows and I become more successful online.

Any Questions?

Call me at 1-623-322-3334. Ask for Randall Mains at Pathmaker Marketing. Ask about my Premier Blogging Service that is keyword marketing my business all across the internet. If I can do it, so can you. Call today.

I want to share with you a specific strategy that we are using to help our Pathmaker clients in the area of Keyword Marketing. This is a five-part plan for effective internet marketing and prospecting by targeting keywords used in Google searches.

The goal of the plan is to isolate priority keywords that relate to the ministry niches of non profit organizations. This approach can also be used in any commercial business.

Step One is targeting keywords that will give you qualified website traffic that you can convert into marketing assets...namely lists, leads, gifts or sales.  I'll talk more about Keyword Research in future posts.

Step Two is identifying strategies you can use to gain dominant real estate positions on your priority keywords.  Often this second step is begun by targeting searches around your company name, executive's name, or ministry brands. These are your priority keywords and you should be looking to establish complete domination of the real estate around these keywords.

I usually break down the keyword results into the following catagories:
1. Your Websites
2. Positive Reviews (but not your sites)
3. Neutral Results
4. Competitor Results
5. Negative Results

If your ministry, top executive or ministry brands have any search results showing up in category #5, you need to go immediately into reputation management mode, whereby your top objective is to subordinate any negative or adverse search results onto page two, three or four, which most people never read.  These negative results are tarnishing your brand.  Why would someone consider making a gift to your ministry (or buy from your business) after reading a compelling piece of adverse publicity about you in the top 10 listings?

If you don't have any #5 results about your company, (celebrate over lunch first) then you can proceed into targeting keywords using the five-part strategy below. Your goal is to move competitor listings, and potentially even neutral listings, off of page one top 10 results by replacing them with search results that you control.

The chart below shows how to do keyword marketing using five core methods:
1. Search Engine Optimization of your website;
2. Pay-per-click advertising via Google, Yahoo or MSN;
3. Link building in multiple ways like local listings, volume, deep, and authority links;
4. Targeting Keywords using our premier blogging service
(Not just any blog will do, but our keyword targeting, compended blog services will);
5. Entering the Social Media world strategically and effectively.

An illustration of this approach is vividly demonstrated in the image below.



More insights into how to accomplish this will come in future posts.

In the meantime, if you'd like to talk with Pathmaker about how our Keyword Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Services shown above can help your 501c3, simply call us today for a free consultation (623-322-3334).

Find your ministry niche that can be transferred online.

As non profit fund raising professionals, Pathmaker Marketing often starts by asking our clients, "What is unique about your ministry or non profit organization that separates you from the rest?" Isolate that area of differentiation and then determine the ways you might convey that uniqueness online. One idea for accomplishing this objective is to think about the ways you already provide ministry:

* Do you have a radio show? Then place your radio broadcasts online in MP3 format.
* Do you preach sermons? Then have your messages converted into MP3 format and upload them online for people to hear 24/7.
* Do you have a television ministry? Then convert your TV programs into QuickTime or Windows Media file formats for online viewing. You can even upload your shows to YouTube or other online video portals.
* Do you have a drama ministry you can videotape? Then do the same.
* Are you a prolific writer? Then consider:
* Publishing your books online as e-books or using print-on-demand processing.
* Developing white papers on subjects of expertise for you.
* Creating an online library replete with articles on various topics of relevance to your audience.
* Starting a blog.

The key here is to isolate what ministries or services you provide offline, particularly those that are especially unique, and then determine if you can provide or enhance them through non profit marketing online. Here are some examples of the way this has worked in real life.

www.hearandplay.com

Here is a great example of transferring an offline service online. In this example, the business owner used to provide personal piano lessons. However, he was limited in the number of lessons he could give weekly-until he wrestled with the question, "How can I give piano lessons online to expand my business?" Once he resolved that question, he began experiencing a growth spurt in his business. Now he currently reaches more students and provides more lessons by marketing online, than he ever could have through private lessons. 

www.oneplace.com

Here is a different example. OnePlace.com offers a service to ministries with radio programs. Through their site, you can publish your radio program online, and then link to it from your website. By doing it this way, you eliminate some of the technical challenges of publishing audio on your own site, and you also partner with numerous other broadcasting ministries that help drive traffic to the site. This is a good example of finding a niche in the non profit marketing arena.

www.whitsend.org

Here is an example of a children's ministry that enhanced its services online. Focus on the Family does a children's radio program called Adventures in Odyssey, and one of the characters, Mr. Whit, owns an inn. As a play on words, the official website of Adventures in Odyssey is Whit's End. When Focus on the Family placed Whit's End online, instead of just the radio programs, they took it a step further by adding games, podcasts, and other interactive features that make the site of interest to children and their parents. Because the program airs on a regular schedule, people are constantly coming back to the site to interact with Whit's End. I's also a good example of non profit marketing.

www.Mysecret.tv

In this case, the church involved is based in Edmund, Oklahoma, and has been recognized as one of the most innovative churches in America. Their website, www.Lifechurch.tv, is worth a review for many reasons. But one of the niftiest things I liked was the innovative way they have provided for people to confess their secrets online in anonymity at www.mysecret.tv. This is a great example of finding a niche in non profit marketing and transferring that ministry online.