Is Your Church Website Inviting?

Making the best use of our church website is a great way to evangelize our Catholic faith. It is unfortunate that most of the Catholic websites are designed for the parishioners that already attend the church regularly. Nothing wrong with that but too often we find ourselves preaching to the choir. What about the first-timer? What are they looking for in a church community?

Sometimes the person that is “shopping” for a comfortable place to worship, or a fallen away Catholic, or anyone in search of Christ’s love needs to know about your church before they walk in the door. Think of this as welcoming someone into your home. Do they find your website warm and friendly?  Is it easy to navigate?

Sr. Susan Wolf addresses Catholic Websites on her blog http://www.catholicwebsolutions.com/2014/02/04/a-parish-attentive-to-its-audiences/

Cost savings for On Demand Print Service

Offset printing, digital printing, commercial printing, short run printing, and on demand printing what does this all mean?

To clarify, offset printing and digital printing is by definition printing techniques.

The first is a traditional sheet fed printing where the image is transferred or offset from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface with manual ink keys that are adjusted by a skilled pressman to set colors. Digital printing follows the same process but is computer adjusted to digital file specifications. Both requiring ink and water to make the impression. Additionally there have been advances with inkjet and laser printing such as the Konica Minolta bizhub C8000 or the Xerox 800 Press.

Commercial printing, short-run printing and on-demand printing are defined by the size of your finished piece and the number of impressions of the project.

Commercial printing commonly refers to web presses and large sheet fed presses are usually based on size. The number of units place on a sheet or the finished size. “The smaller press delivers a typical printing sheet of 14" by 20", the larger press will deliver a 20" by 29" size, and the most advanced in the market today delivers a 29.5" x 41" sheet. While many commercial printers started with a one- or two-color press, once successful they gradually upgrade to more color units to accommodate customer needs.” As defined by GLG Research.

Typically a short run refers to 300-2,000 impressions, ultra short run 50-500 and on demand 1-100 impressions. In our rapid turn-around environment having a good relationship with a local printing service will serve you best. Consulting with them about your product before the design can save time and money as well as deliver a quality product

About the Author: Thomas Miner is president of Bartleby Press and Austin Texas printing service.

Sunday Bulletin and Church Website-–a Good Compliment

As the publisher of Catholic Church bulletins the question that I am most often asked by pastors is. Where do you see the Sunday bulletin going in the future?

My first reaction is don’t you mean to ask. What do you see in the future for parish communication?

The Internet. Having an up-to-date website is fast becoming the most effective way to reach all your parishioners. No question about it. Total access 24 hours, 7 days a week. If a person is looking for information, church information, they will Google it or look for it on your website.

That doesn’t mean that your Sunday bulletin is obsolete. What it does mean is the bulletin is fast becoming the brochure to your website. The bulletin is a short, quick informative blast of information.

Bulletin editors are becoming savvy. They can spend more time writing bold headlines, editing redundant copy and adding visuals that engage readers. In part because bulletin services offer custom services that save editors time. No longer do editors have to manipulate copy and photos to fit on a page. Time is a commodity. They can write and send. Although not all bulletin services offer custom bulletins. Some regional bulletin services do.

Still most parish ministries think the Sunday bulletin is the most effect means of parish communication. Truth is that the Sunday bulletin and pulpit announcements may only reach one third of all the families in a parish on any given weekend. So how can ministries effectively reach their congregations? Repeat the bulletin article, insert a flyer or another pulpit announcement and use the Internet.  

One of my favorite Monsignors would reply to such requests with “ you can start Mass late but you must finish on time.”

Accommodating every parish ministry request for pulpit announcements can add more than a few minutes to the pulpit announcements and most pastors tend to refrain from a multitude of announcements before and after Mass. The alternatives are clearly the bulletin and parish website.

The bulletin announcement or bulletin insert is the next obvious choice. Most submissions can turn into a short novelette rather than the announcement of a coming week activity. Often writers are not educated in copy writing and submit long and repetitive entries leaving the bulletin editor hours of unwanted revision, often subjecting themselves to a writer’s scorn for editorial privilege.  The bulletin should have a singular purpose of highlighting all the activities pertaining to the following week. A short synopsis of succinct copy, art and strong, attention grabbing headlines will better serve any parish activity. Any more explanation of a ministry other than basic information (who, what, where and how) can and should be re-directed to the parish website.

As we entered into the age of information (the creation of the web 22 years old this past February 16) the opportunity to provide vast amounts of information about the many ministries is essential for a thriving parish community. Web-editors are becoming as important as the bulletin editor (most are one and the same). Parish administrators are becoming more aware of the advantage of having an up-to-date comprehensive website. Not only can ministries write pages of information they can send a viewer to links providing more insight to a subject. Most recently mobile devices have entered the picture.

Our way of communicating has changed the bulletin from a sole source of information to a point of reference for the website. Integrating and keeping continuity between the bulletin and the website is the new challenge. Pastors and parish administrators wanting to know more about custom bulletin service and website service should visit www.bartlebypress.com under menu item website services.

About the Author: Thomas Miner is the president of Bartleby Press, a Texas based bulletin publishing service

Launch a New Stream of Income to your Business

It makes more sense now than ever before to support your IT marketing strategy efforts with print.

Business can target customers in small Every Door Direct Mail promotions with real time content. A specific location, real time content with a savvy promotion can drive customers to your door and website.

Also, executing digital print mailings to existing clients and your qualified audience can support your online activities and promotions. 

Partner with Bartleby Press print service team can increase sales with a marketing solution that fits your budget.

Getting the most from Your Printing Service

The design process. 

In most cases an experienced graphic designer can save you money and time so you can do what you do best—sell your product or service! On the other hand, mapping your message and targeting your brand may require extensive research.

If you do know your audience and have your message there are three approaches; Do it yourself, hire a graphic designer or ask your printing service. Today, most printing services have positioned themselves with designers to help customers who have small budgets to assemble flyers, post cards or a direct mail piece. It may be as simple as sending your document and ideas and a proof will be returned.

Getting price quotes or uploading files are offered 24/7. You can easily manage your project anytime and from anywhere. Whether you want to get brochures printed for your event in another state, or want some thing printed while you are on vacation, with a local printing services, distance is not an issue.

The convenience of printing online is great but a partnership with a print service and verbal communication remains the ultimate confirmation that the job is on track and reduces costs due to miscommunication.

To learn more about how we can help you improve the way you print your marketing material through our Austin printing service visit Bartleby Press or call (we still answer the phone) 512/452-3413

About the Author: Thomas Miner is president of Bartleby Press an Austin printing Service.

Keeping Print in the Mix

As more marketers and businesses turn to alternative media in lieu of print for their business communications needs, they often miss an opportunity to improve the customer experience when they leave print out of the mix.

Integrated marketing uses a number of touch points to get the marketer’s message across in the most effective manner, and print can be effectively used as one of those touch points.

Perhaps the campaign starts with an email that encourages interested recipients to visit a personalized URL. This can go to thousands, even millions, of recipients. When interested recipients visit their personalized URL, the marketer will use an attractive offer to get recipients to provide more information about them. This allows the marketer to update their databases with more information, and more finely tune their communications to specific individuals or groups.

To keep the dialog going, a high-quality versioned postcard can be mailed to these qualified segments with yet another offer or additional information that the recipient will find of value. This way, the business is using the less expensive email medium to narrow the field, and investing in high quality print for those who are likely to become sources of revenue.

Email---website offer to collect information---fine tune content---postcard offer to qualified buyers

Thomas Miner

President of Bartleby Press Austin, Texas

How to stay motivated

Every Tuesday morning I meet with a group of business people for breakfast. It is designed to be a networking group but unlike a lot of the networking groups this one is more than an obligatory referral service. It has become a mentoring session.

Most successful business owners that I have met have confidential mentoring. Usually this is a collection of friends or family that share their knowledgeable on subjects that matter. This morning I was once again reminded how valuable these intimate conversations are…they inspire.

Today one of our colleagues was interested in how we keep our battery charged. Staying motivated is essential to our success not only for us as individuals but also for our employees. The question revolved around the table each from their perspective adding to a list that one could ruminate and visit on a regular basis.

One such suggestion came from a franchise owner that relies on the marketing services to execute a plan that will generate new leads–qualified leads. Having marketing plan and sticking to it takes the work out of sales.  Investing in traditional, proven strategies like direct mail and combining them with social media and IT solutions are practicable in pursuit of new business. We now live in a real-time-need environment and can listen to conversations about your service and knowing when a person is ready to buy is paramount. Establishing metrics to measure growth and ROI go without saying.

And when those leads dry up going back to your loyal customers and visit with them about your service. You might find out how to improve your customer satisfaction and ask for a referral. Meeting with satisfied customers reminds you that you are doing a good job and that in itself can pick up spirits and drive you forward when the leads are slowing down. Fulfilling a customer need is what drives sales.

Another emphasized the need to stay connected to people with involvement with community service and social meetings where a new introduction could be a new customer.

One last and important focus was suggested to be holistic centered. Whatever your livelihood is your personal happiness and well-being is necessary. Having little distractions in our personal lives and removing the negatives inspires us. And everyone likes to do business with a positive, blissful person.

Thomas Miner is President of Bartleby Press