MAC Workshop Notes

Slide 1: Marketing in our world has often been seen as bad thing. I think part of the problem is because it has been poorly understood.

What is marketing?

Marketing is influencing a person or business to take action. - Heather Schueppert

With that in as a basis, I think we can all say we that we are all in the marketing business in some way. In fact I would say that every single one of our churches is doing a substantial amount of marketing every single week.

Slide 2: Most companies waste an enormous amount of money, (time and emotional energy) on marketing.

And you might be doing it, and you don’t even know it.

Two example

Ex #1: Social Media Posts

Ex #2: Website

The misnomer is that if it’s pretty it’s good.

Slide 4: But the reality is, people buy products only after they read words that make them want to buy those products.

In this room, we instinctively know this, it’s the message that cause people to engage - not what it is wrapped in. Again, bad packing will prevent people from engaging, but it won’t cause them to move forward.

In this talk, I’m going to explain why almost all of us have been talking to our churches and communities the wrong way, and how if we keep doing it wrong, we’re going to continue to lose to the surrounding culture.

I’m also going to show you a framework you can use to clarify your message so customers listen.

The framework will definitely change the way you talk who you are and what you do, and it might even change the way you actually do church.

But before I show you the framework, let’s talk about the greatest hurdle you have when trying to influence people to take action…

Slide 5: It’s the human brain

It is estimated that the brain receives about 11 million bits of information per second from the senses, but it can only consciously process about 40 to 50 bits of information per second. This means that the brain must filter out and ignore the vast majority of information that it receives.

Human beings’ brains are designed to do two things above all else.

The first thing their brains are designed to do is to help them survive and thrive.

Give an example of how there is always information available to use that we pass over.

I want to prove this to you by playing a little game. Close your eyes.

Two questions:

How many chairs are in this room?

How many exits are there?

Your brain is automatically filtering out information that doesn’t contribute to your survival and thriving, and ignoring the information that does not.

Conserve Calories:

The brain is the most energy-intensive organ in the human body. It accounts for about 2% of the body's weight but uses about 20% of the body's energy.

The problem is we experience when communicating to people is not first and foremost the culture, it is the human brain.

As pervayors of the hope of Jesus and joy of His people, it is our responsibility to take on the task of communicating in such a way that it stands out in a meaningful way to those we engage with.

Slide 6: When it comes to talking about your church or brand, how well are you doing?

Are you able to give simple, relevant information about what you do and why your church matters? Or do you give too much information, use terms that aren’t understood about your industry and stumble over your words? Do you use too much insider language?

Here is a principle of marketing we all need to embrace…

Slide 7: If you confuse, you lose.

If you confuse, you’ll lose. Our church needs to explain how we can help somebody survive and thrive, and we need to do it so simply people don’t have to burn a lot of calories to understand how.

Behind the scenes: They give you presenter notes for when you delivering this course. There is a line in this particular slide that was so inspiring for why we do this, but not for the reason you might think.

If your competitor has an inferior product, but can more communicate more clearly, they will beat you in the market every time.

I love this because we all have a collective competitor that is applies too. To quote Tertullian — “The world, the flesh, and the devil are the three enemies of the Christian.” And they have a lesser product, but the messaging is so good that it’s alluring.

Am I saying that if we as a leaders get our marketing right it will fix the ills of the world… No.

What I am saying is that we should always be striving to communicate the message of Jesus in such a way that it influences people to take action.

And the most effective method we have for accomplishing that is story.

Slide 8: Story is a sense-making device. The best way to compel a human brain is to use the power of story. The organizational structure of a good story helps us stop burning calories and pay attention.

It helps us listen for the things that are going to help us survive and thrive.

We know this a dispensors of the love of God. Is there a better way to describe the love of our Heavenly Father has for us than the story of the prodigal son?

Here is why this is good news… stories are formulaic

Slide 9: A Character

A story starts when a character wants something.

There are two mistakes both screenwriters and brands make when it comes to creating a story:

1. They either don’t define something their customer wants

2. They talk about too many things they offer that a customer might want

If you wrote a movie about Jason Bourne wanting to:

1. Know who he is

2. Lose 30 pounds

3. Marry the girl

4. Run a marathon

5. Adopt a cat

…you’d lose the audience.

Why? Too many things to keep track of and remember. The audience wouldn’t be able to follow the plot because they’re burning mental calories just following along.

Slide 10: When we’re talking about our churches or our faith, we have to define something our community wants.

It has to be generic enough to encompass our whole brand, but specific enough to where they understand what creates a sense of desire in them.

Slide 11: The Problem

The next element of story is “problem.” No story works unless the character encounters a problem. It is what makes a story interesting. If there is no problem, there is no story.

The reason a character has to encounter a problem early in the story is because the problem posits a story question. Will the character get out of the problem? How bad will the damage be if they don’t? Will they get their happy ending? Will they defeat their enemy? This is why stories are so compelling to the human brain—they posit a series of questions that make the audience stick around to get an answer.

If you watched a movie where the main character just walked around on the beach enjoying the sun all day, you would be bored out of your mind. You would be waiting for a shark to show up or a good looking lifeguard to run by that the hero thought was out of his league, but still in love with.  Problems that the hero has to overcome make a story interesting.

Slide 12: Defining something our community wants gets them excited, but no story starts until the hero encounters a problem.

When we define something that is keeping our hero from getting what they want, we set the hook.

Now, the customer is wondering whether or not we can help them solve their problem. I can’t stress this enough, the problem is the MOST important part of your marketing. As pastors this should make us all feel vvery at home, because a signifigant portion of our job our peoples problems.

Slide 13: Meets A Guide

Now that we’ve hooked our customer by agitating their desire by defining a problem that is keeping them from getting what they want, they may be feeling a little hopeless. For centuries, storytellers have been bringing in another character at this point in the story to help them find their way.

At StoryBrand, we call this character the “guide.”

In The Hunger Games, Haymitch plays the guide to Katniss.

In Star Wars, both Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi play the guide to Luke Skywalker.

In Harry Potter, It’s DumbleDore, Remus, the Giant dude and a host of others. There is often a new one every movie.

The guide has one job in the movie and it’s to help the hero win the day.

For this reason,

Your church is not the hero of the story. Stay with me for one sec, this is not a theological statement, but neither is Jesus. Jesus is the answer to the problem. Is he the hero of the grand narrative that God is playing out in the cosmos, yes.

Your church shouldn’t ever play the hero but always play the guide.

I say this, because in narrative structure, the hero is actually the weakest character. The guide is strongest character.

In stories, characters do not solve their own problems. If they could solve their own problems, they’d likely have never gotten into trouble in the first place. What normally happens, is the character meets somebody who helps them grow and overcome their problem. There are many different names for this character in literature, but we want to refer to this character as a Guide.

The question you have to ask is, whose story are you telling?

Slide 14: When it comes to telling your churches story, customers aren’t looking for other heroes. They are the hero in their own story. 

If you try to position your church as a hero then you are putting yourself in a different story than your customer. They may find you interesting and like you, but they aren’t going to trust you to help them solve their problem because you are in competing stories. 

The biggest paradigm shift you can experience in understanding how to create clear messaging is that you should NEVER position your church as the hero of the story. Those you want to reach or influence are the hero and the church or Jesus is their guide.

Slide 15: Give Them A Plan

At this point in our customer’s story, they likely want what we have to offer. And yet they aren’t going to make a purchase. Why? Because for the first time in their journey, they’re at risk. If they buy something, they could lose.

They could lose their money or their time or their pride. And most customers aren’t going to take that chance. So we want to give them an easy plan to help lessen the sense of risk.

The great De-Churching - over a third of all people who are not currently involved in a church are orthodox Christians who for whatever reason have been disconnected from their church, and they thought of trying to make new relationships in a new one, just feels like a massive hurdle.

It’s not unlike having to cross a raging creek just up from a waterfall. Few people are going to want to cross the creek but if they see three stepping stones in the creek, they are more likely to cross.

Slide 16: As a church, we want to give our customers baby steps they can take to do business with us.

It might be as simple as:

1: Pick A Sunday

2: Let Us Know You Are Coming

3: Enoy the Jesus’ People

Just listing three or four steps your customer can take to enjoy the results your product can create in their lives greatly increases the chance they will take the leap.

Slide 17: Calls Them To Action

Our hero still needs one more thing before they will step fully into this story. They need us to call them to action. Heroes are reluctant to take action on their own. They have to be forced to take action.

A bomb has to go of, a letter has to arrive in the mail, a couple has to meet and fall in love but fail to get each other’s contact information. Something happens that forces the hero to move.

The reason this is true in stories is because it’s true in life.

People by nature prefer homiostasis than movement, if for no other reason than it is familiar.

Slide 18: People don’t take action unless they are challenged to take action.

70% of small businesses in America do not have a strong call to action on their website. And they are losing millions because of it.

Thankfully the inverse is true of churches: 2022 study by the Christian Research Center, 72% of churches have a strong call to action on their website.

There should be one obvious button to press on your website and it should be the direct call to action. If your website has a bunch of links in the top right corner, you’re engagement.

Brands tend to make two critical mistakes in this area of their marketing:

1. They don’t make their calls to action clear enough

2. They have so many vague calls to action that the customer can’t figure out what they want them to do

Some of you have “Learn More” on your website. Learn More aboutwhat? What does “Learn More” mean?

Use words like “Pick A Sunday” and “Join A Group” and your customer will understand what you want them to do.

The point is to give customers something they can clearly accept or reject. Do not delude that call to action with a bunch of other random links and options.

Slide 19: Ends in success

Every story ends in one of two ways. The character either gets what they want, or they do not. There is either a successful ending or the story ends in failure.

What this means for a story to be compelling, there has to be something at stake. The hero is either trying to avoid a tragic ending where everyone dies or work to gain something. These are called stakes.

There are both positive and negative stakes in a compelling story. With nothing at stake, there is no story. We call positive stakes in the story, Success. Success in a movie would be that the girl gets the guy, the hero wins the race, the guy gets the promotion. The audience has to have something they are rooting for.

Slide 20: When we show customers what their lives can look like if they use our products and services, they buy our products and services in order to achieve that future.

You want to communicate through words and images that your product or service solves your customers’ problems. You also want to illustrate for them what their life can look like once their problems are solved. How much better will their life be on the other side of using your product or service?

Slide 21: And the opposite is also true. Heroes run toward the light and away from darkness. We also have to show our customers the consequences of not doing business with us. If nothing can be lost in a story, there is no story.

Imagine a story about a hero that has to disarm a bomb, except that 10 minutes into the movie we find out the bomb is a dud and that nobody is actually at risk. Is there a story?

No, because there is now no consequence as to whether the hero takes action or not.

Joke about hellfire and brimstone preaching