They had the common problem you find in churches and other non-commercial organizations -- a website built by a member who volunteered, and then didn't keep up with it, and lots of people getting access and making changes and no one remembering how to get back in and fix the resulting mess...
They really needed a new website.
However, since their previous website had been unusable for some years, their members aren't in the habit of using it. They want to get the membership, which naturally includes people of many different ages and levels of technical comfort, to use the new website as a primary source of information.
Succeeding at this will allow them to reduce the amount of time the church secretary spends answering the same questions, the number of group emails they send out, and the money and other resources they spend on mailings.
They also want to make sure that people looking for their church online, or for a Methodist church of any kind in their town, can find them. (Secretly, they want to be above the big Methodist church on Google, but they are pretending that's a joke when they say it. After all, they're a church.)
So they're essentially in the same place that a business would be, upon getting a new website. You want your current customers to visit your site regularly, and you want potential new customers to be able to find you.
The things they need to do are the same things you need to do when you get a new website:
- Submit your website to the major search engines. Here they are:
- Tell your current customers about your website, and give them a reason to check it out. A store might choose to have a drawing among all customers who go to their website and fill out the mailing list opt-in form, a coupon available at the website, or a sale on online purchases only. The church has a blog at their website, and is e-mailing members asking them to send in items for the blog. Chances are excellent that members will then tell one another to go look at their pictures on the blog, and once there, they'll be invited to explore and to bookmark the website.
- Take the opportunity to announce your new website. Press releases, articles in your local or industry papers, mentions in your newsletter (and while you're at it, start transitioning to an electronic newsletter), and face-to-face invitations to visit your new website are all completely appropriate.
- Twitter, add a link to Facebook, request links from your clients and vendors -- any place on the internet that you have access to is a good place to mention your new site. While "We have a website!" isn't news, "We have a new website!" is, so go ahead and share your exciting news with your online community as well as in the physical world.
Chances are, you feel a little bit like someone with a new puppy, anyway, especially if yours is as nice as this one is. Go ahead, while you feel like bragging, and brag a little bit. Check your rankings and analytics after a couple of weeks and see whether your site has naturally done what you want it to do, and at that point you can decide whether you need an online marketing plan.
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