Are you still using a rotary dial phone in an iPhone world?
Two good questions.
Embarrassing questions.
So you want to reach your market in a challenging global environment?
Or you just want to reach the people in your neighborhood?
Do you know that 97% of mobile users (that device in your hand) are three (3) feet from their phones 24 hours per day. In the USA.
Their mobile device is their “everything” device. They seldom make a phone call with their device. But they do respond instantly to “pings” and “dings.”
All day long.
And they respond in seconds. In milli-seconds.
The average person touches their phone 2,617 times per day. (study as of February, 2020)
Watch your pre-teen and teenage children. Many, many more times than that.
That’s all the market research you need.
In comparison, the average person touches their face 2,000 to 3,000 times per day. (study as of March, 2020)
So you want to reach your market in a changing world?
Learn how to be RELEVANT on their phone.
Short, short blog posts. Daily. With content that is relevant. And content that your audience can use today. Or inspiring and motivating. Or interesting. Or content that is funny.
We all need some “funny” today.
Create short and direct videos for your audience.
Make your vids short, very short. And make my day better and my life better because I watched your video.
I watched some church services online recently.
Let’s talk about how church is done online. And treat it like a business trying to reach their audience.
The church leaders are trying to deliver online what they used to deliver inside of a building. That’s “dial-up” internet thinking in a high speed 5G world.
And they think that it works for me on my phone. It doesn’t.
Online Sunday church is too long and too predictable. And boring compared to everything else on my phone.
The Sunday services I watched were well-produced and choreographed. With good images and technology.
But they were using “rotary phone” thinking and delivering outdated material via a smart phone. They were looking “old school” and were irrelevant to today’s consumer of online content.
They delivered old and outdated content using new technology.
And they thought delivering outdated thinking using new technology made them relevant.
And remember. . .
. . . the other 167 non-church hours in the week.
To engage with your market as a business or a church create content that is relevant to me the other 167 hours in the week.
Not just the one hour on Sunday morning from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.
Create content that engages me, not just informs me.
Engage me with content that demands my response. Whether you appreciate my response or not.
Engage me.
Or lose me.
This applies to businesses and churches talking to me online.
Is your content / video / blog post worth sharing? If so, that is engagement that matters.
With an online “share” you just received your audience’s endorsement.
Your audience votes with their “shares.” That’s their online currency.
Create content daily (or more often) for short two to three minute bursts. And information / content / humor with some punch that is worth sharing.
Sharing is caring.
How to do this?
Experiment. Experiment a lot.
And then follow the data.
Online data and metrics are your audience’s votes. Online data is unfiltered feedback.
Treasure this information.
If you have content (blog posts / videos) with no likes and no shares, your audience just spoke VERY LOUDLY.
Try something different. And / or be more consistent.
Publish daily, not weekly.
Your online metrics will tell you quickly what your audience wants.
Experimenting like this takes courage.
The courage to handle criticism. It will get messy for you and your team.
You will be criticized by your peers and everybody on the sidelines.
But you will find what your audience wants. Just follow the data.
Your people will vote with clicks and views and shares.
And that’s how you reach your audience.
You may even create a movement.
More to come. . .
Keep watching and listening here.