MarketingWeek.com, a marketing group from England just published an article on Five Trends that they believe will reshape media in the coming year. Amid rather obvious ones like “e-commerce will grow,” so will video, and Instagram is becoming more useful than Facebook for marketing, were two interesting quotes with implications for church communications and marketing in the coming year. Last month I reflected on one of these trends, and this month I’m tackling another.
The Second Quote:
“Advertising in podcasts has increased in sophistication this year, with the help of new measurement tools to demonstrate its effectiveness. Ads in the form of a message delivered by the podcast host have proved to be an incredibly authentic way for brands to deliver a call to action.
Rather than simply buying audio impressions, podcasts deliver immersive experiences for listeners and opportunities for brands to be part of amazing settings, be it a thought-provoking conversation or a major sporting event.”
IMPLICATIONS & IDEAS
Podcasts are exploding in popularity and they are very easy to do. The “advertising” we might do in a podcast could be presenting the gospel message in the context of useful information to a listener that might not otherwise sit down to listen to a sermon.
There are many topics you could address, from community service to Bible-content teaching. I’m experimenting with this myself (check out my podcast). I dearly love some younger people in my life, but they are not interested in sitting down and having me preach to them. And as many times as I’ve told them how important it is to read their Bibles, I’ve never felt like I was getting anywhere. So, I started a podcast — and they are listening! I’ve even got positive email feedback on it!
This is still very new and I’m going to be trying various things and writing more about podcasts. I wrote about how I do mine (see this piece) using an inexpensive microphone,
One important clarification — by doing a podcast I don’t mean merely putting up the pastor’s sermons only. Of course, you want them available online, but maybe someone in your church could do reviews of family-friendly events, or budget, or cooking tips, or Bible podcasts with a slightly different topic than what they might expect. I do a lot with history and the Bible, something people seem to find interesting. I recommend this ChurchSoundTips Youtube channel for some great sound production tips.
The core idea is the same as the one above — to give your audience something they are interested in (or find useful) before you give them the message you want them to hear.
