New Resource

I’d like to start by mentioning a new resource that we’ve created especially for churches and Christian ministries. We have rolled out some MS Excel-based templates to help solve some common needs such as a Mileage Tracker for tracking your ministry-related car miles, an Expense Reimbursement form, and several others. We’ll be adding additional forms over time. These are free for you to use. We just ask that you respect our copyright and not distribute these outside of your church or ministry. Feel free to direct your colleagues to our site to download them directly.

To download the templates, just click on the “Resources ” menu link and then the Excel Templates link.

This Month’s Issue

In this month’s edition, we are continuing our Web Marketing series and discussing the importance of calling your audience to action. Tune into our Maximizing Your Website column this month to learn about focusing your content and expressing your inside reality.

Traci is bringing us the second in her two part series on effective email and we’ll also get a brief introduction to web collaboration in our Tech 101 column.

Thanks, and as always, we would love your feedback and suggestions.
Don Cranford

But you recognize the importance of figuring out what’s just right to say. In fact, the attention span of a reader is so short that some experts believe you have just several lines or 30 seconds to hold their focus. If you’re not clear about what message you want to convey, readers may just leave your site.

In July, we explored the purposes of determining your goals and understanding your audience. Once you’re there, you’re ready to begin writing content for the site. You can’t simply take your ministry brochures and use that content. Your audience won’t take the time to read it.

Last month we explored the concept of using a good email subject line. We now recognize that the first step is getting your audience to open their email. The second step is getting them to read it. The final action is getting them to respond.

Web Collaboration is a very hot topic these days. In its most basic sense, it refers to using the Internet to collaborate or work together with other people. One of the great things about the Internet and web collaboration is that people can be spread out across the whole country, or in different parts of the world for that matter, and still work together.