How Christian Men Can Tell A Good Idea From A Business Opportunity

Just about all of us have had those moments when the light bulb goes off inside our head, so how can you know whether yours is a money making venture and not just a good idea?

Whatever great idea or business opportunity Christian men get from God, selling your product to Christians should be part of your marketing strategy. A study conducted by a major Christian retail channel shows the retail value of Christian products sold by its members through all distribution channels reached $4.63 billion in 2006.

These are not just Bibles and books. Their members offer a wide range of products and services from apparel, curriculum, gifts, greeting cards, music software and videos.

There are 5 questions that Christian men can ask upfront to uncover some key points before you sink your hard earned cash into any business.

1. What is your unique selling proposition?

Yes, you do have to sell your product Virginia Wolf and knowing what makes your product better than it’s competitors is crucial to its success.

2. What makes your product appealing?

A good product should have some kind of sensory or emotional appeal to consumers, in other words, it should make them look or fell better.

3. How will your products show value?

Value isn’t only about pricing. What about quality and there is the emotional aspect that's important too.

4. Is your product idea interesting and exciting?

Your product will be competing against lots of other established and new brands and being a dull "me too" won’t motivate sales.

5. Product features.

A good product has to deliver in more ways than one. It should be able to last longer or offer more uses than your competitors.

These are just a few of the many considerations every product should go through before it can take it's place on the shelves of any store. The Bible reminds Christian businessmen in Proverbs 21:5 to have well developed plans, so do lots of research before spending too much money on any business.
If you want more information on deciding if your product is a great idea or a business opportunity, I recommend Christian men take a few minutes to read, "Is Your Great Idea a Real Business". Melanie Lindner hits on a few more things you may want to consider about going from an idea to a viable business.

If you already have a product you would like to introduce to the Christian market, check out the website for the CBA it's one of the leading Christian retail channels. Christian businessmen should make every effort to attend one of the many trade shows and conferences they host for retailers of Christian products.

10 Tips on Marketing your Product to Christians

A lot of consumers, teenagers, baby boomers, and African-Americans, consider themselves Christians. They cut across just about every demographic segment of the population. Selling to them is not as difficult as you may think. I’ve listed some pointers for targeting this niche.

First, let me tell you about a successful marketing attempt to reach Christians, I found at Target Market News.

Ford goes after the Christian Market

Bishop T.D. Jakes, pastor of The Potters House, a Dallas mega-church with about 30,000 members, hosted a conference a couple of years ago, called MegaFest ,and Ford Motor Company signed on as co-sponsor. They were allowed to hold seminars and display products during the event, which drew 200,000 attendees.
Can you see the advantage of having a targeted captive audience to view your products and hear how wonderful their lives will be once they buy it?

If your interested in reaching a large number of consumers at once then displaying at trade shows and conferences are ideal places, to get the job done.

Ok. Every business can’t spend the amount of money Ford does to reach consumers, so here is an idea that entrepreneurs can adapt to Christians or any group.

Marketing thru Blogs

A small South African winery’s marketing strategy, used social media, focusing primarily on blogging. It’s first campaign started by giving away a bottle of wine to a select group of bloggers. Some of the bloggers wrote positive reviews about the wine and by the end of the year, sales had doubled. The results according to Search Engine Guide shows that before Stormhoek started involving bloggers in its marketing efforts, the winery sold around 40,000 cases of wine a year. Since then, their sales have climbed to 40,000 cases a week .

Could your company benefit from those kind of results! Well, here are some tips your company can apply.

10 Tips to Reach Christian Consumers


Identify and analyze your target market.
Develop goals for targeting individual segments of this group.
Research the market potential for your product.
Evaluate the performance of your marketing strategies.
Emphasis the benefits of your product.
Adapt your product promotions to take advantage of the power of social media.
Look for opportunities to partner with organizations that are familiar to the Christian market
Make it easy to do business with you.
Develop a marketing calendar.
Smart entrepreneurs will also look for a competitive edge.

Marketing to this $4 to $6 billion market niche makes good business sense and getting your company geared up to reach this group should be high on your company's radar.

Oh yeah……………
Free Stuff

It’s the weekend and time for my free stuff post.Here is a freebie for internet marketers. Try this free website self-promotion tool. I was tipped off to it by a credible unnamed source. I only found out about it moments ago and haven't fully checked it out, but I can’t wait to start using it.