A Product? Or, Just Good Marketing?

Is It a Product Or Just Good Marketing?

November 18th, 2003 Issue

The best kind of marketing activity is that which actually produces revenue. As is the theme in most of the articles of the Viodi View, aggressive marketing is going to be a key to the successful addition of video and other content by an IOC. So, I was talking to a friend the other day about how independent telcos could work with their local churches and he told me that my idea was ok, but what he was doing was better as it generated revenue today.

In a nutshell, what this telco does is set up conference bridges for churches; a “tele-sermon”. Parishioners, who cannot attend Sunday service, call a number to listen in to the service. It is conceivable that the sermons could be time-shifted by using voicemail features. The telco makes money by setting up the conference bridge. In this particular case, the Telco charges a monthly "port charge" for the number of simultaneous conference bridge participants. The capital equipment was scaled to meet the needs of each participating church, resulting in a payback on investment in under 24 months. Though not being done by this Telco,

There are a number of reasons a church would love this service. First, this provides another way to connect to members of their congregation who otherwise might not be able to attend Sunday services. The church supports shut-ins and elderly members of their community and can probably justify the cost of the bridge through increased offerings. And, the system is simple; people know how to use a telephone.

A telco can add even more value to this approach in several ways:

Provide assistance with setting up and providing the equipment (for a charge, of course) to take the output of the church’s mixer board and feed it to a telephone bridge.
Help promote the churches that are part of the “audio bridge” through things like bill stuffers. For instance, a bill stuffer could be created that would list the churches that have the “tele-sermon” feature. Again, churches would love this, as it would be a low-cost outreach effort.

There are several ways a telco can reach out to the churches. One obvious way for the telco to connect would be through employees who attend the churches. It is probably better, however, to have a person, whether she is a marketing manager or sales representative, who will build long-term relationships with the local churches. These relationships will prove invaluable as the telco rolls out new services, such as video. Some of these new services and how they can build upon the “tele-sermon” concept will be discussed in future articles.

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