Dream Big! Plan Bigger!

As I have mentioned on many posts, one of the favorite parts of my job is talking with people from churches about a new website.

I love hearing about the dreams and goals they have for their new website.

They usually have awesome ideas of how the website will become the church’s hub of  communication.

It’s kind of like talking with a couple who are about to get married – everything is rainbows and daisies. 🙂

After listening to their ideas, I like to ask some questions to help them think about how the “post honeymoon” stage will be:

• “Having videos of your services on your website is great!  Who is going to record, edit, and upload them to your website each week?”
• “Adding a blog to your site is a wonderful way to have engage with members.  Who will write the blog and how often will the post to it?”
• “Sending out a weekly or monthly eNewsletter is a fantastic way to keep members informed.  Who will be in charge of writing and sending out the eNewsletter?

For each of these examples (services/sermons, blogs, eNewsletters), there is an ongoing component to them.

So if you are going to have features that have to be updated regularly, you need to have a plan in place before you add them to your site.

People like things they can count on and once they have been conditioned to expect something on a certain day or a specific time, they may get frustrated when it doesn’t happen.

For example, if you watch news every evening at 6pm, then all of a sudden they broadcast the news at 6:30 one night, 5:45 the next night, and the following night there is no news at all… you would probably get a little miffed by that.

That is because you have grown accustomed to having the news at 6pm every night and that is what you expect.

The same is true for anything ongoing item on your website:

• If you post your service video to the website every Monday, have a plan for “Marsha” to post the service every Monday.
• If you send out your eNewsletter the first Wednesday of every month, have a plan for “Jan” to send out the eNewsletter the first Wednesday of every month.
• If you want to have a weekly blog post, have a plan for “Peter” to post to the blog, the same day each week.  (You also may want to hire someone who is not part of the Brady bunch.)

If you don’t have the people to do something consistently on your website, hold off on adding that feature until you do. -Mark Steinbrueck

Are there any other items besides those mentioned above that have an ongoing component to them?  Post your comments below.

If you would like to talk with me about a website, click here for a free consultation.