Catholic Outreach with Inbound Marketing

Electronic Evangelization

Catholic Outreach with Inbound Marketing

Before we begin…

6 tools for Integrated Catholic Communications ™

Integrated Catholic Communications ™

6 Tools; 1 objective:Evangelization ✞ Advertising & Publicity✞ Personal Contact✞ Direct Communication✞ Public Relations✞ Promotional Incentives✞ Inbound Marketing

Integrated Catholic Communications ™

1. Advertising & Publicity

Any form of paid presentation or promotion to a general audience

✞Weekly newsletter✞Advertising in the media✞Printed brochures and

leaflets

Integrated Catholic Communications ™ 2. Personal contact

Personal and interactive real-time presentations by representatives of the parish to parishioners

✞Sunday Mass✞Other liturgical

celebrations✞Parish events

Integrated Catholic Communications ™

3. Direct communication The distribution of personalized messages to targeted individuals✞Direct mail✞Telemarketing✞Email

Integrated Catholic Communications ™

4. Public RelationsPromoting the image of the Catholic Church through events and media relations ✞Press Releases✞Press Conferences✞Public Events

Integrated Catholic Communications ™

5. Promotional incentives

Actions or activities to encourage attendance, donations or other desired results

✞Public acknowledgments✞Gifts✞Privileged access to services

Integrated Catholic Communications ™

6. Inbound Marketing…

THE ISSUE

Where are we? How did we get here?

The Issue

Our parishes are in need of funding

The Issue

But…our parishioners say they already give as much as they can!

The Issue

However…

the majority of Catholics in our communities are outside of our churches!

The Issue

But…these people on the outside are not close enough to the Church to be ready to donate

The Issue

This means…

before asking for money, we need to restore (establish?) our relationships with them!

The Issue

Which brings us to ...

Inbound Marketing

Evangelization in three steps

To bring parishioners to us

1Generatetraffic

2Create pilgrims

3Convert into active

believers

INTRODUCTION TO INBOUND MARKETING

The Inbound Marketing Customer Journey

Generate Traffic

Be found by parishioners

1

Set up a Blog

• Essential for successful inbound marketing

• It allows you to – publish content– interact with readers who

can then leave comments… – … which can

subsequently be shared by your readers in their own networks

Set up a Blog

• The blog helps to improve the ranking of the parish in search engines (not just in Facebook, Twitter, etc ...)

The combined use of social networks

• Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube or SlideShare allow you to promote your site and your content while building a community of interest around faith and your parish

2 Create pilgrims

Indispensable pillars for good conversion

The creation of Landing Pages

• Landing pages have all the information necessary to bring the Internet to an action or transaction

• The key element of a landing page is the subscription form

• The parishioner gives permission to be contacted

• It is essential to encourage the visitor to self-identify and to give his/her approval to be contacted directly

The creation of Landing Pages

Incentives for action

• You accomplish this goal by offering quality premium content (registration to a newsletter, wallpaper images, prayers to keep, printable calendars ...)

Publisher Loyola Press offers, for free, every week, a new computer screen wallpaper with a beautiful photo, a monthly calendar and a biblical quote

3 Convert into active believers

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.

The Father will honour whoever serves me.” John 12:26

Lead nurturing , or cultivating the contact

• Once identified, the "pilgrim" must be accompanied in the discovery of what the Church has to offer

Lead nurturing , or cultivating the contact

• By providing interesting, compelling and informative content on an ongoing basis, you help the “pilgrim” learn more about the faith and life of the Church and the parish

• This will build the pilgrim’s confidence throughout the process of evangelization

Leverage newsletters

• In addition to setting up an online subscription form to your newsletters on your website, use all opportunities available to ask people to sign up to receive your content.

Leverage newsletters

• Anytime people come to the church or the presbytery for particular services, invite them to sign up to receive your parish blog

Leverage newsletters

• Eventually, you can create several types of newsletters you send to various contact lists (eg. People registered for baptism, for catechetical courses, to receive information, etc.)

Electronic Evangelization

Catholic Outreach with Inbound Marketing

Shaun G. Lynch, [email protected](514) 945-1759