Over $300 Billion spent on internet ads world wide every year. That equates to $300.00 per internet user.(this month we reached 1 billion users on the net).160 Million users in US. $60 Billion spent on internet ads for US sites. Thats about $38 per user. $100 Billion in product/services was sold online last year in the US. ROI (return on investment) = %40. This does not account for offline purchases made in brick and mortars that also have a presence on the web. (Its in the Trillions) Most venture capitalist and large finance firms (Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, etc.) only shoot for an ROI of 15% !!!!!
Look at these numbers with a “Great Commission” mind, and change the return dollars to people and changed lives. Lets call it Return On Objective. We must use technology as a vehicle and medium to leverage the message in an effective way. Most conferences/crusades (Luis Palau, Franklin Graham, Harvest) would do anything to have a salavation “return on investment/objective” of 40%. Example – for every $6 spent, 10 people would make a commitment. I hope they start using the web.
Last year the Franklin Graham Festival brought 45,000 people to Knoxville over 3 days. (Let me preface this with, the BGEA is on of the most respected evangelical organizations in the world, and this is in no way meant to discredit or disrespect what they and God did in Knoxville.) Of the 45,000 people there 1,207 people made a commitment. The total budget for the event was over $3,000,000.
THATS $2,485.50 PER SALVATION. Thats about %.00004 return on investment/objective. Im not trying to put a dollar amount on a life, because sure, it would have been worth all the work and money if only one. BUT, imagine if the church could even GRASP what the world is doing to leverage the internet and media, it sure would create a greater return on our OBJECTIVE. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Bottom line, we must use technology, marketing, and the internet to leverage The Message. ROI’s of less than %15 in the business world is why “Bailout” now has 2nd definition in Websters. Let’s not make the 3rd about the Church. What tools of the web and technology do you think God wants us to use?How will we use them in a new way?
For more insight on technology and the church visit Dr.McGinnis’ Blog
oh brother… the ROI sucks with Christians only because we (I put myself in the pot as well, sorry for generalizing if you are not in the pot, certainly not Darren) don’t ___authentically___ live a life of passion for Christ. True love for Jesus and his Kingdom are very infectious. Maybe if we stopped putting our own agenda’s and needs first would we have more impact (many times we don’t even know that we put them first, which I find even worse). Internet “tools” (if we may call them that) are just a tool and they will be just as dripping of passion if the person truly loves Jesus and understands what he wants us to be like. This will guarantee a much bigger ROI, but please don’t put dollar amounts to this.
Only in the last 200 years has money even played a role in our lives. No one cared for it before. I’m just reading “The end time money snare – how to live free” which I highly recommend. You’ll understand why throwing money and faith into one pot is a really bad idea.
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The churches need to start tracking the results that their ministries are producing.
Accountability has always been one areas that I think is lacking in most ministries. Because of accountability in the business/private sector, there is a desire to get better returns (Human Nature). As a ministry there are a couple areas that need to be tracked.
1. Number of people leaving and/or attending only a couple times.
2. Number of people saved.
3. Number of people Baptized
4. Number of people that are still in the church one year after being saved/baptized.
Until these are tracked then there will not be a desire to better the processes and procedures. The raw data is needed, so changes can be made to better the ROO.
I agree but I’ve yet to see any churches personally (I’m sure there is a few out there) to actually take advantage of the systems that are already in place that cost little to no money i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc. Much less taking advantage of more costly ways to digitally advertise like banner ads and others. I mean seriously u are just now are seeing youth groups and churches using mass text messages, great job being 10 years behind the curve. I don’t want to sound like Debbie Downer here (wa wa waaaa) but bigger churches should already be on top of this or at least on the small stuff like twitter and other social networking stuff where the average person spends 70% of their internet time on.
Darren, that’s incredible. Please go visit Darren’s Blog for insight on what he and Conduit are doing, as well as some GREAT discussion
http://www.DarrenTyler.com
“return on objective”. love that phrase. we’re experiencing this first hand at Conduit. our primary, heck our only means of communication outside of our weekly meetings is through web based communication. twitter, facebook, myspace, and emails. our entire “marketing budget” was spent on a website for $500. with no overhead we’ve now raised and given away $70,000 to our partners on the front lines of the gospel.