Happy Anniversary! What we’ve learned after one year of Hands and Feet Marketing

Exactly one year ago, Corinn and I launched Hands and Feet Marketing as a resource to help churches rethink and refresh their ideas about church marketing. It’s been quite an adventure, so we thought we’d share some insights, facts and figures about this first year. From a marketing and analytical perspective, you might find some of these things interesting.

Why Hands and Feet Marketing?

For several years, I’d felt a calling to help churches with their communication strategies. I’d witnessed churches that were somewhat disorganized, fumbling around with communications strategies, and I felt they needed some help from someone like me who works professionally in the communication/PR/marketing industry.

What’s different about Hands and Feet Marketing?

Frankly, there are so many “church marketing” services in the universe — many of them are expensive and offer the same services (websites, graphics, advertising, mailers, etc.) So I asked God to give me an idea that was new, fresh and inexpensive. In the spring of 2012, God gave me the idea of Hands and Feet Marketing. He showed me that the marketing techniques and tools that we use in business don’t always translate well to churches. And, most importantly, he reminded me that Christians are the true marketers for Christ based on our day-to-day actions and the relationships we build. He reminded me that Christ is our brand and that true church marketing is simple and relational. It involves seeking God, loving God and loving others, and serving. Hence, Hands and Feet Marketing!

Is there significance to the July 31 launch date?

After buying the handsandfeetmarketing.com URL and tinkering for several months with this idea of trying to redefine church marketing, I told Corinn what I believed God had been up to. We were at Starbucks. Sitting outside. And instead of her usual “what’s he up to now?” response, she gave me a smile and an affirmative reaction. Great! I’d passed the first test, the Corinn test. I asked her to pray about when we should launch and, I kid you not, we both came up with the same date: July 31, 2012.

Were you scared to launch?

Yes, and I almost pulled the plug. On July 30, 2012, I told Corinn: “We’re not ready.” She said: “God gave us July 31. What’s the problem?” So, we launched!

What was your first post?

This is a bit tricky. We did what was called a “soft launch.” We began publishing posts on July 31, but we didn’t begin advertising them on Facebook until August 15. So the first official post on July 31, 2012 was: “What’s your brand?” Take a moment to read it.

You used to post 5 days a week. What gives?

I’ll admit that I was very ambitious. Probably too ambitious. I began writing five original posts a week, Monday through Friday. On Saturdays we ran “Saturday Rewinds” to highlight older posts and to keep the website loaded with content. After a while, I found it difficult to maintain that kind of schedule and to develop that much original content without repeating myself too often. So, I’ve dropped to three days of original content each week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Older blog posts appear occasionally on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

How many original posts did you publish?

Thanks for asking! Hands and Feet Marketing posted 213 original blogs in 365 days. That’s an average of just over four blog posts per week.

Hands and Feet Marketing by the numbers:

Visits: 5,704

Unique visitors: 2,210

Page views: 23,755

3,600 visits came from desktops, 1,563 from mobile devices, and 541 from tablets.

Facebook, by far, was the biggest driver of traffic to the site. Twitter was a far second.

Where did you get all of these statistics?

Google Analytics. It’s a fun tool! You should use it on your website if you don’t have it.

What do all of these numbers and rankings mean?

Not a lot, unless a church changed its approach to marketing by adopting some of the ideas we’ve shared. But, based on conversations with a number of our readers, I can say that Hands and Feet Marketing has made a difference. We’ve been proud to help.

So you’ve hit the one-year mark. Now what?

We continue to write blogs and offer our services to churches who are looking for a new, simpler approach to church marketing. We pray that you continue to consider our site an informative and though-provoking resource.

I’ve got a church marketing challenge. How can I contact you?

Email me at Eric@handsandfeetmarketing.com or call my mobile phone at (254) 760-4653. We look forward to hearing from you!

Anything else you’d like to say?

We’ve always felt that God wanted us to do this for a reason. Thank you so much for reading. You’re a blessing to us. Call us or refer us to your friends. We’d love to help!

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Seek. Love. Serve.