March 20, 2024 • 36 mins
Embark on a transformative journey with us as Justin Price, Principal and CEO of Vers Creative, lends his extensive expertise to a lively discussion about the intersection of faith and modern marketing. Grapple with the unique challenges churches confront in the digital arena as Justin imparts strategies that blend the best of non-profit wisdom with for-profit innovation. Drawing inspiration from our vibrant encounters within Miami's Vous church community, we dissect the shift from traditional 'come and see' models to dynamic 'go and tell' approaches, pinpointing how religious organizations can authentically extend their reach without betraying their core mission.
Navigate the complex landscape of church marketing with us, where misconceptions often obstruct the path to progress. Justin, a veteran with over twenty years in church work, demolishes these barriers, advocating for the judicious implementation of new technologies amidst budget constraints and previous disappointments. We illuminate the significance of setting measurable goals and unravel the 'why' behind effective marketing tactics. Listen closely as we reveal the secrets to strategic evangelism that is not only quantifiable but also upholds the integrity of the church's outreach efforts.
In our final musings, Justin Price delves into the practicalities of leveraging digital marketing tools to their fullest potential. Discover the intricacies of navigating Google Ad Grants and circumventing the downfalls of monolithic email campaigns. We unravel the importance of targeted advertising and the magic of retargeting initiatives, ensuring that your church's message remains prevalent in the digital cosmos. Tune in for an honest and empowering discourse that promises to reshape your views on branding and its pivotal role in fostering church community growth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Collin (00:08):
Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the
non-profit Renaissance podcast.
I'm one of your co-hosts, Colin.
Heredes (00:15):
And I'm one of your co-hosts.
Collin (00:16):
H and we are back with another super fun episode, a few
episodes.
We're going to do anotherseries, actually with an
incredible guest.
You've heard him before, youknow him, you love him and we
have a great guest today.
Principal and CEO Justin Price.
Justin Price (00:31):
What's up guys?
Thanks for having me back onthe pod.
Heredes (00:33):
What's going on?
Hola Justin¿.
Cómo estás, y estoy español,colin.
Spanish because Justin just dida little Spanish intensive in
Miami the last couple of daysand you went there, sponsored by
Duolingo, to pick up and brushup your Spanish.
Is that correct?
Justin Price (00:50):
First of all, miami just doesn't get the love
it deserves, and I'm a big fanof Miami.
I wasn't always a fan of Miami,but Miami, as I've heard it
referred to.
Heredes (01:02):
Is Will Smith your reference, Colin?
Collin (01:04):
Yes, pretty much about it.
Actually, you heard this songin the 90s.
It's really carried me through.
Heredes (01:11):
Welcome to Miami, Honestly all.
Collin (01:14):
I know of that part is just Miami.
He doesn't know the other.
Oh man, I love Miami.
Heredes (01:20):
I've got mixed feelings .
I've been in Miami for 20 plusyears out there, but that's for
another day.
Another episode.
While we did Spanish, weimmersed ourselves hanging out
with the Voo crew, with the Voochurch yeah.
Hanging out with tons ofpastors.
Justin Price (01:34):
What a cool experience Incredible, I will
say.
I had a moment where I was justlike we work with a lot of
for-profits that are doing greatwork.
We work with a lot ofnonprofits that are doing great
work.
We work with even people likemanufacturers.
But the fourth category ofpeople we work with is churches.
(01:55):
What a how cool that verse.
Got invited to a friends andfamily event at Voo pastors
assembly.
It was us and 500 pastorshanging out and talking about
church work in a way that wasreal To me.
(02:16):
It was pretty raw, it waspretty authentic conversations
For me.
It fired me up on a lot ofthings that we do, that we talk
about for churches and got tohave some phenomenal
conversations which, in thechurch world, this conversation
around marketing We've been verycomfortable to brand it
(02:38):
communications, church comms hasbeen a very safe place.
You try to start talking aboutsales and marketing in a church
like what are we?
doing.
We're putting up some tables atthe temple for Jesus to turn.
Collin (02:53):
Still taboo for sure.
Taboo for sure, yeah.
Justin Price (02:59):
I don't know how to reconcile with everything,
but I think the conversationsthat we're having are debunking
quite a few myths aroundmarketing.
It's really fun.
It's a privilege to get to talkto pastors.
First of all, I have beenserving the church for over two
(03:19):
decades.
I've been on staff at multipleplaces and I've served from
outside of the staff position.
To me, there's no greater honorthan to get to serve somebody
who's full-time just doing thisday in and day out, and doing
this being the hard work that isworking in the church.
I respect the conversations andthe questions and the
(03:42):
challenges.
Collin (03:43):
Quick math how many years Church work?
How many years?
21.
21.
23.
23.
That's 44.
Am I doing that?
Then I'll probably say about 15.
Heredes (03:55):
We're up there.
We're senior citizens.
Collin (04:02):
Basically one retired pastor who started when he was
born.
Heredes (04:06):
What's neat, Justin.
I wanted to get to the Miamiscene First.
We talked to 30 plus pastors,while hanging there and
sometimes answering the samequestion and debunking some
marketing myths or opportunitiesthat are usually not front and
center with ministry and withpastors, or what they learn in
seminary or what they get at thepastors conference.
That's a cool thing about Voobeing forward thinking Rich
(04:28):
Wilkerson Jr, DC and the wholeteam, Adrian how they tackle and
how they take on ministry andreaching Miami and beyond is
awesome.
There's an alignment there withus.
It's great.
Miami is rocking it becausesame day this is how Miami is
crazy we had the divided andconquer.
We had some of our partners andchurches and friends that we
know down the street at anotherevent, city to city, also a
(04:50):
whole another network of pastorsgrowing and leading Voo rocking
it with 500 plus pastors allover the nation.
The conversation was similar onreaching, on growing the 10
million plus in the vicinity.
Justin Price (05:02):
How do you build a platform in which you can
communicate in today'scommunication style, like how do
we actually like?
How do you leverage somethingfor good?
Heredes (05:14):
and the difference, justins, of the traditional come
and see, which I think we'vedone, some mostly done well,
come and see, build it, buildthe steeple Boom, get the people
.
Don't miss out which is outthis week best ever.
Don't miss out.
Come, come and see, as opposedto the commission of go and tell
and that send out and what thatdigital marketing.
Truly Start there, justin.
(05:36):
What is marketing?
What do we need marketing?
Does the church need marketing?
And?
And debunk that because we hada lot of conversations and broke
down some taboos.
That was really encouraging tosee pastors who get it while
down in Miami, but I wanted ourlisteners, you know, across the
nation, to to get glimpse of theconversations we had.
Sure.
Justin Price (05:52):
I think and I think this is a pretty
applicable for nonprofits andfor-profit leaders to to
understand some of theseprinciples to.
But but to look at it from thelens of the church, you know,
for me these marketingprinciples were things like
Social media channels.
You can do content marketing onsocial media and we already
(06:13):
like, we're pretty much justcontent generation houses as
churches, right, and, and that'smore or less, we're education
content generating houses.
Well, there's a full way inwhich that can happen and spread
through the world Veryseamlessly.
But oftentimes we put in, youknow, let's just say you're,
you're a good, healthy, likeCongregation that's been around
(06:37):
for a while and maybe they wererunning like a two million
dollar operating budget and they, whatever their church size is
maybe it's a thousand people,maybe it's 500 people, whatever
that is they're spending twomillion dollars to serve those
people in the community aroundthem.
For a small amount more, theycould like five percent more.
(06:57):
Quick math on that, Colin.
Collin (07:00):
Yeah, it's about you give or take.
Carry the one, it's, it's ahundred.
It's a little more than that,yeah yeah, he's gonna post
produce that answer.
Heredes (07:08):
The answer is and we're back right.
Justin Price (07:12):
So for like a hundred grand more, you could do
things totally differently Ifyou were to do how, hire like a
marketing person on staff todistribute what you do as a
content house and as an educator.
Meaning that it costs us so muchto bring people to come and see
, to put a building over theirheads and to get them to
(07:33):
continue to come back and toparticipate and to pastor them
and to Keep the lights on andall that kind of stuff.
Right, there's this likebaseline cost.
But then there is another wayin which communicating, in which
you can go and tell for likefive percent Unless even just go
crazy, or ten percent more, youstart distributing that same
content.
You could have twice as manypeople, three times as many
(07:56):
people now being engaged,because you, you went in, you
told and you left, and so youknow marketing is, is the
scientific side of communicatinga with Measurable, tangible.
You know, I really I considerthe marketing versus
communication being a goaldriven and measurable Objective
(08:18):
for communications.
And so this is where this getsreally tricky, because a lot of
us who went to seminary Went toseminary before there was a
thing called the internet.
Hmm and before we had cellphones and a lot of people who
went to seminary, who areleading churches today.
Facts were taught how to teachthe Bible.
They were taught how to readthe Bible, how to understand the
(08:39):
Bible, how to Interpret theBible.
They were taught Greek.
They were taught Hebrew.
They were not taught how tocode.
They were not taught what web 3is or what web 2.0 is or what
email 2.0 is.
Those are just technologysolutions in which we can
communicate, and marketing isgoal oriented, measurable paths
(09:01):
and systems in which we try tocommunicate in a way in which is
effective.
And so, if you're thinking likethat, we've got the the idea
down that there areopportunities for us to use
these tools and technology togrow.
I think there's a lot ofchurches in the early 2000s that
that captured that withpodcasting.
(09:22):
So they started distributingtheir message on a free tool or
a very low-cost tool, you know,typically like a couple hundred
dollars for hosting podcasts andyou can get thousands and
thousands of downloads.
Then some churches started tofigure out how to utilize
YouTube and some churchesstarted to figure out how to
Distribute in broadcast onFacebook.
(09:42):
So they were using thecommunication channels and the
technology and they wereuncomfortable with that because
they were.
They were comfortable with thatbecause they could give one
staff member that work and say,take on a little bit of that
work.
Our tech guy or our worship guyor Communications girl or guy
Gets to do that work.
And we're just gonna keep doingthe same thing We've always
(10:04):
done.
We're gonna have people come in, but we'll now take that
message that we did inside andwe're gonna now distribute that
out.
Still not marketing, but it'ssuper confusing because those
people most of the time weren'tactually trained in marketing.
There's a when we hire amarketer I Think this is a good
context.
When we hire a marketer at atverse, we will usually get
(10:27):
between 600 and 1200applications for a marketing
role.
We're not a super big agency.
We are faith-based.
We have we've got somecontroversial clients, like a
secular marketer may be like Idon't know if I wanna work with
churches or some of theorganizations we work with.
Heredes (10:48):
Let's name them.
Justin Price (10:49):
Like the pro-life, specifically the pro-life work
that we do Positive controversy.
Yeah, but in the marketing worldwe will still eat despite all
of that, we'll get 600 to 1200applicants in.
I will test those people onwhat they actually understand
from like marketing through.
We have kind of like a seriesof steps in which people will
(11:13):
try to filter out people whodon't really know what they're
doing.
We usually get that down toabout 25 people who actually
know what they're doing, meaningthat they actually have done it
, they have experience, not justthey understand the concepts
and they fully understand whatit means to set a measurable
goal, monitor that goal, deliveron that goal, make the
(11:36):
adjustments necessary tomaximize the efforts being spent
to hit that goal and that likethat work is.
It takes some talent, it takessome time, it takes those.
I mean that takes a lot of workto develop that.
When I first started and a lotof people first started I did
things like I ran like contenton Facebook for churches and it
(12:03):
was like because we starteddoing this we would talk about.
We started with like come tochurch or here's like what we're
doing at our church on Facebook, and then I would take it and I
would go like that's not thatimportant to people who don't go
to this church, right, but wewould do like a video for an
event that was for the communityor what it really performed.
(12:23):
The best was honestly alwaysthe missions work, like the
outreach work, and people wouldfrom the church would share the
outreach work because they werereally proud that their church
was actually doing outreach workand the people from the
community actually responded tothat.
And then I figured out, likethat work took me let's just say
that took me five hours, maybe10 hours, to get the video edit
(12:45):
and everything.
That work was the best content.
But then and let's just saythat the average employee is
cost the church like 25 bucks anhour, right, so it cost the
church like $250 with theresources to make that piece of
content.
What clicked for me wasunderstanding that if I paid
Facebook $50, I got 10 times thereach.
(13:08):
So now the church paid 250, somecost 250 to make the content
and to put it up there For $300,instead of 100 people engaging,
we got a thousand engagements.
That thing was not that hard.
That was not that hard.
What we do today, comparativelike to the landscape today, 10
(13:28):
years ago that was not that hard.
And so a lot of people havecommunications jobs and a lot of
people who have marketing jobs.
They have sustained successbecause of their did something
that simple, including myself.
The problem is is that to stayrelevant and to be working with
bigger companies, to work withbillion dollar brands, to work
with $100 million non-profits,you can't get by with just what
(13:52):
you did 10 years ago and,honestly, we hardly can ever get
by with what we did last year.
And so the culture we have hereis this culture of constant
growth, of constant monitoring,of constant improvement and
iterative approaches toeverything, because that's what
it takes to actually be good atthis.
And so when we talk aboutmarketing, we talk about myths.
There's just a lot of peoplewho have good hearts.
(14:14):
There's also a lot of peoplewho know a lot about one piece
they may know a lot about, theymay have figured out how to do
content marketing really well,but they don't understand how to
do the ad buying.
They may understand a lot aboutad buying for a certain like
for a type of thing.
We've worked with marketers whoare awesome at product
advertising and using digitalmarketing and blogs and content
(14:38):
generation for products that areunder $100, but they could not
sell services that are $50,000services with any of the things
that they figured out with that.
And so we get these big pools ofpeople who are like I can do
marketing and they really canonly do a small piece of this.
And churches, I think, have hadthose people in their
(15:01):
congregations with good heartsand they've said pay me to do
this or let me spend some of thechurch's money to do these
advertises.
Like I'm doing this blog thing,I'm a popular this or that or
whatever, or this has worked forme in the past years, and then
the pastors are like we triedthat already.
It didn't really work with thatparticular person, and so
that's kind of the landscapewe're sitting in right now is
(15:23):
like there's very few people whohave been as focused on a demo
as we have with church work, andso the conversations are
different, they're unique andthey're challenging to go.
What is next and what should webe doing?
And how do we apply thisgoal-oriented, money-driven
results, checked, accountablecommunications?
(15:48):
When we can heart, we're justlike happy, you know, if our
people show up and we can pulloff Sunday.
So you know there's a big gapthere.
Heredes (15:56):
I love what you're saying, justin.
One, it's distribution is notenough, right?
I think you got eight-year-oldsdistributing stuff on YouTube
like crazy.
And so that strategy, that lastand that actual the marketing
piece, I love it because it'sevangelism right, but 2.3, 4.0,
where it's strategic evangelism,it's still doing what the
church is called to do, but nowit's trackable, measured, it's
(16:20):
effective and efficient.
I'm going to flip it on you herereal quick, putting on my XP,
my senior pastor hat, because Isat on that chair where I've got
to sign the checks, I've got tomanage the budget and I'm like,
yeah, but I can't see or feelor touch that.
Justin, that's pretty, it'scool, I'm happy that the
content's getting out there, butnow you're telling me to pay
(16:41):
Facebook for more.
I don't want to give that guy,I don't want to give that
platform, I don't want to paythat tool and I've been on both
sides and that's a tough sellbecause I'd rather pay for
somebody else to do more stuffover here next to me that I can
see, rather than do the extra 50bucks.
Justin Price (16:57):
You'd rather have like another employee.
Heredes (16:59):
That's typically what I hear and typically the
challenge.
Or why not give this person araise to just do more of the
YouTube thing, or to do more ofthe same thing they're doing?
Collin (17:07):
because that's easier to see and verify as opposed to,
or are those people even real orwhat?
Heredes (17:13):
So talk to me about those, because we talk with
pastors that that's continuallythe tension.
We have a guarantee They'veseen results.
Our case studies in our trackrecord speaks for itself, but
it's still something they haveto overcome.
What would you tell the pastorthinking that's like dude,
that's.
I'm sure that's great.
I mean, you know there's, we'llleave it to Amazon and Apple
(17:33):
and people selling to us.
They've got the millions andmillions.
Justin Price (17:37):
We should only leave this technology to the
growing organizations in theworld.
Heredes (17:43):
Basic, which is so sad.
Right, Because we experiencedit, we know it's effective and
but there's still a fear toembrace it and to make the jump
or to take the risk.
Justin Price (17:53):
Well, I'm empathetic to the fear because I
myself have failed plenty oftimes, and so most of these
pastors.
They're not fearful becausethey're scared of doing of God,
doing a new thing or of doingsomething new, but because
they've been burned.
So I'm empathetic to the fear,which is what why I typically
would say, like the bestrelationships with us always
(18:16):
start small.
It's not a big bite.
You don't have to bite off abig salary is worth of work to
see the results.
The biggest challenge isconnecting the gap between what
is working and why it's workingwhen it comes to terms of
affecting the actual ministryobjectives.
We we were doing a discoverywith the church last week.
(18:39):
This is the first time thatchurch came back and said our
goals that we want you to helpus reverse engineer would not be
just butts and seeds, whichtypically it's like that's
really the thing is like anybodycould kind of like come in and
be like.
I'm not as convinced that likeonline attendance is that big of
a deal, even though we knowthat's like kind of the first
(18:59):
place most people will checkyour church out is they'll watch
it online first.
So that's a leading indicator.
We start to set goals like we'lldo baseline measurements, year
over year measurements, becausethere's pretty big swings
seasonally Within churches, solike a month over month isn't
gonna tell us that valuableinformation, but if we can look
at the last couple years of dataon your website traffic, we
(19:22):
also put in tools where we canwatch people who come from ads
and see what they do on yourwebsite.
Heredes (19:28):
Well, you can do that.
Why would you do that?
That's a net the cool.
It's not just in.
No the Bible said I don't know,well, no, but that's a it's
creepy since I've entered thisworld is super creepy and the
but it's not, but it's not.
But it is right, but it's not,because I think we've all been
through the information.
Information's out there.
The wrong people are buying itand using for bad yeah, yeah.
(19:51):
So talk to me a little bitabout that, because people don't
know.
Justin Price (19:54):
I guess my the point to answer your question is
there is technology in place inwhich we can track the
advertising and the work thatwe're doing with, with marketing
, whether that is an email thatyou're sending out to your
congregation or to somebodywho's interested in helping with
a donation or a capitalcampaign.
Heredes (20:12):
and Most churches are stuck at 1.0 still, when even
with things as simple as emailoh right, we can do a whole
episode on that, by the way,right, just sending out emails
in two thousands, it's notenough so marketing like good
marketing would be to saySending email was the first
thing and most of us are like wesend out.
Justin Price (20:30):
I love this.
Whenever I'm like, tell meabout your email system.
When talking to church, they'relike we do.
We got a, we got somebody who'sdoing email blast.
I know it.
We send now email blasts everyweek because I delete it and
I'll be like, okay, cool, whatare the metrics on that?
Heredes (20:46):
What is?
What's that?
What do you mean?
Metrics.
Justin Price (20:47):
That means, and they're typically like we don't
do like we don't stand here inAmerica.
Collin (20:52):
We don't do that.
Justin Price (20:58):
So we'll look at.
We'll look at things like theopen rate, right, but lots of
times are still bad data.
Heredes (21:05):
So Google is actually sending you to junk Email that
you, your domain, is actuallygetting D-ranked and Google
listings because you send outthese e-blasts 1.0 style, which
is just pray out there and spraybaby which is such a waste,
because a staff member will getdiscouraged or feel like they're
(21:27):
doing the work of the Lord andwe sent it to 50,000 people
without knowing that no oneopened it, nobody clicked it,
nobody got the information.
Collin (21:34):
I'm hurting your 5,000 people in your area is 5,000
people up in Canada.
Yes 5,000 people out and youknow.
Heredes (21:41):
Yes, exactly.
Well, justin, speak to thisbecause this was part of the
conversation and we can doepisodes and episodes of this
and this is Going to be a littlebit of the secret sauce.
And, by the way, when he saysdiscovery road mapping for those
who don't know, part of theprocess, the strategic process,
reverse and how we engage withour partners and why we've seen
the retention and the successrate We've seen over the last
decade is starting with thatstrategy.
So it's typically four to fivesessions, two hours of pop, with
(22:03):
our teams reverse engineering,discovering, understanding the
goals, vision, mission andReverse engineering the goals
and what you want to achieve.
So when he says discovery andverse thrives in doing those, we
do the monthly with thepartners, virtually all around
and in person.
So that's what that is.
When he says discover, it's notjust a ten minute discovery call
and I'm trying to sell you somewidget.
It's not that.
(22:24):
Did I say discovery?
You did that.
Now it's it's, it's set, it'sset in.
But that's what that is.
It's us discovering the goalsand then working backwards to
really see how we can help you.
It's not one size fits all,however.
The tools are Interchangeableand that's the beauty that we
can challenge.
But I do want to talk about themyths with Google ads, because
(22:44):
most churches we talked to ohyeah, I paid somebody over there
400 bucks a month and they, man, they got me the Google grant
and they manage it and we triedit for a year and they saw squat
so they went to a conferenceand they're like I heard
Google's giving out ten thousanddollars a month in ad words.
Justin Price (23:01):
Why would I pay For any ads?
Why would it be Fred's?
Yeah, I should be free Google.
Heredes (23:06):
Yeah, they'll try it.
They'll throw money at somebodysolopreneur or a small agency
just doing that, or even a bigagency, or even a big, a lot of
big agencies just oh, we'll getyou in the door and get it that.
And talked about the experiencebecause I even challenged, I
remember, early on, and why not?
Why is that money Not beingchanneled like it should?
What's your experience withthat and what should pastors and
(23:27):
leaders know?
Justin Price (23:28):
all right.
The first thing to know aboutthe Google grant is it is a
Strategic part of Google'sbusiness model in which to do
tax write-offs right, and sothey don't want the attacks
right off part of their businessmodel to cannibalize the
profitable part of the businessmodel, mm-hmm.
Google's ad platform runs offof the basis in which it is the
(23:49):
most desirable keywords are paidfor.
The more desirable they are, theMore beating competition
typically, the more desirablethey are, the more they cost,
right?
So if there is 10,000 peoplewho search church near me,
google wants you to pay for thatif you want to show up first
(24:10):
when when somebody searcheschurch near me right.
Heredes (24:13):
It's important to know it's an actual bid and auction.
These prices are set based oninterest.
Justin Price (24:18):
Right based on region change from month to
month change.
Heredes (24:20):
So church near me is not gonna be the same in Alaska,
that is, miami or in SouthAfrica, and based on seasons,
based on popular, all of theabove.
So it's a bidding when you talk.
It's not a oh, it's $1 periodacross, it's it bit, it
fluctuates, go ahead but I'vebeen doing this for 10 years.
Justin Price (24:36):
I've never sat down and talked to any church
who did not.
When I say like, hey, how doyou, how do new people find you?
What do they do like, talk methrough.
Well, have somebody new walkedinto your church?
Nobody has said anything otherthan they got invited by a
friend.
But if there's any technology,nobody has said anything more
(24:57):
than they went and they googledchurch near me or a church or
looked for a church on Google.
So there's a few phrases thatare pretty universal around the
country that Google wants you topay for.
Those in most cities those arerunning a couple bucks.
So here's the deal with thegrant.
(25:19):
The grant will give you wordslike up to $1.52, words that are
not valuable.
They're not going to be three,four, five, $10 words.
The reason why people arewilling to pay that much for
those words is because if I canget Eridus to find my church
first and he likes what he seeswhen he clicks on the church,
(25:40):
he's likely to show up.
If I wanted Eridus and hisfamily and he fits the
demographic of the people I want, it's certainly worth $10 to
get Eridus' attention.
The way that the metricstypically look is like I'm going
to see 100 people I want toshow that ad and maybe out of
105 to 10 in a good case with achurch that has a good
(26:03):
reputation, I might get 12, 15,20.
So that's like theclick-through rate is the
percentage out of 100 is goingto be like.
This is how basically good thatad was presented to the
audience that it was shown to.
Heredes (26:20):
Not to lose our listeners here, but Google's
giving me $10,000.
I can use all that money forall that.
Justin Price (26:25):
They're only giving you the words that are
least expensive, like under $2.
They are not the high valuewords that don't convert.
Collin (26:32):
Right.
So someone who doesn't knowanything about this.
They see $10,000 and say, ohcool $10,000, but they don't see
the pool of what they canactually buy with that.
So what do they do from there?
How do we come in and help?
Justin Price (26:42):
Yeah, it's almost like when you're a kid and
you're shopping for Christmaspresents and you're like I want
to buy my dad a grill because Iknow my dad needs a new grill,
and your grandparents give you acouple bucks, or you saved up
that $10 and you're trying toshop and you end up at the
dollar store and all you couldreally afford is that crappy
grill spatula that you still getburned when you use it because
(27:05):
it's only 10 inches long.
That's kind of like shoppingwith the Google Grand for.
Christmas for your dad.
Collin (27:13):
Grandma Google has given you this money, but you said
you can only shop here.
Justin Price (27:16):
It's like that.
It's like you're just pickingup the scraps of AdWords.
It's actually super tough touse the Google Grand.
There's very few agencies thatuse it for all $10,000.
They will set it up, they willtry to get it so that it gets as
much traffic to your site.
Here's the bigger problem,though.
If your agency is trying to getto spend all the $10,000
because they're like they wantyou to feel like they're doing a
(27:38):
good job spending the GoogleGrand meaning like they did a
good job they set it up and theywant you to see all the traffic
go into your site, but it's thewrong traffic, it's bad traffic
.
They literally put words inthere that are not even for the
right people that should becoming to your church.
Then Google looks at yourwebsite and all that traffic,
because people, what they do isthey go on and then they leave
(27:58):
when the second they see likethis is not what I was looking
for.
So what happens to your website?
Organically, it goes down.
The rankings continue to godown because let's click bait
they're bouncing.
So your bounce rate goes up themore that that agency sends the
wrong people to your site.
So then Google, whose job is tofind the right thing for people
(28:22):
and match them as fast to theright thing, or else they go.
I'm going to look for adifferent search engine.
They go.
Well, I'm not going to showthat site again to these people.
I'm not going to show the siteagain to these people.
And slowly but surely, we'll seechurches who are like yeah,
we've been doing Google ads forlike three, four years.
And I'm like, yeah, you guysaren't showing up anywhere.
Yeah, and you're a big churchLike I should be able to find
(28:44):
you locally, if nothing else.
They're like they've got abunch of reviews.
They got a bunch of people whocome to their church every week,
that go to their church website.
Google should be rewarding youfor that.
But you've got somebody overhere who's motivated by the
wrong thing, which is just tospend that Google grant, and has
just blown up your bounce rate.
When you look at the actualanalytics, when you dig the
(29:05):
deeper level than just thesurface vanity metrics, you
start to realize a lot ofchurches are just getting burnt
by people who are and let's behonest like $400.
Most good marketers are worthtwo, three, $400, $500 an hour.
Seriously.
Yeah, you're saying that they'reworth that, so you pay in
somebody 400 bucks a monthYou're not going to get.
(29:26):
You're either getting somebodywho's not worth very much if
they're willing to give like 10,spend 10 hours working on that
at 400, or, mostly the time,what you're getting is you're
getting like A cut in pacecookie cutter, yeah, feel good
Either way, it's not good.
Heredes (29:43):
Yeah and Justin, because I do want to get to the
the bounce rates.
By the way, if that's somebodyjumping on your site and
literally rolling their eyesbecause now they're mad at them,
your site, so the brandimpression there is actually
negative because they're likenot this by they drop out in a
second.
Your site just keeps going tothe back of the list.
Right, you're your dear brand.
We've seen it work in adifferent way, though.
(30:03):
So it's not that the Googlegrant is all bad or it's all.
Takes work, takes strategy.
It takes, you know, tinkeringwith and figuring out the
keywords.
It's not all bad.
Justin Price (30:12):
It's not all bad, so just know, because we're one
really cool strategy we figuredout that's like we did like a
year or two of like we couldn'tspend it.
We couldn't spend the grant, wecouldn't figure out how to use
it.
If we can get enough traffic,if you can pay to play, you can
get the right.
Get good words going, you get.
Start Climbing the rankings.
This is my, my, free tip.
Heredes (30:32):
Yeah, and we, a lot of churches that jump on this find
incredible results and this istime to kind of work we, and
let's share it, because I thinkit's it's it's important.
Justin Price (30:41):
So first of all, like, we'll take all the
low-hanging fruit we can getthat are right, which are gonna
be like the key phrases thathave your church's name in it.
Those are not very expensivewords.
You should be paying for thosewords, just making sure if
someone actually was looking foryou You're, you're gonna show
up and not somebody else wholooks or sounds like you.
So that's the first little freetip is like use the Google
grant for the stuff that's gotyour name in it and all of the
(31:03):
stuff your youth groups nameyou've got that cool funny name
will free your group, whateverit is Put.
Throw that stuff in there too.
Like, so buy those words,because when that mom or dad is
actually looking for you forthat Youth group name, you
should show up on that.
The second thing is when youhave enough good traffic, come
to the site.
(31:24):
There is retargeting.
So Google is not just ad words.
This grant you can also use inGoogle display.
Google display is typically notnearly as effective as an ad
word because it's beingdisplayed out on websites that
may or may not be for yourparticular audience, but you can
put it in the right zip codesand then ultimately, if you can
(31:45):
get a certain number of peopleto your site.
You can turn on a retargetingcampaign.
Retargeting is not thatexpensive and you can spend the
Google grant on retargeting,which means when people come to
your site they will see yourmessaging in a display ad, not I
search.
Heredes (32:01):
A little banner, a little box, little square, a
little yeah typically you put.
Justin Price (32:06):
You know we will load up a bunch of display ads
that are that are Going to beintended for somebody who's
already been to your site, sothe messaging even in that is
now not like you've never heardof us before, but it's like I'm
trying to get you to actuallyshow up to church.
Yeah, because you did check usout at some point and so those
display ads will follow peoplearound this.
(32:27):
This is the kind of annoying adwhen I you've already bought
that pair of shoes and you stillkeep getting targeted for it.
They're not that expensive toto run those across the internet
and to run those across all ofyour phone apps and the Google
display program.
It's a pretty big media programwhich is pretty diverse and
there's a lot of placement forthat.
But that's the way that you canspend the ad grant From Google
(32:51):
and those are those with likethe two.
Two tips is there are valuable,cheap words that you should get
even though I Wouldn't say thatlike if I was to run an ad thing
for you that those are thewords that are like generating
new people, because those arelike people who already want it.
But that is the by far thatretargeting side of it.
(33:12):
Like you put those thingstogether, you get some of the
thousand dollars worth of freewords that are good words.
Get the retargeting going andyou add on like a few thousand
dollars of like really goodAdwords to that thing and you've
got a super powerful.
And I would say Like when wewere looking at churches, I'd
say probably about a onepercentage of the churches are
(33:35):
doing a good job With with thatparticular program.
Collin (33:39):
Hmm, Well, like we said, all of that value was for free
right there, so so you'rewelcome.
Justin Price (33:51):
You've learned Really get our media team and
the ad buying and marketingdirector rather than me.
Heredes (34:00):
But no, Listen, Justin and I know we've known each
other for a few years now, butthe team we fired, the folks
with the experience and theaccess they've had to massive
accounts, is incredible.
Yeah, we've gotten to tap intothat.
It's been eye-opening for me.
Who's been like, just put it onthe billboard or just make more
shirts?
No, listen, there's some valueto that, but that alone is spray
, right, where is it praying?
(34:20):
Spray, spray in May and andhopefully spray it everywhere.
So, and it feels good becauseit's an ego, it's a pat on the
back to my peers, like did yousee my picture over there on
that thing?
Did you get my mailer?
Yeah, amongst all the othertrash, I trashed the track
ability, the next gen, speciallywhich?
Native apps, native tools,native software, native networks
.
It's the language, it's thelanguage and it and you can
(34:42):
target and you can be specificand not just spray.
We're gonna wrap this onebecause there's so much more I
do want to talk about so muchmore and we'll do part two.
Man, we got to do part two onthis, is that?
Collin (34:51):
alright, yeah, we can do a part two on this.
We also.
We also got branding where youtalk about branding coming up,
and and that's gonna be a superfun one as well.
Heredes (34:59):
Branding brand in just a brand D the drink.
Oh uh, that's our other pot.
You have another side podcast.
Yeah, that's right.
Collin (35:07):
We do pay for that one, by the way, I brought to you by
no.
But yeah, we keep keep an eyeout.
We got some some good stuffcoming up.
Justin, thank you for all ofthat insight.
If you want to know more first,creative comm will help you out
.
But thank you so much forlistening.
We will see you next time onthe nonprofit Renaissance.
Outro (35:25):
Thanks again for listening to the nonprofit
Renaissance.
We hope it ignites aRenaissance in you and helps you
go further and grow faster.
Be sure to share, rate andsubscribe and if you'd like to
recommend or be a guest on ourshow, send us an email.
At podcast at first, creativecomm.
Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the
non-profit Renaissance podcast.
I'm one of your co-hosts, Colin.
Heredes (00:15):
And I'm one of your co-hosts.
Collin (00:16):
H and we are back with another super fun episode, a few
episodes.
We're going to do anotherseries, actually with an
incredible guest.
You've heard him before, youknow him, you love him and we
have a great guest today.
Principal and CEO Justin Price.
Justin Price (00:31):
What's up guys?
Thanks for having me back onthe pod.
Heredes (00:33):
What's going on?
Hola Justin¿.
Cómo estás, y estoy español,colin.
Spanish because Justin just dida little Spanish intensive in
Miami the last couple of daysand you went there, sponsored by
Duolingo, to pick up and brushup your Spanish.
Is that correct?
Justin Price (00:50):
First of all, miami just doesn't get the love
it deserves, and I'm a big fanof Miami.
I wasn't always a fan of Miami,but Miami, as I've heard it
referred to.
Heredes (01:02):
Is Will Smith your reference, Colin?
Collin (01:04):
Yes, pretty much about it.
Actually, you heard this songin the 90s.
It's really carried me through.
Heredes (01:11):
Welcome to Miami, Honestly all.
Collin (01:14):
I know of that part is just Miami.
He doesn't know the other.
Oh man, I love Miami.
Heredes (01:20):
I've got mixed feelings .
I've been in Miami for 20 plusyears out there, but that's for
another day.
Another episode.
While we did Spanish, weimmersed ourselves hanging out
with the Voo crew, with the Voochurch yeah.
Hanging out with tons ofpastors.
Justin Price (01:34):
What a cool experience Incredible, I will
say.
I had a moment where I was justlike we work with a lot of
for-profits that are doing greatwork.
We work with a lot ofnonprofits that are doing great
work.
We work with even people likemanufacturers.
But the fourth category ofpeople we work with is churches.
(01:55):
What a how cool that verse.
Got invited to a friends andfamily event at Voo pastors
assembly.
It was us and 500 pastorshanging out and talking about
church work in a way that wasreal To me.
(02:16):
It was pretty raw, it waspretty authentic conversations
For me.
It fired me up on a lot ofthings that we do, that we talk
about for churches and got tohave some phenomenal
conversations which, in thechurch world, this conversation
around marketing We've been verycomfortable to brand it
(02:38):
communications, church comms hasbeen a very safe place.
You try to start talking aboutsales and marketing in a church
like what are we?
doing.
We're putting up some tables atthe temple for Jesus to turn.
Collin (02:53):
Still taboo for sure.
Taboo for sure, yeah.
Justin Price (02:59):
I don't know how to reconcile with everything,
but I think the conversationsthat we're having are debunking
quite a few myths aroundmarketing.
It's really fun.
It's a privilege to get to talkto pastors.
First of all, I have beenserving the church for over two
(03:19):
decades.
I've been on staff at multipleplaces and I've served from
outside of the staff position.
To me, there's no greater honorthan to get to serve somebody
who's full-time just doing thisday in and day out, and doing
this being the hard work that isworking in the church.
I respect the conversations andthe questions and the
(03:42):
challenges.
Collin (03:43):
Quick math how many years Church work?
How many years?
21.
21.
23.
23.
That's 44.
Am I doing that?
Then I'll probably say about 15.
Heredes (03:55):
We're up there.
We're senior citizens.
Collin (04:02):
Basically one retired pastor who started when he was
born.
Heredes (04:06):
What's neat, Justin.
I wanted to get to the Miamiscene First.
We talked to 30 plus pastors,while hanging there and
sometimes answering the samequestion and debunking some
marketing myths or opportunitiesthat are usually not front and
center with ministry and withpastors, or what they learn in
seminary or what they get at thepastors conference.
That's a cool thing about Voobeing forward thinking Rich
(04:28):
Wilkerson Jr, DC and the wholeteam, Adrian how they tackle and
how they take on ministry andreaching Miami and beyond is
awesome.
There's an alignment there withus.
It's great.
Miami is rocking it becausesame day this is how Miami is
crazy we had the divided andconquer.
We had some of our partners andchurches and friends that we
know down the street at anotherevent, city to city, also a
(04:50):
whole another network of pastorsgrowing and leading Voo rocking
it with 500 plus pastors allover the nation.
The conversation was similar onreaching, on growing the 10
million plus in the vicinity.
Justin Price (05:02):
How do you build a platform in which you can
communicate in today'scommunication style, like how do
we actually like?
How do you leverage somethingfor good?
Heredes (05:14):
and the difference, justins, of the traditional come
and see, which I think we'vedone, some mostly done well,
come and see, build it, buildthe steeple Boom, get the people
.
Don't miss out which is outthis week best ever.
Don't miss out.
Come, come and see, as opposedto the commission of go and tell
and that send out and what thatdigital marketing.
Truly Start there, justin.
(05:36):
What is marketing?
What do we need marketing?
Does the church need marketing?
And?
And debunk that because we hada lot of conversations and broke
down some taboos.
That was really encouraging tosee pastors who get it while
down in Miami, but I wanted ourlisteners, you know, across the
nation, to to get glimpse of theconversations we had.
Sure.
Justin Price (05:52):
I think and I think this is a pretty
applicable for nonprofits andfor-profit leaders to to
understand some of theseprinciples to.
But but to look at it from thelens of the church, you know,
for me these marketingprinciples were things like
Social media channels.
You can do content marketing onsocial media and we already
(06:13):
like, we're pretty much justcontent generation houses as
churches, right, and, and that'smore or less, we're education
content generating houses.
Well, there's a full way inwhich that can happen and spread
through the world Veryseamlessly.
But oftentimes we put in, youknow, let's just say you're,
you're a good, healthy, likeCongregation that's been around
(06:37):
for a while and maybe they wererunning like a two million
dollar operating budget and they, whatever their church size is
maybe it's a thousand people,maybe it's 500 people, whatever
that is they're spending twomillion dollars to serve those
people in the community aroundthem.
For a small amount more, theycould like five percent more.
(06:57):
Quick math on that, Colin.
Collin (07:00):
Yeah, it's about you give or take.
Carry the one, it's, it's ahundred.
It's a little more than that,yeah yeah, he's gonna post
produce that answer.
Heredes (07:08):
The answer is and we're back right.
Justin Price (07:12):
So for like a hundred grand more, you could do
things totally differently Ifyou were to do how, hire like a
marketing person on staff todistribute what you do as a
content house and as an educator.
Meaning that it costs us so muchto bring people to come and see
, to put a building over theirheads and to get them to
(07:33):
continue to come back and toparticipate and to pastor them
and to Keep the lights on andall that kind of stuff.
Right, there's this likebaseline cost.
But then there is another wayin which communicating, in which
you can go and tell for likefive percent Unless even just go
crazy, or ten percent more, youstart distributing that same
content.
You could have twice as manypeople, three times as many
(07:56):
people now being engaged,because you, you went in, you
told and you left, and so youknow marketing is, is the
scientific side of communicatinga with Measurable, tangible.
You know, I really I considerthe marketing versus
communication being a goaldriven and measurable Objective
(08:18):
for communications.
And so this is where this getsreally tricky, because a lot of
us who went to seminary Went toseminary before there was a
thing called the internet.
Hmm and before we had cellphones and a lot of people who
went to seminary, who areleading churches today.
Facts were taught how to teachthe Bible.
They were taught how to readthe Bible, how to understand the
(08:39):
Bible, how to Interpret theBible.
They were taught Greek.
They were taught Hebrew.
They were not taught how tocode.
They were not taught what web 3is or what web 2.0 is or what
email 2.0 is.
Those are just technologysolutions in which we can
communicate, and marketing isgoal oriented, measurable paths
(09:01):
and systems in which we try tocommunicate in a way in which is
effective.
And so, if you're thinking likethat, we've got the the idea
down that there areopportunities for us to use
these tools and technology togrow.
I think there's a lot ofchurches in the early 2000s that
that captured that withpodcasting.
(09:22):
So they started distributingtheir message on a free tool or
a very low-cost tool, you know,typically like a couple hundred
dollars for hosting podcasts andyou can get thousands and
thousands of downloads.
Then some churches started tofigure out how to utilize
YouTube and some churchesstarted to figure out how to
Distribute in broadcast onFacebook.
(09:42):
So they were using thecommunication channels and the
technology and they wereuncomfortable with that because
they were.
They were comfortable with thatbecause they could give one
staff member that work and say,take on a little bit of that
work.
Our tech guy or our worship guyor Communications girl or guy
Gets to do that work.
And we're just gonna keep doingthe same thing We've always
(10:04):
done.
We're gonna have people come in, but we'll now take that
message that we did inside andwe're gonna now distribute that
out.
Still not marketing, but it'ssuper confusing because those
people most of the time weren'tactually trained in marketing.
There's a when we hire amarketer I Think this is a good
context.
When we hire a marketer at atverse, we will usually get
(10:27):
between 600 and 1200applications for a marketing
role.
We're not a super big agency.
We are faith-based.
We have we've got somecontroversial clients, like a
secular marketer may be like Idon't know if I wanna work with
churches or some of theorganizations we work with.
Heredes (10:48):
Let's name them.
Justin Price (10:49):
Like the pro-life, specifically the pro-life work
that we do Positive controversy.
Yeah, but in the marketing worldwe will still eat despite all
of that, we'll get 600 to 1200applicants in.
I will test those people onwhat they actually understand
from like marketing through.
We have kind of like a seriesof steps in which people will
(11:13):
try to filter out people whodon't really know what they're
doing.
We usually get that down toabout 25 people who actually
know what they're doing, meaningthat they actually have done it
, they have experience, not justthey understand the concepts
and they fully understand whatit means to set a measurable
goal, monitor that goal, deliveron that goal, make the
(11:36):
adjustments necessary tomaximize the efforts being spent
to hit that goal and that likethat work is.
It takes some talent, it takessome time, it takes those.
I mean that takes a lot of workto develop that.
When I first started and a lotof people first started I did
things like I ran like contenton Facebook for churches and it
(12:03):
was like because we starteddoing this we would talk about.
We started with like come tochurch or here's like what we're
doing at our church on Facebook, and then I would take it and I
would go like that's not thatimportant to people who don't go
to this church, right, but wewould do like a video for an
event that was for the communityor what it really performed.
(12:23):
The best was honestly alwaysthe missions work, like the
outreach work, and people wouldfrom the church would share the
outreach work because they werereally proud that their church
was actually doing outreach workand the people from the
community actually responded tothat.
And then I figured out, likethat work took me let's just say
that took me five hours, maybe10 hours, to get the video edit
(12:45):
and everything.
That work was the best content.
But then and let's just saythat the average employee is
cost the church like 25 bucks anhour, right, so it cost the
church like $250 with theresources to make that piece of
content.
What clicked for me wasunderstanding that if I paid
Facebook $50, I got 10 times thereach.
(13:08):
So now the church paid 250, somecost 250 to make the content
and to put it up there For $300,instead of 100 people engaging,
we got a thousand engagements.
That thing was not that hard.
That was not that hard.
What we do today, comparativelike to the landscape today, 10
(13:28):
years ago that was not that hard.
And so a lot of people havecommunications jobs and a lot of
people who have marketing jobs.
They have sustained successbecause of their did something
that simple, including myself.
The problem is is that to stayrelevant and to be working with
bigger companies, to work withbillion dollar brands, to work
with $100 million non-profits,you can't get by with just what
(13:52):
you did 10 years ago and,honestly, we hardly can ever get
by with what we did last year.
And so the culture we have hereis this culture of constant
growth, of constant monitoring,of constant improvement and
iterative approaches toeverything, because that's what
it takes to actually be good atthis.
And so when we talk aboutmarketing, we talk about myths.
There's just a lot of peoplewho have good hearts.
(14:14):
There's also a lot of peoplewho know a lot about one piece
they may know a lot about, theymay have figured out how to do
content marketing really well,but they don't understand how to
do the ad buying.
They may understand a lot aboutad buying for a certain like
for a type of thing.
We've worked with marketers whoare awesome at product
advertising and using digitalmarketing and blogs and content
(14:38):
generation for products that areunder $100, but they could not
sell services that are $50,000services with any of the things
that they figured out with that.
And so we get these big pools ofpeople who are like I can do
marketing and they really canonly do a small piece of this.
And churches, I think, have hadthose people in their
(15:01):
congregations with good heartsand they've said pay me to do
this or let me spend some of thechurch's money to do these
advertises.
Like I'm doing this blog thing,I'm a popular this or that or
whatever, or this has worked forme in the past years, and then
the pastors are like we triedthat already.
It didn't really work with thatparticular person, and so
that's kind of the landscapewe're sitting in right now is
(15:23):
like there's very few people whohave been as focused on a demo
as we have with church work, andso the conversations are
different, they're unique andthey're challenging to go.
What is next and what should webe doing?
And how do we apply thisgoal-oriented, money-driven
results, checked, accountablecommunications?
(15:48):
When we can heart, we're justlike happy, you know, if our
people show up and we can pulloff Sunday.
So you know there's a big gapthere.
Heredes (15:56):
I love what you're saying, justin.
One, it's distribution is notenough, right?
I think you got eight-year-oldsdistributing stuff on YouTube
like crazy.
And so that strategy, that lastand that actual the marketing
piece, I love it because it'sevangelism right, but 2.3, 4.0,
where it's strategic evangelism,it's still doing what the
church is called to do, but nowit's trackable, measured, it's
(16:20):
effective and efficient.
I'm going to flip it on you herereal quick, putting on my XP,
my senior pastor hat, because Isat on that chair where I've got
to sign the checks, I've got tomanage the budget and I'm like,
yeah, but I can't see or feelor touch that.
Justin, that's pretty, it'scool, I'm happy that the
content's getting out there, butnow you're telling me to pay
(16:41):
Facebook for more.
I don't want to give that guy,I don't want to give that
platform, I don't want to paythat tool and I've been on both
sides and that's a tough sellbecause I'd rather pay for
somebody else to do more stuffover here next to me that I can
see, rather than do the extra 50bucks.
Justin Price (16:57):
You'd rather have like another employee.
Heredes (16:59):
That's typically what I hear and typically the
challenge.
Or why not give this person araise to just do more of the
YouTube thing, or to do more ofthe same thing they're doing?
Collin (17:07):
because that's easier to see and verify as opposed to,
or are those people even real orwhat?
Heredes (17:13):
So talk to me about those, because we talk with
pastors that that's continuallythe tension.
We have a guarantee They'veseen results.
Our case studies in our trackrecord speaks for itself, but
it's still something they haveto overcome.
What would you tell the pastorthinking that's like dude,
that's.
I'm sure that's great.
I mean, you know there's, we'llleave it to Amazon and Apple
(17:33):
and people selling to us.
They've got the millions andmillions.
Justin Price (17:37):
We should only leave this technology to the
growing organizations in theworld.
Heredes (17:43):
Basic, which is so sad.
Right, Because we experiencedit, we know it's effective and
but there's still a fear toembrace it and to make the jump
or to take the risk.
Justin Price (17:53):
Well, I'm empathetic to the fear because I
myself have failed plenty oftimes, and so most of these
pastors.
They're not fearful becausethey're scared of doing of God,
doing a new thing or of doingsomething new, but because
they've been burned.
So I'm empathetic to the fear,which is what why I typically
would say, like the bestrelationships with us always
(18:16):
start small.
It's not a big bite.
You don't have to bite off abig salary is worth of work to
see the results.
The biggest challenge isconnecting the gap between what
is working and why it's workingwhen it comes to terms of
affecting the actual ministryobjectives.
We we were doing a discoverywith the church last week.
(18:39):
This is the first time thatchurch came back and said our
goals that we want you to helpus reverse engineer would not be
just butts and seeds, whichtypically it's like that's
really the thing is like anybodycould kind of like come in and
be like.
I'm not as convinced that likeonline attendance is that big of
a deal, even though we knowthat's like kind of the first
(18:59):
place most people will checkyour church out is they'll watch
it online first.
So that's a leading indicator.
We start to set goals like we'lldo baseline measurements, year
over year measurements, becausethere's pretty big swings
seasonally Within churches, solike a month over month isn't
gonna tell us that valuableinformation, but if we can look
at the last couple years of dataon your website traffic, we
(19:22):
also put in tools where we canwatch people who come from ads
and see what they do on yourwebsite.
Heredes (19:28):
Well, you can do that.
Why would you do that?
That's a net the cool.
It's not just in.
No the Bible said I don't know,well, no, but that's a it's
creepy since I've entered thisworld is super creepy and the
but it's not, but it's not.
But it is right, but it's not,because I think we've all been
through the information.
Information's out there.
The wrong people are buying itand using for bad yeah, yeah.
(19:51):
So talk to me a little bitabout that, because people don't
know.
Justin Price (19:54):
I guess my the point to answer your question is
there is technology in place inwhich we can track the
advertising and the work thatwe're doing with, with marketing
, whether that is an email thatyou're sending out to your
congregation or to somebodywho's interested in helping with
a donation or a capitalcampaign.
Heredes (20:12):
and Most churches are stuck at 1.0 still, when even
with things as simple as emailoh right, we can do a whole
episode on that, by the way,right, just sending out emails
in two thousands, it's notenough so marketing like good
marketing would be to saySending email was the first
thing and most of us are like wesend out.
Justin Price (20:30):
I love this.
Whenever I'm like, tell meabout your email system.
When talking to church, they'relike we do.
We got a, we got somebody who'sdoing email blast.
I know it.
We send now email blasts everyweek because I delete it and
I'll be like, okay, cool, whatare the metrics on that?
Heredes (20:46):
What is?
What's that?
What do you mean?
Metrics.
Justin Price (20:47):
That means, and they're typically like we don't
do like we don't stand here inAmerica.
Collin (20:52):
We don't do that.
Justin Price (20:58):
So we'll look at.
We'll look at things like theopen rate, right, but lots of
times are still bad data.
Heredes (21:05):
So Google is actually sending you to junk Email that
you, your domain, is actuallygetting D-ranked and Google
listings because you send outthese e-blasts 1.0 style, which
is just pray out there and spraybaby which is such a waste,
because a staff member will getdiscouraged or feel like they're
(21:27):
doing the work of the Lord andwe sent it to 50,000 people
without knowing that no oneopened it, nobody clicked it,
nobody got the information.
Collin (21:34):
I'm hurting your 5,000 people in your area is 5,000
people up in Canada.
Yes 5,000 people out and youknow.
Heredes (21:41):
Yes, exactly.
Well, justin, speak to thisbecause this was part of the
conversation and we can doepisodes and episodes of this
and this is Going to be a littlebit of the secret sauce.
And, by the way, when he saysdiscovery road mapping for those
who don't know, part of theprocess, the strategic process,
reverse and how we engage withour partners and why we've seen
the retention and the successrate We've seen over the last
decade is starting with thatstrategy.
So it's typically four to fivesessions, two hours of pop, with
(22:03):
our teams reverse engineering,discovering, understanding the
goals, vision, mission andReverse engineering the goals
and what you want to achieve.
So when he says discovery andverse thrives in doing those, we
do the monthly with thepartners, virtually all around
and in person.
So that's what that is.
When he says discover, it's notjust a ten minute discovery call
and I'm trying to sell you somewidget.
It's not that.
(22:24):
Did I say discovery?
You did that.
Now it's it's, it's set, it'sset in.
But that's what that is.
It's us discovering the goalsand then working backwards to
really see how we can help you.
It's not one size fits all,however.
The tools are Interchangeableand that's the beauty that we
can challenge.
But I do want to talk about themyths with Google ads, because
(22:44):
most churches we talked to ohyeah, I paid somebody over there
400 bucks a month and they, man, they got me the Google grant
and they manage it and we triedit for a year and they saw squat
so they went to a conferenceand they're like I heard
Google's giving out ten thousanddollars a month in ad words.
Justin Price (23:01):
Why would I pay For any ads?
Why would it be Fred's?
Yeah, I should be free Google.
Heredes (23:06):
Yeah, they'll try it.
They'll throw money at somebodysolopreneur or a small agency
just doing that, or even a bigagency, or even a big, a lot of
big agencies just oh, we'll getyou in the door and get it that.
And talked about the experiencebecause I even challenged, I
remember, early on, and why not?
Why is that money Not beingchanneled like it should?
What's your experience withthat and what should pastors and
(23:27):
leaders know?
Justin Price (23:28):
all right.
The first thing to know aboutthe Google grant is it is a
Strategic part of Google'sbusiness model in which to do
tax write-offs right, and sothey don't want the attacks
right off part of their businessmodel to cannibalize the
profitable part of the businessmodel, mm-hmm.
Google's ad platform runs offof the basis in which it is the
(23:49):
most desirable keywords are paidfor.
The more desirable they are, theMore beating competition
typically, the more desirablethey are, the more they cost,
right?
So if there is 10,000 peoplewho search church near me,
google wants you to pay for thatif you want to show up first
(24:10):
when when somebody searcheschurch near me right.
Heredes (24:13):
It's important to know it's an actual bid and auction.
These prices are set based oninterest.
Justin Price (24:18):
Right based on region change from month to
month change.
Heredes (24:20):
So church near me is not gonna be the same in Alaska,
that is, miami or in SouthAfrica, and based on seasons,
based on popular, all of theabove.
So it's a bidding when you talk.
It's not a oh, it's $1 periodacross, it's it bit, it
fluctuates, go ahead but I'vebeen doing this for 10 years.
Justin Price (24:36):
I've never sat down and talked to any church
who did not.
When I say like, hey, how doyou, how do new people find you?
What do they do like, talk methrough.
Well, have somebody new walkedinto your church?
Nobody has said anything otherthan they got invited by a
friend.
But if there's any technology,nobody has said anything more
(24:57):
than they went and they googledchurch near me or a church or
looked for a church on Google.
So there's a few phrases thatare pretty universal around the
country that Google wants you topay for.
Those in most cities those arerunning a couple bucks.
So here's the deal with thegrant.
(25:19):
The grant will give you wordslike up to $1.52, words that are
not valuable.
They're not going to be three,four, five, $10 words.
The reason why people arewilling to pay that much for
those words is because if I canget Eridus to find my church
first and he likes what he seeswhen he clicks on the church,
(25:40):
he's likely to show up.
If I wanted Eridus and hisfamily and he fits the
demographic of the people I want, it's certainly worth $10 to
get Eridus' attention.
The way that the metricstypically look is like I'm going
to see 100 people I want toshow that ad and maybe out of
105 to 10 in a good case with achurch that has a good
(26:03):
reputation, I might get 12, 15,20.
So that's like theclick-through rate is the
percentage out of 100 is goingto be like.
This is how basically good thatad was presented to the
audience that it was shown to.
Heredes (26:20):
Not to lose our listeners here, but Google's
giving me $10,000.
I can use all that money forall that.
Justin Price (26:25):
They're only giving you the words that are
least expensive, like under $2.
They are not the high valuewords that don't convert.
Collin (26:32):
Right.
So someone who doesn't knowanything about this.
They see $10,000 and say, ohcool $10,000, but they don't see
the pool of what they canactually buy with that.
So what do they do from there?
How do we come in and help?
Justin Price (26:42):
Yeah, it's almost like when you're a kid and
you're shopping for Christmaspresents and you're like I want
to buy my dad a grill because Iknow my dad needs a new grill,
and your grandparents give you acouple bucks, or you saved up
that $10 and you're trying toshop and you end up at the
dollar store and all you couldreally afford is that crappy
grill spatula that you still getburned when you use it because
(27:05):
it's only 10 inches long.
That's kind of like shoppingwith the Google Grand for.
Christmas for your dad.
Collin (27:13):
Grandma Google has given you this money, but you said
you can only shop here.
Justin Price (27:16):
It's like that.
It's like you're just pickingup the scraps of AdWords.
It's actually super tough touse the Google Grand.
There's very few agencies thatuse it for all $10,000.
They will set it up, they willtry to get it so that it gets as
much traffic to your site.
Here's the bigger problem,though.
If your agency is trying to getto spend all the $10,000
because they're like they wantyou to feel like they're doing a
(27:38):
good job spending the GoogleGrand meaning like they did a
good job they set it up and theywant you to see all the traffic
go into your site, but it's thewrong traffic, it's bad traffic
.
They literally put words inthere that are not even for the
right people that should becoming to your church.
Then Google looks at yourwebsite and all that traffic,
because people, what they do isthey go on and then they leave
(27:58):
when the second they see likethis is not what I was looking
for.
So what happens to your website?
Organically, it goes down.
The rankings continue to godown because let's click bait
they're bouncing.
So your bounce rate goes up themore that that agency sends the
wrong people to your site.
So then Google, whose job is tofind the right thing for people
(28:22):
and match them as fast to theright thing, or else they go.
I'm going to look for adifferent search engine.
They go.
Well, I'm not going to showthat site again to these people.
I'm not going to show the siteagain to these people.
And slowly but surely, we'll seechurches who are like yeah,
we've been doing Google ads forlike three, four years.
And I'm like, yeah, you guysaren't showing up anywhere.
Yeah, and you're a big churchLike I should be able to find
(28:44):
you locally, if nothing else.
They're like they've got abunch of reviews.
They got a bunch of people whocome to their church every week,
that go to their church website.
Google should be rewarding youfor that.
But you've got somebody overhere who's motivated by the
wrong thing, which is just tospend that Google grant, and has
just blown up your bounce rate.
When you look at the actualanalytics, when you dig the
(29:05):
deeper level than just thesurface vanity metrics, you
start to realize a lot ofchurches are just getting burnt
by people who are and let's behonest like $400.
Most good marketers are worthtwo, three, $400, $500 an hour.
Seriously.
Yeah, you're saying that they'reworth that, so you pay in
somebody 400 bucks a monthYou're not going to get.
(29:26):
You're either getting somebodywho's not worth very much if
they're willing to give like 10,spend 10 hours working on that
at 400, or, mostly the time,what you're getting is you're
getting like A cut in pacecookie cutter, yeah, feel good
Either way, it's not good.
Heredes (29:43):
Yeah and Justin, because I do want to get to the
the bounce rates.
By the way, if that's somebodyjumping on your site and
literally rolling their eyesbecause now they're mad at them,
your site, so the brandimpression there is actually
negative because they're likenot this by they drop out in a
second.
Your site just keeps going tothe back of the list.
Right, you're your dear brand.
We've seen it work in adifferent way, though.
(30:03):
So it's not that the Googlegrant is all bad or it's all.
Takes work, takes strategy.
It takes, you know, tinkeringwith and figuring out the
keywords.
It's not all bad.
Justin Price (30:12):
It's not all bad, so just know, because we're one
really cool strategy we figuredout that's like we did like a
year or two of like we couldn'tspend it.
We couldn't spend the grant, wecouldn't figure out how to use
it.
If we can get enough traffic,if you can pay to play, you can
get the right.
Get good words going, you get.
Start Climbing the rankings.
This is my, my, free tip.
Heredes (30:32):
Yeah, and we, a lot of churches that jump on this find
incredible results and this istime to kind of work we, and
let's share it, because I thinkit's it's it's important.
Justin Price (30:41):
So first of all, like, we'll take all the
low-hanging fruit we can getthat are right, which are gonna
be like the key phrases thathave your church's name in it.
Those are not very expensivewords.
You should be paying for thosewords, just making sure if
someone actually was looking foryou You're, you're gonna show
up and not somebody else wholooks or sounds like you.
So that's the first little freetip is like use the Google
grant for the stuff that's gotyour name in it and all of the
(31:03):
stuff your youth groups nameyou've got that cool funny name
will free your group, whateverit is Put.
Throw that stuff in there too.
Like, so buy those words,because when that mom or dad is
actually looking for you forthat Youth group name, you
should show up on that.
The second thing is when youhave enough good traffic, come
to the site.
(31:24):
There is retargeting.
So Google is not just ad words.
This grant you can also use inGoogle display.
Google display is typically notnearly as effective as an ad
word because it's beingdisplayed out on websites that
may or may not be for yourparticular audience, but you can
put it in the right zip codesand then ultimately, if you can
(31:45):
get a certain number of peopleto your site.
You can turn on a retargetingcampaign.
Retargeting is not thatexpensive and you can spend the
Google grant on retargeting,which means when people come to
your site they will see yourmessaging in a display ad, not I
search.
Heredes (32:01):
A little banner, a little box, little square, a
little yeah typically you put.
Justin Price (32:06):
You know we will load up a bunch of display ads
that are that are Going to beintended for somebody who's
already been to your site, sothe messaging even in that is
now not like you've never heardof us before, but it's like I'm
trying to get you to actuallyshow up to church.
Yeah, because you did check usout at some point and so those
display ads will follow peoplearound this.
(32:27):
This is the kind of annoying adwhen I you've already bought
that pair of shoes and you stillkeep getting targeted for it.
They're not that expensive toto run those across the internet
and to run those across all ofyour phone apps and the Google
display program.
It's a pretty big media programwhich is pretty diverse and
there's a lot of placement forthat.
But that's the way that you canspend the ad grant From Google
(32:51):
and those are those with likethe two.
Two tips is there are valuable,cheap words that you should get
even though I Wouldn't say thatlike if I was to run an ad thing
for you that those are thewords that are like generating
new people, because those arelike people who already want it.
But that is the by far thatretargeting side of it.
(33:12):
Like you put those thingstogether, you get some of the
thousand dollars worth of freewords that are good words.
Get the retargeting going andyou add on like a few thousand
dollars of like really goodAdwords to that thing and you've
got a super powerful.
And I would say Like when wewere looking at churches, I'd
say probably about a onepercentage of the churches are
(33:35):
doing a good job With with thatparticular program.
Collin (33:39):
Hmm, Well, like we said, all of that value was for free
right there, so so you'rewelcome.
Justin Price (33:51):
You've learned Really get our media team and
the ad buying and marketingdirector rather than me.
Heredes (34:00):
But no, Listen, Justin and I know we've known each
other for a few years now, butthe team we fired, the folks
with the experience and theaccess they've had to massive
accounts, is incredible.
Yeah, we've gotten to tap intothat.
It's been eye-opening for me.
Who's been like, just put it onthe billboard or just make more
shirts?
No, listen, there's some valueto that, but that alone is spray
, right, where is it praying?
(34:20):
Spray, spray in May and andhopefully spray it everywhere.
So, and it feels good becauseit's an ego, it's a pat on the
back to my peers, like did yousee my picture over there on
that thing?
Did you get my mailer?
Yeah, amongst all the othertrash, I trashed the track
ability, the next gen, speciallywhich?
Native apps, native tools,native software, native networks
.
It's the language, it's thelanguage and it and you can
(34:42):
target and you can be specificand not just spray.
We're gonna wrap this onebecause there's so much more I
do want to talk about so muchmore and we'll do part two.
Man, we got to do part two onthis, is that?
Collin (34:51):
alright, yeah, we can do a part two on this.
We also.
We also got branding where youtalk about branding coming up,
and and that's gonna be a superfun one as well.
Heredes (34:59):
Branding brand in just a brand D the drink.
Oh uh, that's our other pot.
You have another side podcast.
Yeah, that's right.
Collin (35:07):
We do pay for that one, by the way, I brought to you by
no.
But yeah, we keep keep an eyeout.
We got some some good stuffcoming up.
Justin, thank you for all ofthat insight.
If you want to know more first,creative comm will help you out
.
But thank you so much forlistening.
We will see you next time onthe nonprofit Renaissance.
Outro (35:25):
Thanks again for listening to the nonprofit
Renaissance.
We hope it ignites aRenaissance in you and helps you
go further and grow faster.
Be sure to share, rate andsubscribe and if you'd like to
recommend or be a guest on ourshow, send us an email.
At podcast at first, creativecomm.
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