Guiding Others to Christ; a Bible Study Writer's Perspective

     

    Hey, friends! Jennifer Devlin here. Last week I asked a whopper of a question with our “iCan Think it Thru” section last week. Did you think it thru? How do you want to be remembered? It’s never too early to start leaving a legacy, and marketing is a big part of how we will leave a literary mark on history.

As we think about writing to a Christian audience, a bigger question becomes: how will your writing help others remember Jesus, and grow them in their relationship with Christ? As a writer of small group resources, this question remains on the forefront of my mind, and motivates everything I do, and how I want to be remembered.

 

Let’s talk about marketing Bible studies. Radio and television are great for some, but for those of us who write Bible studies or other curriculum, we’re hard pressed to find a radio guy excited about interviewing us on our upcoming workbook. So, where do we go? Where’s our niche?

            As with any writer, we go where the readers are; and in our case, they are in small group classes around the nation. Ministry leaders decide to use our books as the guide for a small group class. Our readers commit to the number of weeks in our work. They do homework in our books. They share their hearts each week with classmates, and prayerfully, their relationship with Christ flourishes. At the end of the class, our prayer should be that they know Christ more and us less.

            Friends, if we’re going to reach such a reader, we need to understand the church. Our finger needs to be on the pulse of small group needs. Our heart needs to be set on reaching our target market. Our marketing needs to reach those who order our books.

            Here are some basic first steps for distributing your postcards and other marketing material strategically:

• Ask your local church leaders how they like to be contacted with upcoming publication news, and how you would do well to get the word out among leaders in your area. They may have some creative insight for reaching fellow churches in your community!

• Begin any marketing push with a strong resolve to reach women’s ministry leaders (if you’re writing for a female audience) and the religious education leaders in the church. Send flyers and information to both positions in the church if you aren’t sure who you need to contact.
• Start with your denominational background, and your area. Fan out your efforts from there, further across the country, and across a broader denominational focus. Look up church contacts online, or in the phone book. Find out the name of the person currently serving as the ministry leader you want to reach. Start building a database of contact information.
• Understand that the small group class cycle has two big windows of opportunity: classes usually begin in August, and then again in January. Study guide sales fluctuate accordingly, and those who purchase our books will decide what studies they are going to purchase up to six months in advance.
• When you know your publishing date, go ahead and develop some sort of announcement to send to the churches you want to target, in order to start planting the seed that you’d like them to invest the time, energy, and money into using your guide in a class!

iCan Think it Thru: How can my marketing help my reader become more passionate about Christ, as well as my book?