Let's dive into a crash course on all things domains. Boring? Maybe. Likely to be useful to you at some point down the road? Definitely! First, what's a domain? A domain is a fancy name for your URL—or the link to the homepage of your website. It's also what your custom emails would live on. Ex: churchname.com, [email protected] Domains typically cost between $20 and $40 per year to maintain ownership. Pretty cheap. For this reason, people will commonly buy the .com, .org, and .net...
6 days ago • 2 min read
Two free Adobe Express tools you'll return to again & again! You'll need to create a free account with your email. Once you're logged in, here are a few links to bookmark for watermark-free downloads. Add subtitles to short social media videos You don't want any fancy bells or whistles—you just want to plop some captions on a video and then download it without a watermark. Is that too much to ask? Did you know? At least 50% of Reels watchers view videos with their sound off. If you're doing...
13 days ago • 1 min read
Here's the tiniest little tweak you can make to your YouTube videos... ...to increase organic reach in your local area. Did you know? YouTube is the second largest search engine. Second only to Google Search itself. There's some discourse about Google Images actually being second and YouTube being third. You can decide where you'd like to land. Blah blah blah 🤓 Either way... YouTube has been called "the search engine of the future" by many and that's one of the reasons I place such a high...
20 days ago • 1 min read
You all have really loved my Pinterest boards for business cards & brochures... It's time to look at a whole bunch of merch inspo. 😍 You'll see a lot of wedding favors and wedding party gifts; these are just there to show you just how many products can be customized these days and get your gears turning. Browse my board The content of this board could be used in a variety of ways: Items on sale to your people so they can "rep" their church or school New visitor gifts Small disposable or...
27 days ago • 1 min read
It's been a while since we went FULL nerd-mode. Today's the day, ladies & gentlemen. 🤓 This past week, I was asked a question: "Can you make the livestream button only show up on Sunday mornings?" Well, of course! Do I have any idea how to do that? No! Will I figure it out? Yes! And I did! Why do this? We wanted to make a BIG RED BUTTON show up on the homepage of the church's website so that a few older, home-bound members could easily find the link. BUT—we didn't really want this slightly...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Sending out Easter postcards? Here are a few ways to squeeze the most possible value out of that pretty significant investment. 1) Incentivize a QR code scan Ideally, try to get the recipient to interact with the mailer. Choose an action that's likely to pique your particular community's interest. Here are a few ideas: Scan for 7 SMS devotions leading up to Easter morning Scan to see the breakfast menu Scan for an email reminder on Good Friday RSVP for the egg hunt on Facebook Scan for Holy...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
It took me far too long to learn this: Sometimes when we look at a web page, we can tell that something is off, but we can't put our finger on exactly what. This could be a host of things, but most often it's a problem with the sizes of your text. Either the wrong proportions, too many font sizes, and/or not enough negative space. Today I'll teach you a quick fix that will make your website pages or long-form text look just right. Here's what I mean. Picture these as sections on your website:...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
A while back... ...I posted in the WELS Intersections Facebook group offering to critique/improve a logo. I had a lot of interest, so THANK YOU if you submitted yours. If this newsletter gets a positive response, I hope to do more in the coming months. Our subject today is the logo for St. Mark Ministries in De Pere & Green Bay, Wisconsin. If anyone from St. Mark is reading this, you won't hurt my feelings if you dislike what I come up with. 😉 I thank you for allowing me to do this! Here's...
2 months ago • 2 min read
The Church Marketing Playbook: Throwing Wide Open Your Digital Front Doors It was an absolute pleasure to present at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary this week. Here's the description shared with attendees: The Church Marketing Playbook: Throwing Wide Open Your Digital Front Doors Within the next 4 to 40 months, you can confidently say you'll be carving out Saturday mornings for church workdays, receiving emails titled, "Re: New lawnmower" from your grounds elder, and vacuuming cheerios off the...
3 months ago • 1 min read
I'm working on materials for my presentation at Mission & Ministry next week... While I'm at it, I thought I'd share this resource with you. Have you ever sat down to formulate a plan for promoting an upcoming event and thought... "Where should I begin?" Then... you get overwhelmed by all of your options, procrastinate, and end up throwing $30 at Facebook 6 days out from the event? This timeline & checklist was written to infuse a little more intention and strategy into that process. You'll...
3 months ago • 1 min read