Marketing 101

Installment 1

I’ve got a confession: I am totally overwhelmed by social media and marketing. It blows me away and I’d bet that you probably feel just the same way. Social media marketing is so confusing. I’ve spent hours trying to get a handle on it. It’s a drag. And I’m not sure I’ve made much progress to tell you the truth.
 
But I’m pretty sure I’m not alone, especially among churches and campus ministries. So I thought I would begin to blog my journey into the marketing world. Not that I intend to become an expert—an experiment is more like it—and put it into a blog.

 
Up to this point I’ve done web research and engaged with work by Chris Jefferson at Prodonos.com, Justin Wise (ThinkDigital.com), Ryan Wakefield at ChurchMarketingUniversity.com, and Hubspot.com. Each company has taken me deeper, but I’m still searching for the whole in the midst of all the pieces.
 
What I’ve found is many different approaches that form a miasma (a fancy way of saying a mess) of options, statistics, social media platforms and more “buy my product and you too can succeed” than I ever thought imaginable.
 
Here’s why I’m doing this marketing work:

1. I am a leader in three significant organizations, all of them non-profit. Because we’re non-profits, dedicating personnel and resources into marketing isn’t a typical priority because it takes time, money and know-how. But I know it’s got to happen. We’ve got great things going and potential clients and supporters need to know about us before we can help each other.
2. In our networks are a lot of other people and organizations in exactly the same place. If I can template some repeatable processes others can leverage, my work with my organizations will benefit along with many others.
3. Finally, I think I will learn more effectively this way. It will let me chart my progress, ask questions, and maybe get some good ideas back from all of you.

 
This whole process is probably going to feel piecemeal itself as I learn pieces then figure out how to get them to work together as a whole. I’ll share those pieces with you as I journey this broken process. Hopefully my journey will help you and if you have insights, tools, and even things you’d never do again, share them with me and together we’ll push to the future.
 
Upward and Onward
 
Stan Granberg