You’ve probably heard of it, seen it or even participated in it. Many churches launch microsites these days to go with new ventures. Some folks have never even considered a microsite or why it might be of any help. Well, that’s why we’re here. We heard of a church who had particular success with a microsite to promote a new campaign, and we have their story for you.
Scott Morris, creative pastor of NORTHchurch.tv, sent us an e-mail regarding the marketing push they recently made. Check out the campaign and what he had to say:
“Our church is NORTHchurch. It started five and a half years ago with three people and no church or organization sponsoring us. Up until September of ’07, we had grown to about 650 people. In September, we decided to add two new Saturday night services. We came up with the idea of LAUNCH (and his roomies) to help us promote it. It started with a video introducing the four characters, then a couple of odds and ends videos (all with volunteers–even the video guy). Our last video was with the Mayor of Oklahoma City. It’s really cool! Anyways, it was totally a viral campaign (our first)–we had a Flickr, MySpace, Wiffiti, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, on and on. We used Google Analytics to track it and ended up with over 8,200 hits from 70 countries. So on the first weekend of our new Saturday services, we added about 250 new people. Now it’s been a month, and we averaged 840 people in January.
This is obviously an extensive microsite. They added accounts to anywhere and everywhere to go along with it, and it worked.
Churches have been running microsites to go with launches, new services, new series, events and everything imaginable for awhile. Companies also run microsites for any new whatchamacallits, which you could see again and “>again if you watched Super Bowl commercials.
Microsites, in regards to churches, seem to be a good indicator of one thing: Do you have a firm grasp on technology?
Churches obviously comfortable with the Internet and design have had great success with microsites. I haven’t heard much about microsites that might have failed, but it seems like a good gamble. If you have the creative minds and the programming power, give it a shot. It will probably be worth the chance you take.
Morgan Stone
February 11, 2008
Microsites are good as long they clearly reference back to the church brand. Don’t forget that the church brand is the bigger deal over the event/service/etc.
You want people to go to the event/service/etc for the sole reason that its your church that is putting it on.
Granata
February 11, 2008
I like microsites because they let me say “yes” to a ministry instead of saying “no, that will not work with the church website…”
Scott Morris
February 18, 2008
Morgan, you’re correct in most cases. But we created the microsite that we’re currently using to gain insight & data from people – http://myglife.tv – which is just a wordpress template.
We’re using this site to ask ask questions for our current series. There is a link on myGLife.tv to NORTHchurch, but this sites purpose is not branding, it’s gaining information & opinions.
Bottom Line: Everyone should try it.
Jeremy Phillips
February 25, 2008
I think minisites or microsites are a great idea especially from a search engine perspective as you could totally go for a completely different niche as far as search terms for a specific event or ministry.
Although you may get just as much ranking from a new specifically optimized page within your existing site as it could get ranked quicker.
Jason Bedell
February 29, 2008
we just recently tried this microsite concept to push small groups. It has worked better than we hoped.
“http://www.forefront.org/20
Great article.
Daren
October 26, 2008
My guess is that microsites in combination with a good geo targeted ppc campaign would be great advertising for events designed for non church people.
church websites
November 20, 2009
I like how they went about that. It makes sense and does the trick I guess.