Mark MacDonald / National Church Branding Strategist / Author

Mark MacDonald brings 40 years of ministry, marketing, and communication experience to this powerful conversation about church branding and effective communication.

Most churches today aren't known for anything meaningful in their communities. They're speaking a language their audience doesn't understand, building websites that confuse rather than clarify, and creating content that sounds like everyone else. Mark MacDonald, founder of BeKnownForSomething.com and bestselling author, has spent four decades helping thousands of churches across North America cut through the noise and discover their unique thread.

In this episode, Mark reveals the exact mistakes churches and businesses make with their websites, why being clever leads to confusion, and how to structure your communication so people actually listen. He shares practical insights on everything from SEO fundamentals to email marketing psychology, and explains why the most important thing you can do is say less so people will listen more.

Whether you're leading a church, running a business, or trying to make your message heard in a noisy world, Mark's wisdom will transform how you think about branding, communication, and connecting with your community.

Link: https://beknownforsomething.com/

Paul Povolni (Voppa) is the founder of Voppa Creative and a creative leader with over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and design. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, he has worked with clients internationally, leading teams in award-winning branding while serving as a coach and speaker. Paul delivers workshops and keynotes on brand strategy, creative thinking, and organizational culture, and hosts The Headsmack Podcast: Conversations with Misfits. His work centers on helping organizations lead with Clarity, Creativity, and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Voppa Creative Website

Transcript

Mark MacDonald (00:00)
I'm Mark McDonald and you're listening to Head Smack.

Paul Povolni (00:08)
Hey, welcome to the HeadSmack podcast. name is Paul Povolni and I am excited to have another misfit with me. I have Mark McDonald and he is a national church branding strategist, bestselling author of Be Known for Something and founder of BeKnownForSomething.com. With 40 years in ministry, marketing and communication, he's helped thousands of churches across North America discover their unique thread and communicate it clearly to their communities. Mark, how you doing, man?

Mark MacDonald (00:36)
I'm doing well. Wow, you said that like it was written for you.

Paul Povolni (00:41)
I know, I know. It's pretty impressive. I've been practicing it. ⁓

Mark MacDonald (00:46)
Well, and

I've found that other people, like as soon as you write something, it's like, ⁓ wow. So this is so much easier for them to say it because if I were to say it, it'd take far too long.

Paul Povolni (00:59)
Right, right. And I've also had it where it sounds good when it's written, but when you speak it out, it's a little tougher to get your mouth around. so I've had a couple of those tongue twister introductions as well where, hey, it sounded good written down, but when you speak it out, didn't quite work out. But Mark, I am excited to have you here. I love everything that you're about. I love ministry. I love marketing. love communication. I love branding. And I love the name of your business. And so what I want to do,

Mark MacDonald (01:14)
Thank

Paul Povolni (01:29)
is usually I like to start with kind of hearing a little bit about your origin story. I'm into superheroes and stuff, as you can see my background there. ⁓ I love origin stories because it tells a lot about people. you know, sometimes we can see somebody and where they're at. And then we think we can never attain that we can never get to that place. But when you understand somebody's origin story, it kind of helps you understand that's also possible for me as well. So you can go as far back as you want.

Mark MacDonald (01:55)
Okay, but first of all, I am intrigued by your accent. So where are you originally from?

Paul Povolni (02:02)
Well, where I'm originally from and where the accent is from and what the accent sounds like are very different things. ⁓ So where I'm originally from is Europe, ⁓ but I was raised in Australia, but I've been here for 34 years. And so the accent is from nowhere in particular, because when I go to Australia, they ask me where I'm from. And here anywhere I go in America, they ask me where I'm from. the accent is from nowhere in particular, but I was raised in Australia.

Mark MacDonald (02:29)
⁓ that's awesome. I, so I mean, Paul and I, for anyone who is listening, I mean, we don't go way back. We just go a few minutes back and, and we, got to talk a little bit before we, started hitting a record here. ⁓ but I think we have an awful lot in common. So I, I, I don't know whether you can tell, but I have a Canadian accent. ⁓

But I studied standard American dialect, someone has beaten it out of me. But every so often I'll say out and about and house and then people either know I'm from Minnesota or from Canada. But to go back a long ways, ⁓

Paul Povolni (02:57)
that it's out yet.

Right, right.

Mark MacDonald (03:18)
I was raised in East Coast Canada. if you know the states, if you go up I-95 all the way to the top, we're about 10 hours north of Boston. Or if you get all the way up through Maine and you hang right, that's New Brunswick. And I was raised in a middle-class home.

And all my life, I just knew I was a misfit. That's why I love the name of this podcast. I never accepted anything as reality. It was always, I improve that or what if we did? And I asked all those questions. And then when somebody started to say, I'm sorry?

Paul Povolni (04:03)
Where did that come from? Did you have a creative parent?

Where did that come from? Like, did you have a creative parent or?

Mark MacDonald (04:08)
Well, and it's interesting because I think that, ⁓ I mean, my mom was creative. She was a teacher. She taught first grade. So ⁓ she was just constantly trying to be creative with her students, but she was also a musician. she was on the, you know, she played piano and ⁓ which kind of brings up

A crazy part of my life was that I was always known as the singer in our family and my mom played for me. But my dad, interestingly enough, he worked for the telephone company and he was, when I think back, I think that he actually taught me most of my ⁓ creative ⁓ spirit. He always tried to improve things. He always worked in the workshop.

⁓ always had, ⁓ you know, saw a little project that he was working on and, then he, ⁓ the people he worked with, would oftentimes say, so will you, can your son draw this? And I, he would bring home things for me to draw so that he could give it to the people he worked with. But it, ⁓

I know, it's really kind of crazy because they always taught me to try to improve things that I touched. And so in high school, everybody always asks, so what are you planning on doing? No one in my family except for my mom had ever been to college. And my mom went back when she was 40. And so,

I, she was the only, I, I said to her, like, should I go to college? And she said, I think you should. What, would you like to be? And like, this is going to really give away my age, but I just wanted to be Darren from bewitched.

Paul Povolni (05:59)
Yeah.

Wow, wow, okay.

Mark MacDonald (06:13)
I know, and it was that feeling, I was fascinated by, ⁓ like anybody who doesn't remember Be Witch, mean, he was a commercial artist is what they called him at the time. And he would come up with these, ⁓ know, advertisements and jingles and slogans, and ⁓ of course the show ⁓ kind of played off of that because no one,

Paul Povolni (06:25)
Right, right, right.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (06:42)
No client liked his stuff and then he required a witch to be able to wiggle her nose and have the client like his stuff. There have been times in my career I just wish that there was a witch that could wiggle her nose and make the client understand how great this was. As I'm sure that you could as well.

Paul Povolni (07:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Mark MacDonald (07:06)
But I decided I'd go to college. And at the time, there wasn't even a graphic design degree that was available to me. And I remember telling them, I just want to be a commercial artist. And so I ended up enrolling in a fine art ⁓ college and got a Bachelor of Arts in fine arts with a specialty. Eventually, it became as graphic design. ⁓

Paul Povolni (07:16)
⁓

What?

Mark MacDonald (07:35)
And it was through that that I realized, wow, there is a skill that I can market myself and actually make money. weirdly, in the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, there were those people who were...

fine arts and then there were us in the graphic design side and ⁓ we used to joke that they would draw for a living and we would just draw unemployment for a living.

Paul Povolni (08:08)
⁓

Well, and it was in those days, in the olden days for all you youngins, know, the skills required to be a graphic artist were a real profession because it wasn't computers weren't even around for some of us ⁓ when we entered into the field. And so you had to have a very high skill set in

bromides and lettering and typography and all of that stuff that really made it more of a fine the relationship between fine art and Professionalism and graphic design was just a little closer than it feels like it is now, right?

Mark MacDonald (08:51)
Well, and it was interesting because, you know, the Ruby Lith and, you know, separations and doing overlays and ⁓ like all of that stuff. It took so long to do all of that that you had to do an awful lot of ⁓ pre work. ⁓ It was pull out your notebook and start sketching and and really get an idea in in place and

and drawing, and there were so many times you scratch things out and you just start drawing again, where, along the way, when the computer came along, a lot of people sit down to the computer and they, they don't know what they're looking for. And they just start putting some stuff into play where I still, I, you can see on my desk right now, like I could pull out a, like I, I'll sketch it out before I, I decide to actually work in the computer, but

It was interesting because I took a four-year degree the month before I graduated. I guess to remember it was our senior class. The professor walks in, he's carrying a big box and he opens up the box and he said, I just want to introduce you to something that's new and different. He pulled out the very first Macintosh computer.

Paul Povolni (09:49)
Yeah.

wow,

wow.

Mark MacDonald (10:16)
And,

we all looked at it and he's like, this is a Macintosh computer. You all won't probably ever use it, but it'll be the next generation that will. And, and I can remember he set it up and we could play with it and we could do calligraphy and we could do all the, you know, you know, fun little things. And the screen was, you know, this size.

Paul Povolni (10:26)
Wow.

Mark MacDonald (10:43)
And weirdly enough, I graduated and within that first year, I was doing almost everything on the computer.

Paul Povolni (10:52)
Wow, wow. Yeah, I remember when I was in college, computers just started coming out. I don't remember if they were Macintoshes. I'm pretty sure they were. ⁓ But the problem was is we didn't have a way to output it because we can create it on screen in the early days, but there was no real way to output what you created in full glorious color on screen. so what a lot of people were doing is taking photographs of their screen and enlarging that. ⁓

And so it was quite a fascinating time. And for me, honestly, if it wasn't for computers, I probably wouldn't be in graphic design because I'm sometimes ADD too ⁓ frantic in my design and just experimentation and whatever that I didn't have the patience for the hand drawing, lettering type, anything. And so I'm thankful that I came into it at the early.

stages of computer being part of the industry.

Mark MacDonald (11:53)
Yeah, again, I think we're an awful lot alike. I was okay as a designer ⁓ before the computer, but then I got really good as a designer after the computer. Just the separation of ordering type, ⁓ because I was just thinking the Linotype machine that we used to put on and...

Paul Povolni (12:15)
Thank

Mark MacDonald (12:20)
And like we, had a typesetter that was just up the road. just a spring forward. So I became, I started my path in a very large agency, one of the largest agencies in Eastern Canada. And, ⁓

And I started that path. it was, you know, you had a great relationship with your typesetter because you would say, okay, I have three inches by four inches and I have all this text. I'm going to give you the key stroking for the text, but you need to set it up and you'd have to choose, you know, what font they had that they could actually set it up in.

And ⁓ like all of that stuff, like it was just ⁓ very meticulous and it was just very difficult because you relied heavily on you would get text back from the typesetter and you'd think, ⁓ I really wanted it to flow differently or I hated the rivers in it or, you know, like all of that stuff. So once the computer came along, ⁓

Paul Povolni (13:25)
Right.

Mark MacDonald (13:31)
Strangely enough, like this is another really crazy aside, but I started working for a smaller agency and then we hired somebody from the big agency. And so I knew that there was a position available over there. I,

incognito called the guy from the big agency. I was so scared and I just asked like can I like would there be an opening there and they said well it's strangely enough there is an opening so I met with them. I had several meetings with different people at that agency and finally they offered me the job. I quit my old job. I was so excited about this new job the night before.

He called me, the owner of this big agency, and said, we're excited for you to join us tomorrow. One of the questions we didn't ask you is how well-versed are you in the computer? Well, I thought, my goodness, I'm gonna lose my job. Like, there's just no way. And then, as everyone in the creative world knows, you always say, ⁓ I'm great at that.

So I had been dabbling a little bit in the computer world with the smaller agency. So I said, no, I use the computer all the time. And he went, ⁓ good. Okay, that just makes me feel so much better. And I'm thinking, yes. So I arrived the next day to ⁓ go to the HR department. They sign, I get all my forms and everything. They said, well, we're going to walk you up to the studio. I walked into the studio.

there was no one there. And I said, so where is everyone? And they said, well, it's funny. None of them know computers. And so we've sent them all off for a school to learn the computer, but you already know it. we don't, we're not going to put you into that course. And that's what he was calling me for.

Paul Povolni (15:25)
You

⁓

Mark MacDonald (15:41)
⁓ and at the time I thought, ⁓ my goodness, what have I just done? I would love to have had the formal training of, how to get into the computer. ⁓ but instead what I decided, cause I had a half hour drive back and forth from the studio, ⁓ from the studio to the house. I decided I'm going to buy a book and I'm going to keep ahead of what they're learning in their school and.

And because the, they all arrived back, my boss said, ⁓ so everyone, Mark actually knows how to use the computer. So if you need any help at all, you can get Mark to help you. So I had to stay ahead of everything that they were learning. ⁓ and within six months, the president of the big agency.

Paul Povolni (16:22)
my goodness.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (16:33)
⁓ stopped all the outside training and said that Mark will do a better job. So I ended up teaching them all how to get on the computer and use the computer.

Paul Povolni (16:39)
wow.

Wow. Yeah, I remember those books, the how-to's on Photoshop and Freehand and Quark and all of those in the early days that we depended on because it was such a new thing. And ⁓ it was pretty interesting days. so, you know, for those young ones that kind of missed some of that evolution of graphic design and branding and all of that, you kind of missed the fun era as well. Though I absolutely love where we're at, you know, and with AI, it kind of

takes it to the next level. It's such a significant jump in creativity, what creatives can do and output now that it's pretty fascinating.

Mark MacDonald (17:24)
It really is. And it's interesting. ⁓

jumping to the computer was a huge leap. And then I remember the first time that someone said to me, so have you heard about the internet? And I thought, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. Like, why would I want to be connected with everybody else? And then somebody said,

You know how we fax things to people? Well, we can now do it electronically and I can still remember thinking when I fax something it doesn't always look quite right and and then I thought well in email you'd be able to actually do that and like ⁓ that world the shift towards the digital

was incredibly huge. And I always thought that's probably going to be the thing I look back on my life as the largest leap. But now I think AI is going to, I think it's going to be the as big or bigger leap.

Paul Povolni (18:26)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's, it's, it's quite a significant, it makes a quite a significant impact on creatives. you know, creatives always felt that they were so safe, you know, oh, you know, the blue collar jobs, the factory jobs, you know, you're going to get taken over by robots and you know, we're, we're safe cause we're creative and you can't, you can't manufacture creative. Creative is such a specialty, you know, it's, it's for the, for the special gifted kinds and

and art and photography and design and writing and all of that stuff was just, it felt untouchable, you know, by,

Mark MacDonald (19:03)
Yeah, no

one's going to be as creative as a human.

Paul Povolni (19:06)
Right, right. And so I think it's been quite the wake up call for creatives ⁓ in what they can, what's out there and what's happening within the industry. And I think there are some that are going to be left behind. I think there are some that ⁓ will feel the impact of it. And I think that's at, you know, those that are fine with average. But I think there's some that are going to just excel in this time where they use ⁓ AI to augment what they do, right?

Mark MacDonald (19:33)
Yeah, and it's interesting because, I'm sure that you, I mean, you're younger than me. ⁓ So the transition to computers, ⁓ tactically, the pricing structure, ⁓ the bottom fell out of the pricing structure. Because things that ⁓ would

would be outside of the purview of the client. So if the client said, you know what, rather than having justified text, I wanted to have run around text. Well, the client, there is no way the client could do that. They required us to be able to reorder the text or use your Xacto blades and move text around.

Paul Povolni (20:20)
Right.

Mark MacDonald (20:30)
And so because of that, was, there was no other way. It was just the difficulty of, of doing it. They had to pay for that. So the pricing structure in the agency world, it just continuously rose. And then all of a sudden with the advent of the computer, ⁓ the client knew, well, it's just pressing a button to make it run around.

Paul Povolni (20:55)
Right,

Yeah, yeah.

Mark MacDonald (20:58)
And so

it was hard to say, yes, that was going to take us two hours to do, and it's going to cost you X amount. Instead, they're like, can't you just do that like in five minutes? And so the pricing structure, I remember the agency that I was working for, we kept growing and growing and growing. And then there was a stop because

Paul Povolni (21:10)
Right, right.

Mark MacDonald (21:23)
my goodness. Now we have more time on our hands. We were able to do things faster. ⁓ we didn't have to have wax machines anymore. ⁓ and so everything, everything just got easier and easier and, and we didn't keep up with the client work to be able to, you know, to, to fill our time. So all of a sudden people, people started asking, like, are we all going to lose our jobs? Are we all going to.

Paul Povolni (21:38)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (21:52)
have to reduce our salaries if we're going to stay. And those are all the things that people are asking right now because AI, you know, somebody who is not skilled in in videography can go into an AI and as long as they're skilled in some type of text to video, just type out what they're looking for and be able to produce things without having the creative in the middle of it all.

Paul Povolni (22:23)
Right, right. And that does change how people need to ⁓ think about their workflow and how they think about what they're producing, how they're talking about what they're doing. I think clients also think that AI and computers are magical. Like you mentioned the one button clicks, kind of like you see on CSI. Enhance this photograph. Let's zoom in on that license plate.

Mark MacDonald (22:46)
Do do do.

Paul Povolni (22:47)
Yeah, press that button, you know, and it zooms in and it's like, yeah, that's not real. And I think sometimes clients have, you know, an unrealistic thing of how easy some things are to do. But there's also with AI, there are some things that have become really easy to do. And I think as creatives, we need to evolve, or we're just going to get left behind. Just like, you know, when the computer came out, creatives needed to evolve, ⁓ because they would have got left behind. There's there's a lot of

Letra set, nobody hears about it anymore, whole lot. know, rub down lettering and, you know, doing the other tools that we use, the machines, all of those skills have all gone away and people had to evolve.

Mark MacDonald (23:32)
Absolutely. And letters that, my goodness. People would ask, why did you? Yeah. Or they would, they would say, so why did you choose that font? it's because I had the letter set sheet. ⁓ I mean, it's just, it's just crazy. If people today in our industry could go back to the eighties and nineties,

Paul Povolni (23:36)
and clip off, remember to clip off.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Mark MacDonald (24:02)
the stuff that we had to shift. I remember, you know, we always work with a photographer and then the photographer, I can still remember the digital photography came out and I can remember photographers going, I will never do digital. I will always stay film. And in the same sense,

Paul Povolni (24:21)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (24:26)
I can remember designers that would say, I'm not doing computers. I'm going to stay old school. ⁓ And there's now today people that are saying, I just won't use AI. it's like, okay, there are some evils of AI, but there's some incredible ⁓ abilities that are given to you if you...

Paul Povolni (24:38)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (24:52)
If you have a creative spirit, you know, what we can do with AI is so much better than the person who has no creativity at all. It'll take them more steps. like, I mean, the world keeps moving ahead. I hope it could be going backwards and in some stuff, but in the same sense that when, the computer came out, ⁓ you know,

Paul Povolni (25:02)
Right.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (25:20)
What was it? Text warp came out where you could, you could type in something and then you could stretch it and you can make it like layer off. And just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And, and they don't know that AI it's interesting because AI sometimes will say, I don't think you should go down that path.

but oftentimes it's just trying to stroke your ego. So it's just going, this is the greatest thing ever. this is like, you should be doing this and you shouldn't be. And so the people in the creative world, we have that filter that we can put things through that the average person can't. Will it catch up? Absolutely. But for the time being, I think that we're not.

Paul Povolni (25:59)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (26:16)
going to be set on a shelf and never used again. It's instead, how do we use the tools that come our way so that we use them in a better way than what the average person could?

Paul Povolni (26:28)
Yeah. And I think you're right in the AI in the hands of creative will produce amazing, mind blowing things that AI in the hands of somebody that is not creative, ⁓ won't produce. know, for me, a lot of times I would, ⁓ you know, create something and it would come from a mistake. You know, I would, I would select the wrong something and suddenly something appears on my screen. I'm like, do you know what?

Mark MacDonald (26:54)
Okay, Paul, whoa, sometimes? I mean, that's

all the time for me.

Paul Povolni (27:00)
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, it's those mistakes, it's those wrestling, it's those experiments, it's those combinations that are unique and unthought of that AI does not produce. AI produces the best of average for the most part. And it doesn't, it doesn't create unintentional mistakes. It doesn't have these experiments. It doesn't have these unique combinations that a creative does.

Mark MacDonald (27:28)
Man, well said. I mean, it's one of those things where the creative spirit relies on mistakes. ⁓ Like we need to lean into those mistakes and oftentimes, know, so just to propel me from the big agency, ⁓ I just always thought like, why does the church not know all of this stuff? So my wife and I started praying about

How can I use what I'm learning in the agency world to actually help churches? And for me, if I'm going to do that, I was not going to be able to do it in Eastern Canada. We don't have that many churches. And so I thought, well, maybe there's an opportunity in the States. And so we ended up moving to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Paul Povolni (28:14)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (28:24)
Set up an agency 25 years ago, ⁓ for churches and entirely for churches. And from that it was, ⁓ okay, so how do I, ⁓ how do I build an agency? I had never built an agency before. ⁓ so I started hiring up people just the way we did in the, in the big agency and, then along the way.

Paul Povolni (28:28)
Wow.

Mark MacDonald (28:52)
stop, let's not do it that way. ⁓ because there's lots of reasons why. ⁓ but then the, ⁓ what was interesting is that when I was working with the people in my studio that I had hired, I would oftentimes say, show me what you're working on. they go, no, no, no, no, I don't, don't look now. Like this, like, there's just, it's just not working. Well, that's what needs to

Paul Povolni (29:14)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (29:18)
feed our souls is those mistakes and the things that aren't working. And then, and then how do you, how do you make it work? And, that's kind of a fun accident that happened here. What if we, what if we worked on that? And, and it's the people who, who don't like those mistakes and don't like those accidents that, that don't make it in this field.

Paul Povolni (29:23)
Right.

Right, right, right. And I think that's so true is that unfinished work, that work in progress, that stuff that you might be ready to throw away, ⁓ know, sometimes it's just pushing a little further on an idea. And I think that's where the difference is between, you know, amateurs and professionals or people that solve problems and people that don't solve problems is they wrestle a little longer.

You know, they just wrestle with the solution a little longer. And so it's those when you see those mistakes or those potentials or those connections or those patterns or whatever. And I think that's where creatives bring so much ⁓ power to the solution is they see those and they wrestle with it and they come up with something beautiful that I don't think AI will ever get to.

Mark MacDonald (30:34)
Well, and it's interesting, you know, I've just never really thought to slow it down to how you just said that, but oftentimes it's the creative who knows that it's wrong, where the non-creative...

obliviously goes where they should not be going, like with stuff that they shouldn't be going. So the power that we bring to the table is to that we're wrestling with things that people would just quickly accept. If only clients did that. I get that's that's something that drives me crazy is that the the client will be putting out crap.

Paul Povolni (30:55)
Right.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (31:17)
And, like, you'll, you'll see their former stuff and it's like, well, obviously you need an agency. So they've come to us and then they don't accept anything. And it's like so much better than what they've been accepting in the past. And I, and I always think they become experts by hiring an expert somehow.

Paul Povolni (31:25)
Yeah.

Right.

Right, right. Well, and I think, I think that's true because McDonald's exists as well as really good steak houses. You know, there are some people that for them, a junk food burger is just fine and it's good food and it's okay for them. And others are like, yeah, but there's better food. There's, there's, know, there's really good steak out there. There's really good food. And, you know, I think, you know, there's some people that

They'll just settle for the worst, the junk food that's destroying their business, that's destroying their church. They're fine with the junk food and they don't realize that there's actually better ways to do this and more effective ways to do this, but you're just fine with junk food.

Mark MacDonald (32:22)
Okay. But let's just having the last name McDonald's. Thank you for, for using McDonald's not Burger King, but then you went down this negative path. I love McDonald's. I wish we owned a little bit of McDonald's, but what you said is so true. It's like, ⁓

I read a book a long time ago called Addicted to Mediocrity and how that the world just gets addicted to it's okay. And that I bristle at that because it's like, number one, we're all ⁓ in this together to improve things. As I believe as a believer, somebody who follows after Christ, I...

I should be held to a higher standard. I shouldn't just accept, you know, all the, it's okay. And go ahead.

Paul Povolni (33:24)
Well, that's what I'm saying. It'll do like settling for it'll do, you know, is, not a good place to be at, you know, ⁓ you know, the better place is to it'll wow, you know, as opposed to it'll do. I think a lot of people settle for it'll do.

Mark MacDonald (33:37)
man, I mean, just, I was gonna say pick up the newspaper. I'm back in those days. ⁓ Pick up, pick up any, or go onto a website and like, like most websites suck. Like they're just so bad. And then you'll talk to the person who created it and it's like, well no, my child, you know.

Paul Povolni (33:43)
Ha

Mark MacDonald (34:00)
the 16 figured this out and isn't this amazing? And it's like, yeah, it'll do it. It's fine to have the information out there, but what if it could just be one of the best websites somebody's ever come to, or they found just the right solution on, their website rather than having to dive in. know, I, I earlier today, I, I was talking to a CEO of an organization, a very large organization.

And I said, I went onto your website and you went, ⁓ yeah. And it's just like, mean, anyone who goes, ⁓ seriously? Like you went onto our website, like do something about it, especially if you have, you know, some money, just, it's going to take some time. It's going to take some effort.

With AI, it can actually be a little bit easier to help you structure and form, you know, formulate how things should should be in the in the messaging side. But ⁓ people, people just get addicted to that mediocrity. The the it's okay.

Paul Povolni (35:13)
Right, right. So with what you're doing now for churches, you mentioned you kind of went from working in an agency to ⁓ launching this business to serve churches. What was that like? ⁓ Because for churches, some don't like the idea of marketing or branding. It just seems so secular. seems so, you know, that's not for the church type. So what was that like early on?

I'm trying to convince people that they needed to brand or that they needed to market better.

Mark MacDonald (35:49)
funny that you use the word secular because I quickly know, okay, you understand because you use the word secular where there's a lot of people outside of the church that's like secular. does secular mean? And, so, you know, moved our family 1500 miles south and he was huge for us to leave everybody behind and

Paul Povolni (36:01)
Right. ⁓

Mark MacDonald (36:17)
And I can still remember thinking, agency is going to rock. It's going to be amazing. And then a month later, a month later, a 9-11 happened, which was the, uh, another little kick, but the kick that I wasn't, um, I didn't expect 9-11 obviously, but the, the other side that I didn't expect was how much pushback from the church. Um,

Paul Povolni (36:24)
Right. If you build a telecom, yeah.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (36:47)
I got it in Canada and I just, thought you, you Americans, sorry, didn't mean to like group you in. I don't know whether you're the same way as me. It's like, I am American now, but I feel more Canadian sometimes than American. But I got so much pushback.

Paul Povolni (36:54)
Hahaha.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (37:10)
from churches that were just like, whoa, I don't want that. And if I talked to them about church branding, that was like a bridge too far, too far to take them. And that's why we called it Be Known For Something. Because if I wanted to ⁓ shut down a conversation with a pastor, I would say, what are you doing for church branding? And they would go, let's pray for you. ⁓

Where if I said, what do you think you're known for in your community? Well, the pastor was like, my goodness, what a great question. Let's just talk about that. And so the whole concept of be known for something was to start a conversation and to extend that conversation into something that they needed to talk about perception and reputation. How much are you following?

you know, what, what your community looks like versus what your congregation looks like. So all of that, ⁓ I mean, it was just fascinating to me because I just, I, I, in my mind as a Canadian, I saw the American church as being a little bit more, I hate to use the word progressive, just, you know, open to new ideas. After we started, ⁓

You know, I, I started to speak at conferences about you need to have a website, which was like, I think that was the very first time that I spoke. you know, I spoken over at a hundred conferences and, those early days, if I went back and looked at some of the slide decks, there is just nauseating how simple everything was. ⁓ but along the way it, there's this.

Paul Povolni (38:57)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (39:05)
organization called Center for Church Communication that started. It was a nonprofit. ⁓ And then they started this blog, this new thing that was out there. And it was called Church Marketing Socks. And the church marketing, have you seen it?

Paul Povolni (39:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

yeah, I remember that.

Mark MacDonald (39:24)
And I'll, a lot of times, ⁓ I'll be in a conference and I'll mark mentioned church marketing sucks. it's like, you're my peeps. see you all out there. ⁓ and, and it, it wasn't trying to make money. It was just trying to poke at the church to say, Hey, your marketing sucks. Like you, everything you're putting out, like you're wondering why no one's paying attention to you. Well, there's a reason, ⁓ in an in full circle moment.

Paul Povolni (39:51)
Right.

Mark MacDonald (39:54)
⁓ several years ago, ⁓ church center for church communication, ⁓ CFCC asked me to be their executive director. And so I became in charge of the church marketing socks before we shut it all down, but that's like a whole other, ⁓ other issue. But what was interesting is I started to talk to churches that would say.

Paul Povolni (40:12)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (40:19)
Hey, I've been reading this church marketing socks thing. And at the time they weren't even sure whether they could say the word socks allowed. And, ⁓ and so it was, it was fun to listen to them say, of this blog, I'm thinking I might need a website and, and it kind of opened the doors. I wish it would have happened before I came in and started the agency because it would have been.

Paul Povolni (40:26)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (40:47)
been easier because there were several years at the very beginning that I just thought, it's just not going to happen.

Paul Povolni (40:53)
Yeah, yeah. So with when it comes to being known for something, what does that what does that look like for a church? know, a church might say, OK, be known for something. We are a church for everybody. That's what we want to be known for. ⁓ Is that correct? Is that not correct? And why?

Mark MacDonald (41:13)
And I think you know the answer to this because Exactly so oftentimes we try to reach everyone and we end up reaching no one ⁓ If there was only one church in town You could probably get away with whatever you wanted to get away with because the people who want a church would would find your church The moment that there's two churches

Paul Povolni (41:15)
I do, but I didn't write the book, so I'll let you talk about it.

Mark MacDonald (41:42)
there's a choice that has to be made. and oftentimes when I'm talking to a church, I'll say, so is there another church in town? They're like, my goodness, do you realize how many churches are in our area? And, and it's true. There's a proliferation of churches in America and, somebody has to make the choice. So the ultimate brands oftentimes, if not controlled,

Paul Povolni (42:01)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (42:10)
It becomes denomination. you're really, it's like I was raised Presbyterian or Methodist or Baptist or whatever it is. And so at that point it's, okay, well, I guess I just, I probably would want to choose a Baptist church. Well, that doesn't mean that the Baptist church is the best church for somebody here in Jacksonville. Cause I, moved from Winston-Salmon to Jacksonville, Florida.

In Jacksonville, we have 200 Baptist churches in Jacksonville. So if someone says, well, I'm looking for a church. Well, what kind of church are you looking for? Well, I guess it's going to have to be Baptist. Well, you still have to make a decision of which of the 200 churches are you going to go to. And if left unchecked, oftentimes it's what's closest to you. What's the most convenient? It's kind of like choosing a gym.

Paul Povolni (42:43)
Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (43:08)
because it's just around the corner and you put up with the gym because it's just around the corner. so like we just strongly urge churches to say, ⁓ okay, those are the people who want church, but what about those people who don't even know that they need church? A lot of people, ⁓ you know, today just don't

Paul Povolni (43:14)
Right.

Mark MacDonald (43:37)
fully understand how a church could benefit them. So what if a church reintroduces themselves to say, okay, so this is what we're actually all about. And if you can lean into the needs, concerns, and goals of your community, if they're Googling it,

Maybe they're not looking for church as a solution, but what if they're Googling something that that is really a felt need in their life and church became a solution to them. And so we just, we, we walk with a, you know, a church and figure out, okay, so

who are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood. And we say, so what are their needs, concerns, and goals? What would they possibly be Googling? And then what do you do really well? What's the reputation that you have? Or what's the perception that you have from the people in your church to say, no, we really do that well? And then.

Paul Povolni (44:18)
Hahaha

Mark MacDonald (44:41)
you know, get them to become known for some thing, that one thing that we know that people are Googling. And then if people are Googling that keyword and you have that keyword in your church name, or if you have it in your, what we call the thread, the slogan, the tagline, ⁓ then your church will be presented as a solution and Google becomes your biggest evangelist.

Paul Povolni (45:09)
Yeah, wow, that's so good. So what are some things that a church can become known for? Positive, negative.

Mark MacDonald (45:17)
So interestingly, ⁓ there was a huge worldwide perception study, church stuff. I'm sure a secular was in there somehow. ⁓ And weirdly enough, when asked about a lot of religious terms, when it came to church,

Paul Povolni (45:29)
you

Mark MacDonald (45:42)
negativity kind of ruled. Like most people saw the church as negative. And I believe, it in scripture that, you know, the disciples were all kind of gathered around Jesus and Judas had just betrayed him and he kind of fled out of the room. And then you can imagine the awkwardness of, okay, what is going on right now? And they

They looked at Jesus and in the Mark McDonald paraphrase said, so if we are gonna be followers of you, what will we be known for? And he said, no, they will know you're my disciples by your love one towards another. ⁓

Paul Povolni (46:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (46:33)
And so what should we be known for? We need to be known for love. That's what Jesus told us that we would be. But the worldwide perception study said the majority perception is what we're against. And that's like almost opposite to what we love. And so what we need to do is we need to shift that perspective.

Paul Povolni (46:39)
Yeah.

Right.

Mark MacDonald (47:00)
from the average person in our community who thinks something negative about the church and we need to shift it to being something like, what are we for? Rather than what are all the things that make it a sin and on and on. So what we would strongly urge people to do is just figure out how you can love your community.

Paul Povolni (47:16)
Right, right, right.

Mark MacDonald (47:27)
⁓ you know, we have a, we have a ⁓ four step formula that say their name, speak their pain solutions to proclaim and then share the game. need to know specifically who in our community are we trying to reach? What would their felt needs be? Because you need to be able to speak their pain. And if you can speak a pain into a group of people who have experienced that pain, they will feel.

Paul Povolni (47:27)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (47:57)
⁓ seen and heard. And then if we can then get them to feel seen and heard, they'll oftentimes say, do you have a solution for that? And then they'll lean into the solution. And then what the church has notoriously done really well historically is share the gain. It's like, give a testimony, let people know that once they've received this solution, this is how I was changed for the better.

Paul Povolni (48:26)
Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's so good. Well, and I think, I think when it comes to, I think when it comes to businesses, products and churches, there's a natural, leaning towards certain things that happens and sorts itself out that you don't know until you're out there. ⁓ and so, you know, when, when it comes to, you know, a product, you know, you might say, know, you might create a product and say, here's,

here's this product that's for this certain usage. And then suddenly the market says, actually, here's a better usage for that product, or here's an audience that you never expected that's attracted to that product, to that service, or to that business. And I think that also happens to churches. I think you want to be the church for everybody, but you find that there's a certain type of people that you're best equipped

to serve and attract that you don't really know when you get started. I think there's like Paul, Paul was well equipped to serve the Gentiles and then Peter served the Jews and that was kind of his ministry focus. And I think you might say, we wanna attract more young people, we're a young people church, but what you're finding is you're actually attracting maybe young couples or you're attracting maybe

more seniors and you're well equipped to do that and that's your gifting and that's your ministry, but you think you're for everybody but God's set you for a mission for a certain people and those naturally get attracted to you. Am I way off on that or am I?

Mark MacDonald (50:12)
No, really

well said. It's one of those things where ⁓ oftentimes, you know, people in the church, people who have read scripture, Jesus died for all. And therefore the church is for all. And so a pastor will quickly say, ⁓ my goodness, well, we're not going to narrow, you know, narrow cast. We're not going to, you know,

pinpoint a small audience when really we just want to be known for this and whoever comes will, ⁓ will it, you know, that adopts it, then we'll focus on them as they come in. But we're really for everybody. But the problem is today in this

in this crazy world of content influencers, people who are just creating more and more content, you get lost in a huge world of noise if you just keep trying to reach everybody. even like I'm fascinated by influencers, social media influencers. You know, I have 50 or 60,000 people that follow me on social media that doesn't make me an influencer. But these kids that

Paul Povolni (51:20)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (51:34)
It's like they decide I'm going to uncreate Lego and then we're just going to build something with Lego and I'm always going to build a truck. And it's like they're narrow casting based upon their content, their love. And what ends up happening is ⁓ some

anyone who's interested in Lego or a kid opening Lego or a kid building something in, you know, trucks in Lego, it's like there's like they, they, they swell to millions of people that are watching them on a regular basis. Does that mean that they're not going to reach other people? No, there's going to be other adopters who come along and go, ⁓ my goodness, look, this kid is just like the

cutest kid ever and he's building something out of Lego and, and, and then the algorithm sucks them in so that, that they start seeing this all the time. And then the next thing you know, is they're saying, I need to buy some Lego. And so like all of that stuff, like they know by narrow casting, they'll reach more people.

Paul Povolni (52:42)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (52:49)
And that's what the church today needs to do. If you try to reach everyone, you'll reach no one. If you try to reach a specific someone, you will end up reaching more people.

Paul Povolni (53:00)
Yeah, that's so good. I so agree with that because I think we're usually equipped and gifted ⁓ to reach a certain demographic, but we fight it and we don't want to acknowledge it and therefore we live in frustration. We focus on the wrong things. We're scattered. We're doing a million things ⁓ average instead of doing a few things well. And so we're not as effective as God wants us to be in doing the thing that he's called us to do because

We won't focus, we won't be known for something. We won't narrow it down to here's who we are and here's who we're about and here's who we attract and here's who we want to reach. And like you said, we'll get the peripheral, we'll get the additional people that come in, but that narrow casting I think is so key and that focus is so key to be more effective.

Mark MacDonald (53:52)
Yeah, and the

clarity that you bring to the table from knowing certain research, like to know who you need to narrow cast to, who you need to pinpoint, like that clarity will make you rise above the noise. so oftentimes the church is just speaking.

a whole bunch of truth. You go inside the church and there's ministries. Like how many ministries do you want? Well we have 50 ministries. Well what if we had 60 ministries? Like they're just adding and adding and adding thinking that this is going to help them where they need to edit and it'll help them a whole lot more. You know one of

One of the things that I like to talk about is how to communicate in unison. If all of your ministries are communicating one idea, that's the best marketing because if everyone's speaking their own thing and doing what's right in their own eyes, the Old Testament kind of teaches us what happens with that. But if everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes and they're all saying good stuff, but they're just, they're just trying different things, no one's

Paul Povolni (54:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (55:09)
hearing about the church, they're just hearing a whole bunch of smaller voices that are trying to break through and they're not.

Paul Povolni (55:18)
Right, right. Yeah, they're looking at all the features and not the benefits, right? They're looking at all these extra wingdings and ministries and events and all that stuff. And, sometimes the core message of who you're for, what you're about, you know, what your mission is, you know, what your purpose, what your values are sometimes get lost in that because everybody starts forming their own. If you don't set that in place, they'll, they'll, they'll just start defining things and.

You know, the lead sheep will kind of can take take your flock in the wrong direction too.

Mark MacDonald (55:54)
⁓ absolutely. And Paul, I don't know how many people have, have listened the full hour and have gone, is he only going to talk about the church? But in the same sense, I mean, if somebody's listening and they're a business owner, the same to you, like you have a product.

that is not, like don't talk about the feature of the product, but talk about the benefit of the product. What is the solution for your product? And then who would be best suited to receive that product? That's what marketing is all about. That's what I have to explain to the church all the time. If you have a product and you have a market and you think, my goodness, this product.

Like the market needs this. So taking it to that market in a way that they'll hear it is called marketing. And so the church needs to do it. We have a really great product, quote unquote. I mean, the best product ever, Jesus Christ. But

Paul Povolni (56:58)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (56:58)
Anyone who's listening you have a product and you think my goodness everybody needs it. No Everybody doesn't need it somebody specifically Create a persona like no lean into that group of people who would most benefit from this and from that success in marketing more people will hear about it if you try to get everybody no one will hear about it

Paul Povolni (57:25)
Right, right. And that's where focus is so key. even the title of your business, the title of your book is applicable across ⁓ both in the church world as well as for business owners, whether small business, large businesses is being known for something as opposed to just thinking that we just serve everybody. But getting down to the core of what you're really about

makes you stand out. So when people talk about you, they know how to talk about you. You know, one of the hardest things to do is when you don't know how to talk about a company, I don't know how to explain you to my friends of what you do. Like, what is it that you do again? You because I don't, you haven't clarified it. You've kind of been all over the place, but when people can easily tell other people about you and what you do, then you're getting to a better place as a business, as a church as well.

Mark MacDonald (58:23)
absolutely. And the controlled language, if you can get them to repeat it, ⁓ like that's where the power happens. Like your brand development, you might know something, but they need to be able to describe it. So you need to use their language and you need to control your language so that they go, that just makes sense. Like for those people who say, you know what?

Our product is the greatest thing ever. And I don't know why, but we're kind of the best kept secret. The best kept secret is not a great marketing strategy. Like it will fail every single time. And there's always those restaurants that close down in our communities. And we think, my goodness, it was like the.

best pancakes ever. Like they do these big stacks and you would tell people that and they're like, I didn't know that they had pancakes. And it's like, that's what's happening in our world today. There's so much going on that people don't know what they don't know. And you need to focus, focus, focus and be known for something so that people will actually listen.

Paul Povolni (59:39)
Yeah, think, yeah, best kept secret is a, is a, ⁓ a terrible business strategy and it's guaranteed that your business will, will disappear and, and nobody's going to miss you. ⁓ you know, because that's, that's not the way to go. Just like building a website. ⁓ you know, if you build it, they won't come like you've got to, you've got to market the website. You've got to put it out there. You've got to do things to get people to your website.

Cause I've seen a lot of people that it's like, if we just, we just need a website. Well, it's not, if you build it, they will come. It's because there's too many websites out there. You've got to do things to get the message out there of your business, of your church, of what you're doing. ⁓ because if you're not intentional about it, if you're not intentional about the messaging, if you're not intentional about who you are and what you're about, people will formulate that in their mind based on perception, experience, word of mouth, you know, whatever.

Mark MacDonald (1:00:35)
I'm to call you Pastor Paul here in just a second. But the interesting thing just to bring us full circle from the beginning, like back in the day, everyone just needed a brochure. It's like, give me a brochure that explains your ⁓ company or your organization or your church. And everyone had the brochure.

Paul Povolni (1:00:36)
Hahaha

Yeah, yeah, I've been there down there.

Mark MacDonald (1:01:01)
we call them Slim Jims, it's like the trifold, you know, like all those things. Well, you would finish that brochure, you would send it off to the printer, you would get it back and you prayed that you didn't have a typo in it because if not, we're gonna have to give these out with the typo in it. Like it was done, it was a done deal. Today, everything is fluid. Like everything when it comes to your website, you don't finish a website.

you get a structure that you keep improving on that website. And your mentality has to constantly be, what are our most important pages? What are people going to? What are the analytics that say?

Why are they always going to that page? If that's not the best page, you need to start changing and tweaking and getting experts to come in and help you understand why people might be coming to that page. Like nothing... ⁓

nothing becomes boring. Like everyone always goes, so be known for some thing. It's like, yes. And it will take a hundred percent of your time to just constantly be improving, figuring out what are, what's the language.

when I say this pain, what am I hearing back from my audience? What are the solutions that they're seeking? And have I leaned into that solution? And how does that work with my thread? Like what's the one thing that I'm supposed to be known for? So like you have your primary ⁓ keyword.

but then you probably need to have a secondary keyword and you probably have to have some tertiary keywords as well. And you're just constantly trying to improve, which goes back to the nature that I was raised in.

Paul Povolni (1:02:49)
Yeah, well, and I've often said that no website is finished just launched. You know, because you've got to constantly be in a state of looking at it, looking at the details. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's where the mistakes are made is, you know, people launch it. They think if we build it, they will come. Then they ignore it. They don't update it. You know, the little date at the bottom says 2011, you know, and it's so it's...

Mark MacDonald (1:02:59)
of flux.

Paul Povolni (1:03:16)
So, you know, they're not mindful of what ⁓ culture is doing, what society expects of ⁓ anything online. They expect it to be fresh and now and, you know, the information to be relevant. And so when it comes to a website, ⁓ you know, what are some mistakes that you've seen people do that are some quick things to evaluate and take a look at their own website and say, OK, we're doing it right or we're doing it wrong?

Mark MacDonald (1:03:44)
my goodness. So this probably won't age well because everything changes, right? ⁓ but the, the speed to content is the mantra that you just constantly have to deal with. And weirdly enough as consumers, we know what speed to content is. It's I need this information.

⁓ look, here's a website that might have that information. Where the heck is that? And everyone on the other side, the people who have built the website, they go, if they're really going to look for it, they'll find it. And that's not the way that people are. That's not the way we are. Speed the content. What is the fastest way to give them the content? Well,

Paul Povolni (1:04:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (1:04:40)
What we know is that the average person spends about 30 seconds on a website to find content. And then they usually give up. They're probably only clicking about three times. And in those three times, so that gives them about 10 seconds per page, oftentimes ⁓ that 10 seconds per page

it's kind of accurate except the three times it's like home page plus three times. And what we've ⁓ seen through a lot of research is that the home page, people are only spending about three seconds on a home page. So when people arrive at a home page, they're not looking for solutions, they're looking to find the solution someplace on the website.

So most times we're putting far too much content on our web, on our homepage and not spending enough time in our main menu. And the main menu just has to be like edited down because if there's only two selections up there on the, on the main menu, it's easy to choose. I want that one. And so the speed to content, doesn't get broken. As soon as you put three things on that main menu.

it becomes a little harder for things. It's like sitting down at a cheesecake factory and getting the novel called the menu and your cost is like the bigger the menu, the slower it takes to find the best thing to order. And so what most research is saying right now is that six to seven things in the main menu is about where it needs to be capped at.

when it drops down at probably about six to seven things. And then what we need to realize is that because of the way we read where we hug the left side of the page and we sweep across, tend to ⁓ think things on the left side of the page are more valuable than the things on the right side of the page. A lot of times ads are over on the right side of the page. So people start to ignore the right side of the page. So.

Main menu things on the left side of the main menu will feel more important than things on the right side of the main menu, unless it goes against web paradigm, which about should probably your first thing and then contact should be your last thing. But then in between it's the most important things to the least important things. And when it drops down, the most important things at the top and then, you know, gets

less valuable as you go to the bottom. And that's how you'll probably see in the analytics. ⁓ If you have something on the left side of your menu, more people will click on it. If it's at the top of a dropdown, it'll be clicked on more than the other things that are in the main menu. So just really focus on the speed to content.

get things that are most valuable in the left side and near the top of your page or at the top of your drop down.

Paul Povolni (1:07:57)
Wow, that's so good. So when it comes to the type of content, you know, especially above the scroll, but also the type of content on a church website, ⁓ what are some of the most important things that they need to consider and some of what you share about the church website, it's applicable to businesses as well. ⁓ you know, but when it comes to, you know, the stuff above the scroll and the content placement, what are some things that you've found that

works best and that churches are doing that's effective and that's not effective.

Mark MacDonald (1:08:30)
my goodness. It's like you're opening a Pandora's box near the end of our conversation. ⁓ So, and again, you know this stuff, like, ⁓ if you tune in to something, I deal with pastors. So if you tune into a sermon, you're expecting one topic and the title of the sermon is that topic.

And then, because they're pastors, they have to come up with three points to support that key ⁓ naming of what your sermon's about. When you go to a website, every page needs to be about one thing.

That's your H1. So your headline one, one thing needs to be there. If you go and look at a lot of, I don't know why you use, whether you use Yoast or All-in-One SEO, but the AIO SEO plugin for Chrome, you just, if you just.

It's free. You can download it. You can go to anyone's website and you can click on that Chrome extension for all in one SEO and it'll give you the structure of the page. It'll say how many H ones are on there. If you have more than one H one Google hates you because it's like, it's like a pastor that says my sermon today is going to be on helping the poor.

And it's also going to be on, it's like, soon as it's like, no, no, a sermon is supposed to be about one thing. And then those three things that support the main thing would be your H2s. So Google likes when there's the main H1 on every page, no more than one. And then the trickle down of your subtitles.

Paul Povolni (1:10:08)
Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (1:10:29)
needs to be a trickle down so that your H2s support your H1s. And then if you have sub points to your other points, which you don't want to get too deep into that, but then they become your H3s and then your H4s and on and on. H1s are incredibly important because if your whole, if the sermon title is all about helping the poor,

And then you never mentioned poor anywhere else on your page. In your three points, if it doesn't have anything to do with poor or helping, then people go, well, that doesn't make any sense. Well, that's what your web page, every web page needs to have some corresponding.

thread that works through that whole page and that's what's called a keyword or a key phrase and that key phrase needs to be used in your in your h1 and then it needs to be used occasionally through your h2s and then in your first paragraph because speed to content no one's reading a lot of content

Paul Povolni (1:11:20)
Bye.

Mark MacDonald (1:11:38)
People are just quickly scanning down through, we do know that they read the first sentence in the first paragraph. So that's a really good place to have your keyword or key phrase.

Paul Povolni (1:11:50)
Yeah, yeah, that's really good stuff. And hopefully people are taking notes from that. And I think two of the other things that I see a lot of church websites and even business websites, the mistakes they make is, and especially above the scroll and throughout the page, is the first thing they do is they talk about themselves a lot, as opposed to the person, you know, what the person coming to the site is looking to hear.

⁓ what matters to them, what's important to them. And the second thing that they do is they do a lot of, know, in business it's corporate speak, you know, in the church world it's church speak. And so it's a lot of insider language that somebody that is not familiar with it has no idea what you're talking. And you think you're being creative, you're thinking you're being deep, you're thinking you're being, you know, amazing, but...

It's insider talk. They don't know what you're talking about. unless you're attracting for a church, unless you're just attracting other church people, ⁓ then that might work. But if you're attracting the community, if you're trying to impact the community, you need to look at, know, are we using insider talk and are we just talking about ourselves, right?

Mark MacDonald (1:13:05)
Yeah. And in my vernacular, I would say be known for being clever and you'll be known for being confusing. It, and, that speed, the content gets broken because if someone has to figure it out, then, then they, they just don't like they just, they just leap to the next best solution that's out there. And that's really what the world's in today is we're just looking for better solutions and

Paul Povolni (1:13:13)
Yes. Yes.

Mark MacDonald (1:13:33)
We just have to somehow make everything about them and not about ourselves. Lean into saying their name, speaking their pain, and then the solution will be listened to. But that's the third thing down. oftentimes the solution is a little bit about what we have to offer.

Paul Povolni (1:13:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (1:14:00)
But if you start with that, oftentimes people don't know that it's for them.

Paul Povolni (1:14:05)
Yeah. Well, and then also framing what you have to offer and talking to their pain or to their need or to whatever, as opposed to, you know, beating your own drum, you know, here's what we have to offer, but now here's what we have to offer in the context of what you're needing solved or what you've come looking for or what you feel is missing in your life. and, and so re even reframing that in a way that speaks to their needs, speaks to their pain, speaks to their

their, their, whole that they're feeling and the reason that they've come and checked you out. ⁓ and so I think that's valuable, man, we are almost at an hour and a half and this has been amazing. And I'm sure if we were hanging out in a coffee shop, that'd be kicking us out. ⁓ cause we'd probably do this for, for a lot longer than we have been doing it. ⁓ Mark, this has been amazing, man.

Mark MacDonald (1:14:53)
I've enjoyed it and I think that I don't know whether you are a pastor or not, but you could be pastor Paul. You keep preaching the same messages to businesses. I know you do some church work as well. mean, ultimately what it comes down to is create a structure so that your solution is delivered in such a way so that a needy people will want what you're having to offer.

Paul Povolni (1:15:01)
you

Yeah.

Mark MacDonald (1:15:23)
They don't know what they don't know. So walk through the whole pain point thing, because that's what people are Googling. ⁓ And then offer a solution that's so much better than anything else they could try.

Paul Povolni (1:15:38)
Yeah, that's so good. So ⁓ what I usually like to do in wrapping up a podcast is to ask you, what is a head smack that I haven't asked you about or a question that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to share?

Mark MacDonald (1:15:51)
Man, so many head smacks. There's a book that's called Whacking the Side of the Head, which is just an amazing book. And then the follow-up book is Kicking the Seat of the Pants. And every time that I hear head smack, I always think that book. I think that if I were to sum up ⁓

Paul Povolni (1:16:03)
Ha ha ha.

Mark MacDonald (1:16:14)
A lot of things that I have to deal with on a regular basis, it's oftentimes, and it's hard to do this at the end of ⁓ a 90 minute podcast, but oftentimes we need to say less so that people will listen more. especially in the church world, the pastors put a lot of time and effort into a sermon. He will feel that it's the most valuable. ⁓

than anybody else in the church. And if he did the heavy lifting to edit down into something that is a little bit more palatable so that people don't go, wow, that was a long sermon. ⁓

I think that more people would listen instead of just broadcasting an entire 40 minute or 35 minute sermon online if someone does the heavy lifting to take snippets so that it attracts more people.

⁓ If they say less, more people will listen. And that goes to the idea of ⁓ speed to content. People are just trying to figure out, it's like, me something small so that I will listen more. And often as we say, well, let's give you a whole bunch of stuff and people just don't listen.

Paul Povolni (1:17:40)
Yeah. Well, and I think, I think media, social media has also created that kind of consumption of information is you have, you know, short TikToks, have reels, have, you know, these things where it's like, I want the gist of it in a very short time and quickly or else you're going to lose me. And so I think even when it comes with, you know, marketing for a church or for a business or whatever is, you know, it's not that people have gotten lazy or, or

their minds have changed. It's just they've been conditioned into a new way of consuming. And we've got to be mindful of that, you know, in preaching sermons, in communicating ideas is, you know, take away everything you can take away and keep the gold and keep the good stuff. And don't just fill it with fluff because people have gotten conditioned out of accepting that.

Mark MacDonald (1:18:36)
Well, you just have to look as far as an email. mean, we know that if an email runs six to eight sentences long, ⁓ people just stop reading. And the crazy part is that if you put a PS at the bottom, people know, oftentimes the most important things are put into those PSs. So if you want someone to read your email,

write your PS really well at the bottom and have them get that one thing to go, ⁓ maybe I should have looked back through the rest of that email.

Paul Povolni (1:19:13)
Yeah, yeah, that's so good. So how do people get ahold of you? How do they get ahold of your book? How do they find out more about you? What's your website?

Mark MacDonald (1:19:20)
Well, go figure, it's benomeforsomething.com and you'll find out everything about me and then as well as my agency. And then if you go to social media, I think I'm on almost every channel, either as markmac1023, that's my birthday, markmac1023 or through Benome for Something.

Paul Povolni (1:19:45)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Mark. This has been amazing. Maybe we'll do a part two at some point and talk some more because I feel we can just keep talking and talking. so thank you everybody for listening. Be sure to check out that URL, beknownfosomething.com. Check out Mark. He produces some great content. He's got articles and all kinds of great stuff for marketing, for taking you to the next level, for branding. We didn't even get to branding. We didn't even get to so much other stuff, but...

Mark, this has been so wonderful and so thank you so much for your time.

Mark MacDonald (1:20:17)
Thank you for having me.