What in the Wide World of Sports is Blue Tooth, location-based mobile ministry? It's a means of effectively reaching folks that is easy to accomplish and could absolutely revolutionize your ministry impact. In a nutshell, Blue Tooth broadcasting (BTB) through a simple USB adapter or through a Blue Tooth transmitter, will allow any computer to become a broadcast hub for your ministry.
Though I'm still in the midst of feverish research and gathering price quotes, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am about the ministry prospects of Blue Tooth broadcasting. For all you techno-challenged folks like me, let's briefly survey the technology involved with BTB. Then I'll offer a few ideas for using Blue Tooth broadcasting in your ministry.
Thankfully, the technology involved in BTB is quite minimal. Basically you need a Blue Tooth dongle (a silly word, indeed) or a Blue Tooth adapter, and software to run an ad campaign to folks within range of your transmission. The BT transmitter sends out a signal to any passers-by with Blue Tooth devices and lets them know that content is available. If recipients opt-in, then they'll get your ministry info, links to websites, coupons, and more (the possibilities are pretty much endless).
Proxiblaster has the best deal I've found for Blue Tooth ad software ($129) and they offer a n affordable long-range dongle (range up to 900 feet for $129). They also sell relatively cheap software that will run campaigns on multiple computers ($199). No, I don't work for Proxiblaster; they're simply the best BTB solution I've found thus far.
Onto the ministry possibilities...
With Blue Tooth your church could:
1) Send church invites and evangelistic info with web links to folks in your neighborhood.
2) Give attendees the opportunity to learn more about specific ministries, without their ever having to stop by a ministry table or fill out an interest survey. Blue Tooth could be especially helpful during ministry fairs and serving-focused teaching series.
3) Offer coupons for discounts at your church bookstore/coffee shop.
4) Send missions updates, prayer requests, and more to interested members.
5) Broadcast church info to folks visiting your church for a major outside event (concerts, bible conferences, etc.).
For ministries who regularly host conferences & events, you could:
1) Gather contact info through a simple form Blue-Toothed to a attendees. As a former fundraiser and event organizer, I know follow-up is an incredible challenge after ministry dinners and conferences. Folks who are jazzed up/thrilled/inspired at events, often fail to provide their contact info/avoid you like the plague after an event. Not anymore. With BTB, you could capture their contact info, interests, and maybe even donations at the event!
2) Blue Tooth a simple menu that allows folks to choose the ministry(ies) they'd most like to receive info on. If you've got a new project requiring funding for personnel, technology, and more, you could recruit folks to give to those things they're most interested in. Or if you're running many different ministries with diverse focuses and goals, you could use Blue Tooth to capture attendees most interested in specific projects/ministries.
A few closing thoughts...
In case you missed it, BTB is permission-based. Folks have to opt-in to receive content. You won't just be spamming them into oblivion.
No more "kitchen sink" follow-up letters. Through BTB you'll already know what the folks you're writing to are most passionate about. Rather than throw all your projects into your ask letter and hope something jumps out at them. BTB should empower you to highlight specific opportunities they've already expressed interest in and perhaps even help you tailor the gift amount you seek.
Best practices worth mentioning. Proxiblaster also offers an informative guide to BTB content. Among their tips, they suggest you keep file sizes to 10k or less and post signage letting folks know they can receive your Blue Tooth content.
I'll keep you posted as I dive deeper into BTB. If you're already using Blue Tooth location-based marketing, I'd love to hear about your successes and failures.
Read the next installment in this series here.
Happy Blue Toothing...
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Blue Tooth Location-Based Mobile Ministry - Ministry & Business Marketing, Media and Strategy Blog
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2 comments:
What is the range for this? I had assumed that it was relatively short - say a couple of hundred meters? But this would give the opportunity to flash up a message to someone passing near a church, or Christan bookshop, for example. Of course, as retailers and others start to do it, it will become like spam, and no one will want it, unless they opted in.
I do see the opportunity of offing people downloads, in the same way you might give out tracts in the street, you can 'hand out' interactive gospel presentations, video clips, or books, direct into their phones. A church could offer this option on their noticeboard, saying how to grab such resources by bluetooth. Of course, a church should also put its URL on its noticeboard - and another way to interface with mobile devices is a short-code text number, which sends an automatic preset message.
We have written up various ideas for mobile outreach on the Internet Evangelism Day site, and wish to continue to add new material and strategies.
Blessings
Tony
I'm very excited to see you helping to flesh out this possibility for mobile-based ministry!
It's a new take on how to use the mobile platform for evangelism. With the rise of mobiles to the level of ubiquity, it only makes sense to explore these methods of connecting with people. I'm particularly intrigued with your thought of them using bluecasting to reply with contact info for follow up. Well done.
See the mobile evangelism wiki I've been compiling on mobile-based evangelism approaches - It's at
http://mobilev.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
I'd like to add your bluecasting concept to this list. Let's stay in touch!
Dave
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