Overview
On February 7, 2023 the Media to Movements Training Coalition hosted the “Top of Funnel” gathering to bring together those focused on marketing strategies. Melissa shared her work in the Horn of Africa, and Shady Francis of SAT-7 shared about their Arabic Digital Initiative. Summaries from prior gatherings are available for 10/18/22 6/24/21, 9/29/21, 1/13/22, and 4/19/22.
Session Recording
Melissa’s Story
- Melissa started with Kingdom Training and since then has started an MTM initiative with her phone and a limited internet connection. Using clips from LUMO, she ran ads with a small budget.
- She then shifted to utilizing a messaging app and used a “How can we pray for you?” ad. Since then she received hundreds of messages and engagements exceeding expectations until filtering became a challenge. Digital conversations from those ads are ongoing currently.
Arabic Digital Initiative
- The new mission field is online.
- Are we here to be program-focused or are we to serve the audience? This question has led us to build specific brands and content strategy for each brand to serve a group of audience. For example we build content and programs for, youth, women, families and etc.
- We also started to tailor content for Arab audience customized to be only distributed on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Tiktok.
- We are running messaging campaigns where we give the chance and opportunity for the audience to talk to us privately.
- We are running paid marketing campaigns to make sure our content is reaching our audience. Last year we received more than 50,000 private messages, 1:1 conversations and more than 300 people from our online initiatives are now joining churches on the ground.
- In Sat7 we keep an eye on the new AI tools such as Chat GPT, Metaverse, augmented reality and tailoring our Christian message in general.
Q&A and Discussion
Is the ad “How can I pray for you?” one of the more successful strategies we have today?
- Jon: At this point we are running prayer engagements or bible engagements in 50 countries and this ad just works especially to an M context. For example this ad was ran for two weeks in 23 cities in Turkey and it resulted to 35 face to face engagements.
- Jon: The internet is fractured. There are legislations and restrictions when it comes to Google, Facebook and etc. One of the things that could happen is that there will be a lot more requirement on the verification side not only on organization but also individuals. It won’t be easy to be as anonymous as before.
- Jon: I see a continuing rise on terrible algorithms on social media channels where they just shut down ad and people, requiring a lot of review.
Resources
Communities
Other Agencies represented
Misc Resources
Training Resources
- Kavanah Media – provides up-to-date podcast episodes, training and for-hire services for MTM teams worldwide
- Kingdom Training
- Mission Media Univ.’ Foundations of Media Strategy
- Media, Mobiles and Ministry
- Media Training – Mission Media U
Other