Yes, it can be done.
However, there are a few disclaimers:
- The first is that just because there is a low-entry cost, doesn’t mean that there are no recurring costs. And when you add the growth factor, you also add the zeroes, if you know what I mean.
- The second is that when you launch a project on a shoestring budget, you have to make sure that your expectations of excellence are realistic for your investment. Think about it like this, can you really become a millionaire when you buy a dozen stocks? Probably not, but you will have become a stockholder!
I recently oversaw the development and launch of our Internet Campus at Family Life Church. We officially held our first services online on September 7th, 2010 but we did private beta testing for several weeks in July 2010. All in all, from concept to deliverable, it was about 9 months in the making but most of that time was used researching what tools and services we were going to utilize.
Like any web project, it is constantly evolving but we are happy with it for what we put into it and at its current life stage.
You can view it here.
Ready for the walkthrough?
iWeb
- Get it here.
- Cost: Free
Yeah, I know. Who brags about building a website through iWeb? Especially when you use a template to start from.
Well, I am certainly not bragging and to be honest, we aren’t even using the newest version!
Saying that I have HTML and JavaScript skills would demean the word “skills”. And since we had a limited budget, we couldn’t contract out the design of the site. So we decided to utilize a program that provided appealing websites for the end user and was easy to update. Plus, we had several Macs at the church and it was readily available.
As you can see, we kept it simple. A clean, minimalist design with six 125 x 125 graphical links.
The website as a whole is only six pages by the way.
Chatango
- Get it here.
- Cost: Free
We use Chatango for our live prayer. It allows one person to manage multiple prayer conversations (is that the correct phrase?) and only contains ads on the back-end. Here is the direct link to our “Need Prayer” page right here.
Another reason we chose it was because it does not require people requesting prayer to login with social network credentials or create a user profile.
LightCast Media for Steaming
- Get it here.
- Cost: $75 per month
Before I start, you should know that they have a free demo available that lasts 60 days! And it is as functional as the $75 Starter Plan that we use.
They handle the video delivery for churches like LifeChurch.tv and National Community Church.
Impressive. But the best part is, they don’t do ads and were the cheapest we could find.
Furthermore, they have a heart for helping churches spread the message of the Gospel with usable tools.
You can upload your video in almost any Apple format and they also provide tools for creating an on-demand archive (but we use Blip.tv for that).
Currently, we only do simulated live servies (like LifeChurch.tv) but they do offer actual live streaming for both audio and video.
LightCast Media for Internet Campus Module
- Get it here.
- Cost: $75 per month
This is free for all accounts (yep, even the free demo).
You can see it here.
It is flash-based and you can also add a module for pushing slides, but we have decided to go with a notes section, a chat box and video section.
Prior to the start of the video, there is a countdown to the next event or service.
I love that you can login to the chat by just typing a nickname. No need for signup or even signing in with social networking credentials.
Wibiya Toolbar for Social Network Connectivity & More
- Get it here.
- Cost: Free
We use the free version of the Wibiya Toolbar for several reasons.
Not only does it allow people to update their social networks from the Internet Campus, it also shows a map of recent visitors.
It is super easy to customize (drag and drop style) and you can match the colors to your website.
There are plenty of other mini-applications that can be added to the toolbar, but we have found this to be enough for us.
PayScape for Online Giving
- Get it here.
- Cost: Free-ish
I say free-ish because we already pay PayScape to handle our online giving on our main website (you can check it out here).
We basically just link to that page.
We would probably use PayPal, but we haven’t researched this fully.
Facebook Advertising for Marketing
- Get it here.
- Cost: Varies
We decided before we launched to advertise on Facebook only when the service was underway at the Internet Campus.
I stole this idea from Dan Ohlerking (Internet Campus Pastor at Healing Place Church).
That way, a click-through meant a person attending church – even if it is just for a few minutes.
We have been running the same ad for the past month in several different demographics but we hope to start series related ads soon.
We started with two services at the Internet Campus, one specifically for an audience in India and one for those in the US.
The India Service takes place at 10:00 AM (ET), which is 7:30 PM (India Standard Time), and the US Service takes place at 7:00 PM (ET).
We spend $10 on ads for the India Service which buys about 20+ clicks, while we spend $15 on ads for the US Service which buys 15+ clicks.
(Of course, this varies across demographics and the time you want your ads to run)
So we spend a grand total of $25 on advertising each week but we also have a Digital Street Team that spreads the word on their social networks.
I stole the idea of a Digital Street Team from Vince Marotte (Internet Campus Pastor at Gateway Church).
Etc.
Currently, we do not stream our worship due to the cost of licensing. We are looking into using WorshipCast for this (unless anyone has a suggestion), but at just under $1000 per year, it is pretty pricey. However, we have heard that they are planning to allow for monthly payments in the near future, which would be sweat!
Whew! I feel like I just gave birth, that was my longest blog post I have ever written. But if you have made it to this point, I hope it has helped on your journey! If you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment and I would love to help you out. If you have a suggestion for our setup, please let me know…
Chris Moncus says
Great post. A few questions. What is the volunteer schedule like? How many do you need? How are you recording this – one/two/three camera?
Blane Young says
Thanks dude!
We have a volunteer Internet Campus Pastor who leads a team of about 3-5 volunteers that help with live prayer, hosting in the chat room and the Digital Street Team.
We have been recording our services (two camera setup, but a primary and a backup) to DVD for awhile. We cut the edges on that and convert for Web.
Hope that helps!
Stephen Bateman says
Blane, this post is beautiful. Thanks man.
So from what you’re saying, the total cost is about $175/mo for online streaming? Any word on how many people have watched each week at that price?
Blane Young says
I am glad you found it helpful!
Yeah, that is what we would be paying now. We received two months credit because of some issues in terms of technical issues on our account.
If I am not mistaken, it could handle 50-100 watching each week…
(that is, if you set it up like we do and don’t use LightCast for archives)
Alex Tran says
Great stuff! I know this will help a lot of bootstrappin’ churches out there!
As for the WorshipCast license, we use that and think it’s worth the investment. Adding worship to your Internet Campus experience goes a long way in making the service feel complete. It’s personally my favorite part of the service. 😉
And it also helps differentiate the service from a podcast.What would draw someone to attend an Internet Campus if it’s just the message when they can download and watch it on their own time later?
Blane Young says
Totally agree with you Alex.
It was our desire to launch with Worship as part of the Internet Campus service but our budget at that time didn’t allow. We are looking to add it in late December or early 2011.
Great question, we do have on-demand streaming and podcasts but the difference is the community feel of watching it together and being able to chat and pray with someone live.
We fuel this with the Facebook Ads…
Nathan Jones says
Great writeup, thanks!
I’m wondering, how do you handle not having the worship-music in the stream (the licensing fees have been holding me up too)? Do you start the stream later than the actual service or just have videos looping or something else streaming during the music times?
Blane Young says
Thanks Nathan!
Our two services that we hold at the Internet Campus each week are Simulated Live.
So, the message from Sunday is broadcast on Tuesday morning and then on Tuesday evening.
(We release the podcasts and on-demand around that same time, by the way, although we don’t advertise or push that really at all)
The stream starts with the countdown ending and the Series Bumper Video.
Nathan Jones says
Very cool, thanks! I agree with the thoughts about the music being an important aspect — I just think the sticker shock of a WorshipCast license could be prohibitive for smaller churches. What I’d like to do is live stream everything except the music for a while, see how the response is, and if it’s good, then going and getting approval for the WorshipCast.
Blane Young says
That is a great plan, and it seems to be working for us.
I know that if/when WorshipCast offers monthly payments, that would be way more manageable for us.
Let me know how it goes and if you have any questions, let’s Skype!
Alex Tran says
Oh, I would also like to point out services like livestream.com and ustream.tv which would provide a lot of the services listed above for free.
However, you would not be able to control the look/feel as well. And it would also be harder to integrate things like live prayer/giving into the mix. But for those that really want to bootstrap, you can’t go wrong with free. 😉 It would be a good way to get the feet wet at least.
Blane Young says
Alex, that is a great tip. I had used ustream.tv when I lead Chi Alpha Campus Ministry at the University of Alabama several years ago.
The issue for us was that we heard of other churches that were having problems with sketchy ads. It never happened to us, but ustream.tv was our backup option if LightCast didn’t work.
Vince Marotte says
Digital Street Team FTW!
great work Blane…looks great
Blane Young says
Yeah dude, that plus Facebook Ads has been the primary driving factor of traffic.
It helps when people see ads and their friends chatting it up – thanks for the tip at Echo 10.
dewde says
I love posts like this.
Great job, man.
peace | dewde
Blane Young says
Thanks Dewde!
Eric Kirkhuff / Technical Sales for YourHost.com says
Nice post,
I have not read through an entire post like that for a while. It was an informative run on information and gives just enough info to help some out of the start-up site jungle. I understood what you said as we know that lots of our churches are doing the same. From a streaming point of view which I guess I could agree with some and post about other items listed, but I think my commenting on the Streaming part and see if your readers can benefit.
Like the post said, free and inexpensive come with conditions. We have been offering Live and Video on demand to churches and others for the past 10 years.
In the past 8 months we have found that churches that are under 100-150 congregation just flat out do not have the budget for some of the sweet tools, so we provide them with babysteps and solutions.
Were not just about selling streaming only. We understand their needs and are providing live support with qualified techs, and stuff for $50/mo.
What does $50/mo get you?
Most companies can’t tell you what that will get you but we have based that figure on a church performing 3 approximate 1 hr events at around..and here comes the geek speak.. 350kpbs Flash Stream which is like 2 Sunday services and a Wed night bible study. We also have a bandwidth generator to estimate use.
That is for the live event and with a small church, that includes some Video On Demand streaming which gets you by with a killer back end and player system, all for $50 bucks.
I guess I wrote allot also and I hope you do not mind my rant.
BTW – I am not one to go around looking for posts to pitch our wares. Someone sent me the a link that thought I might like to read… Good job!
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Blane Young says
Thanks for letting us know about this service (and for being honest that you work for YourHost.com).
Maybe this will help some of the readers get started with their Internet Campuses.
Eric says
Here is a link to a help PDF for startup Churches –
http://support.yourhost.com/kb_article.php?s=73a593f0721be9d0dec88cddad040253&ref=5692-OJXC-2943
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