Sell it With Words

Words are important! Don’t use words like plugged-in, volunteer, servant, need, or desperate. They often cause a negative reaction by the reader, who will immediately stop listening to what else you have to say. Being plugged-in, being a volunteer or servant, and filling a need (even desperate ones) is a by-product of recruiting, not a selling point. Instead, focus on what the benefits of joining up, such as making a difference, becoming part of a team, or exercising specific skills or talents.

Remember that you are competing with the attention of cell phones, TV, iPods, console games, work, home, family, and hobbies. Although It isn’t wrong to sell to potential volunteers, as long as you are truthful in what you say. The words you select will help you cut through the noise and clutter to help those in your church find the place where they can serve.

Meet Their Needs, Not Yours

One of the easiest ways to convince someone to join what you are doing is to understand what motivates them. Often, this may be a search for community, friendships, or being part of something that makes a difference. Other times it could be a specific profession or hobby that interests them, allowing them to reapply existing skills.

So, how do you learn what their needs are? Get to know them! Spending the time to interview a candidate, or even building relationships with those in the church you haven’t met before, can go a long way when recruiting.

Put in a Time Limit

A final thing to consider is including a time limit. Church members may be leary of signing up if they think this is a long-term commitment. Set a time limit of 3-6 months or until you reach some pre-determined milestone. Give them the opportunity to renew their commitment or step out, without hurting anyone in the process.

So, be careful how you put together the message to your audience. Also, be aware of what you are saying and how it is perceived, as that can go a long way toward convincing someone to join your team. Now, how will you improve your recruiting message?
[tags]volunteer recruiting, recruiting volunteers, church marketing, church leadership[/tags]

A recent post from Seth Godin titled “Marketing your job” touches on how your marketing can have an impact on the type of employees you end up hiring:

Here’s what’s missing from the hiring equation: organizations try to treat jobs like commodities and as a result, often end up treating themselves as commodities. All jobs are the same, our job is a little closer and we pay a little better, call us. Sure, companies all brag about the work environment and benefits and such, but when they come right down to it, they’re not so different.

Now, stop and apply his line of thought to your church. Is your ministry that much different than the others, or are you trying to convince your church members the same way as the other ministries in your church? If you switched your leadership role with another ministry, would you still try to recruit and build a team the same way?

Here are 3 practical steps to make a difference in how you market your ministry to untapped volunteers in your church:

1. Create unique volunteering opportunities custom-tailored to your ministry focus. Don’t make every opportunity look like the last one. Try something different and create new opportunities around it.
2. Be selective in who you add to your team. Each person you add to your team will begin to create a culture that you won’t be able to change. Find those that exhibit the uniqueness that your ministry requires, rather than creating a ministry of the same type of person. This includes finding people that aren’t like you!
3. Evaluate your ministry to similar ones in neighboring churches. Unless you are trying to duplicate their ministry in a different part of town, there is no need to recreate the same approach. Learn from them what works, but strive to be unique!

So, how are you going to create a unique ministry that church members want to join?

[tags]recruiting volunteers, church recruiting, church leadership, church marketing[/tags]

1. What technology platform(s) does the firm use or require?

This may any of the following: Flash, PHP, Rails, Macromedia Dreamweaver/Contribute, or a custom content management system. Whenever possible, select the technologies that best match your church capabilities. No, not your current ministry capabilities, but your church – is your church highly technical or techie-light? The lighter you are, the easier the barrier to entry must be – no Flash, heavy programming requirements (or none at all), and plenty of reference materials for easy training. If they are trying to sell you an “all-on-one solution” and you can’t find at least 6 books at Amazon covering the technology, run away – you won’t be able to support it.

2. What is their process?

What is their process for taking you from brainstorming to prototype to templates to a full site? Do they help you brand your site, generate web site templates, and then stop? Or, do they migrate your content from your existing site into the new templates to help you get started faster? Do they have a project portal to track requests, post designs for review, and post work as it is being completed?

3. Do they have versioning and disaster recovery?

Hard drives crash. Work is lost. Bad weather happens. Does the firm make offsite backups, storing your project on a server in another state or on tape in a safe location? Do they version their work, in case they make a mistake and need to get back to yesterday’s work? If not, you could lose time, content, or both.

4. Who owns the original work?

If they used Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and other tools – who owns those files with all of the layers and markup? Do you get copies when they are done, or do they own it all? What if you want to modify one of the image buttons or graphics? What about when the marketing team wants to make a minor change to the wording in an image?

5. Do they offer training and support?

Will they help you get the rest of your team trained to use the new templates and technologies? Do they offer support for the first 90 days or more, to help you get some of the pages fixed that you may have messed up?

6. Do all of their sites look the same?

Some firms do original work once, then use the same set of graphics and web layouts for many customers. If they are focusing regionally, it is even worse when a potential visitor thinks you and another church are copies because your websites look exactly the same!

7. How many staff members do they have?

Things happen – they can lose a key designer or programmer. Someone can get sick, or need to take personal leave due to a sick relative. Can they bring in another staff member should something happen to your current team?

Take the time, interview several firms, and find the one that fits your timeline, design, and process. You are a steward of the money you spend on this, so you are accountable for the outcome. If done properly and with prayer, you can glorify God with a fresh design, bring new visitors into your church, and minister to those in need.

[tags]church web design[/tags]

Remember, everyday you are marketing your church or ministry to potential visitors, existing members, and volunteers (whether you know it or not). If you are not closing the deal over and over by loving on your volunteers, you are missing out. If you are closing the deal on your volunteers once, then loading them with work and sending them out, unministered and unloved, you are missing out as well. Marketing is constant, as is executing your ministry.

Seth Godin’s recent post on The Thing About Coupons outlines some issues he had trying to redeem a coupon:

The clerk handed me the receipt, and I asked, “Where’s the discount? It seems to be missing.” The manager walked over and said that the coupon wasn’t valid because the grill was on sale.

Well, sure, that’s their privilege, but:
They didn’t tell me, I had to ask
The coupon said no such thing
They didn’t even apply the coupon to the non-on-sale other stuff.

So, is your church or ministry doing the same things as Seth or I experienced? Are you putting in caveats, hidden agendas, or inconsistent delivery? Be careful how you execute with your volunteers and visitors – they may just hurt you and those you are trying to reach if you are not ready to execute!

[tags]coupons, bad service, church marketing[/tags]