Here’s another episode in the continuing saga of developing and marketing a non-profit, personal ministry site called StoriesAboutGod.org.  Today I’m thinking through the challenges of the site, and a response to those challenges.

I have two challenges, I think.  Well, at least two. 

Challenge One - the target audience isn’t well definable.
In the business and commerce world one of the first questions site developers ask the business owners is - “who is the target audience”?  In other words - who is supposed to use this site?

With the Stories site - there really isn’t a good answer for that.  Visitors may be Christians, or not.  They could have been looking specifically for faith-related stories, or not.  They could be of any age. 

You get the picture.  Without a specific target audience it seems like it will be hard to find another group of people wanting to support the site.  If we were talking about a site that raises funds to support AIDS orphans in Africa, that’s a much clearer cause to get behind—moreso if you’re a parent, or have dealt with AIDS in your family, etc.

Challenge Two - fewer number of stories than I’d like
This is related to Challenge One - without knowing who we’re writing for it’s harder to know what to write.

There’s also the “FUD” factor - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.  Is our story good enough… is it really a story… What if someone reads it… Is that all the site is really about....  Is Mike going to somehow try and make money on this down the road… etc.

Response - marketing and content development
So I’m thinking through how to respond to these challenges, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

On the marketing side, I’m thinking of starting with a local approach:

• A press release to local churches and religion section editors of newspapers
• Including something in that press release - either posters, bulletin inserts, bumper stickers, or...???
• Having business cards made with the site name and URL to pass out in relevant conversations, and leave in appropriate public places like grocery store bulletin boards.

On the content development side - here’s where I’m feeling led to go (although I’m not really comfortable with it):

• Once the press release has gone out, starting to contact some of those pastors as followup, but also to work with them in identifying members of their church with great stories to tell.
• Doing interviews with those people, and posting the interviews (think “This American Life” style) on StoriesAboutGod - both in audio format as a podcast, and in text format with a few pictures.

Even if I only do one of these a month, if I can produce them to the level that I’m imagining I think they’d be quite popular.  It’s just that I’m more of a geek with experience being the sound guy or video guy and not the interviewer, but again I’m feeling like this is really the direction God is calling me to go with the site.

Thoughts?  Other ideas?  Hints for successful interviews?  Recommendations on digital recorders and editing software?  Links to royalty free music libraries for some background?