General:

Sales:

Support:

1. What is MediaChurch?
   MediaChurch is a web-based service that provides churches with a professional-quality website and allows them to quickly gather, organize, and distribute information to their congregation and community.  Best of all, no web design or programming skills are needed!
2. What are the biggest reasons that a church should consider MediaChurch?
   We could go on for days, but you’d eventually stop reading.  So let’s just touch on a few:  1)  it provides a nearly “instant website” that’s easily manageable by church staff; 2) it keeps your congregation informed of what’s going on and when.  And it provides a vehicle to show the rest of your community that you’re an active church.  When you’re trying to attract seekers, you want to put your best foot forward;   3)  MediaChurch can suggest solutions that can provide your church with real cost savings while you’re increasing involvement.; 4) let’s face it:  if things are going well, not every activity is initiated, planned, and coordinated by your office – it’s in the hands of the congregation.  Which means that you have a church member out there who probably knows more about the event than your office staff. MediaChurch allows the church member to submit an event or story to the office at any time of the day or night.  When your staff is online next, they’ll see the new event waiting to be approved, edited, and published. 
3. Is MediaChurch available today?
   Not quite – at least not “officially”.  And we’re as disappointed as we hope you are about that. But we ARE making MediaChurch available on a limited “pre-release” basis to qualifying churches.  It’s a great way to test our service and have an opportunity to provide input as the finishing touches are being put on it. 
4. I’ve seen other companies that offer church websites.  How is MediaChurch different?
   Many church websites are based on existing templates.  While the demonstration pages may look nice, there is generally no simple included tool that allows you to quickly add, update, and manage the information on your site.
5. Once I buy a MediaChurch site, can I host it anywhere?
   With MediaChurch, you aren’t actually paying for a website product, you’re paying for a web service.  In other words, we provide a complete, bundled service, including hosting.  You pay a monthly service charge, but don’t actually purchase (or own) the site design.  One great thing about MediaChurch is that by just using a service that we make available to many churches, you’re able to access website features that could easily have cost your church $25,000 or more had you had to actually purchase it.
6. I already have a domain name.  Can I use it?
   Sure, no problem.  We’ll work with you on transferring it to our servers.
7. What about email addresses?  Do I have to get those separately?No, we’ll provide you with 10 email addresses (with free spam filtering available) at no additional charge. 
8. Can’t we do the same thing with a program like FrontPage?
   Programs like FrontPage, or even the more powerful web design packages, are designed as a “blank slate”.  You create pages from scratch.  If you don’t have both graphic design and programming skills, the results will likely not show your church in a positive light.  In addition, once it has been developed, the only person capable of keeping your site updated is the person who programmed it.  But programmers like to create things, not maintain them.  So even if they’re part of your office staff, it’s highly probable that your site won’t be updated regularly.  If they are a volunteer, it’s not probably realistic to assume they will be able to volunteer the necessary time to perform the detailed task of creating and linking new pages, and updating or deleting existing ones. 
9. We’d considered assigning this project to one of the teens in our youth group.  Why not?
   There are several reasons.  We’ll just cover three:  1)  As previously mentioned, home-built websites are usually best suited to … home.. use.  A website that doesn’t reflect the same care and consideration that you put into your prayer and services just won’t portray your church in a positive manner;  2) MediaChurch can be live in less than one day… try that if you’re designing your site from scratch.  And 3)  if you really attempt to USE the site, any initial cost savings will be quickly (no, make that “quickly”) be eaten up by the extra time a “home-made” site requires of your staff.  Simply put, MediaChurch can actually create a net savings of time for your staff.
10. What can I expect from MediaChurch in the future?  Is there stuff you aren’t telling me about? 
    Yes, there is.  Soon, every MediaChurch site will have the ability to allow feedback (either public or private) on any or all stories.  And we’re also developing step-by-step guides to church blogging and establishing a church bookstore, completely staffed and handled by Amazon.com.  Now you can point your congregation right to the books you’ll be using in your next Lenten series or Bible study, and they’ll get a great discount while your church actually receives a commission (generally 4-7%!) on nearly every item purchased from Amazon!  We have a few other big “rabbits up our sleeve” too, but we’ll save those for later so you’ll still be surprised!

Sales:

1. How much will MediaChurch cost? 
   Final prices aren’t locked in stone until we officially release the service, however… you can expect to pay a yearly fee that breaks down to $60-$70 per month, plus a one-time setup fee of $100-$150.  Our charter customers will pay less, though:  think more along the lines of $50/month. 
2. You say MediaChurch isn’t available yet.  So then why do I already see it in use? 
   A select group of churches is using MediaChurch in its “not quite there yet” form.  They’re assisting us by providing feedback on the completed sections while putting up with the elements that aren’t quite done.  We’re helping them, too, by manually handling the few areas that they don’t yet have full control over.  If you’re interested in our tester program, please complete the <link>contact form</link> [there should be a link to that form here}.  We’re looking for different sizes and types of congregations in different regions of the country. While we can’t promise that we can accept your church into the program, know that we want your business, and will do everything that we can to work with you!
3. Is there any other incentive to sign up now?
   Just for registering with us so that we can keep in contact with you, we’ll provide you with a special “charter discount” offer that will provide a $10/month price break for the first year!
4. Are there other advantages to signing up early? 
   You bet!  Three things we’re certain of:  1)  you’re going to love MediaChurch, 2) ministers network with other ministers, and 3) the best salesman is a satisfied customer.  If we’re right about those two things, our charter customers will benefit and so will we, because we will provide existing customers with a free one-month extension of their service for every new customer they refer to us.  Our charter customers will.

Support

1. How do we customize our MediaChurch graphics (our logos, etc)?
   Well, there are two parts (or maybe three) to that answer.  1) there is a large “title bar” at the top of each page, along with room for two additional graphics.  While you are free to create and update those graphics, when you start your MediaChurch service, we provide the initial graphics to you at no cost.  Our goal is for you to have a site that you (and your congregation) are proud of, and we want to do all that we can to start you off in the right direction.  Then, if you desire additional graphics for various seasons or due to a name change (for example) you can create them on your own or have us create them at a modest fee;  2)  Soon, if not immediately, we’ll also make a variety of color schemes available so you can pick the one that best meets your needs and tastes, and 3) eventually, you’ll be able to choose from multiple, and more sophisticated, layouts.  Each layout will have a variety of color schemes available, so it’s likely that no two MediaChurch sites would look quite the same.
2. What kind of training will be available? 
   We actually have experience in writing “Internet user manuals” for those who’ve never been on the Internet before.  While MediaChurch isn’t at all complex, we know that a good step-by-step guide can help calm your nerves, so you don’t feel like you’re going to break something (don’t worry, you won’t!).  We’ve re also considered regional workshops, but frankly, we don’t believe they’ll be necessary for a church to successfully use MediaChurch.
3. What are support hours? 
   While our primary method of support is email, and you may receive an email response at any time day or night, our “regular” hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m Central time, Monday through Friday.  We’ll also take your support phone calls or chat with you on the MSN service, so you can contact us in the manner that suits you best.
4. Anything else I should know about your support? 
   User-to-user support is a great tool, and we’re going to make it available in 2007.  We’ll link a user support forum from our website, and we’ll email all users as soon as it’s live.