The Business of Church: Marketing

This is such a sore topic for me to write about. I have been a part of meetings where people have looked at me and said, "You're in marketing. You know how to bring more people in to  _________ event." When I hear this statement, my stomach automatically turns and I know that someone is not going to be happy with what I am going to be saying.

 

I have written about marketing before (About branding and the way social media is moving). Marketing is not an after thought or to state it in a better way, marketing shouldn’t be an after thought. It needs to be a calculated strategic plan that needs to be watched over.

Many of the people I have worked with and what I have witnessed over the years is that marketing in the church is something that is not necessarily done or if it is done, it is not done in a good way. For example, just throwing in an ad in the newspaper about an event and not really putting thought into it or just creating a Facebook page to put long lengthy statuses that no one wants to read or just expecting people to know that you have this event.

I do believe that this lack of planning is part of the reason why people do not take the church seriously. The perception of the church is already not necessarily positive and poor work in advertising just adds salt to the wound.

So, unlike some of the other posts of the importance marketing has in the church I am going to be writing out some solutions or ideas that can lead to solutions.

Problem: Poor Planning of Promoting Events

        Solution: Plan them out

I get that this is a common sense answer, but from my experience people do not use common sense. Where the issue of this solution is, the fact that this has to be done by volunteers. There is nothing wrong with having volunteers, but some may not be as reliable as other or the fact that some may not be up to date with new technology or they have missed too many meetings and have no idea what is going on. So, even if there is some planning, if you don't have everyone on board then your planning is not going to work. This last statement is especially true, since having everyone on the same page is so key and because some of these people may not have marketing experience.

Problem: Having Social Media pages that aren't being used to full potential

        Solution: Study it to learn more and realize that you don't need every piece of Social Media

There are tons of articles, classes and how to pages about how to properly create a Social Media page. The articles are not complicated and are not filled with jargon and make sense. The second part about not having every Social Media page is a hard pill to swallow for some people. They believe that if there is a new social media site then you have to use it. My theory of this is if it doesn't fit your target market or what you do, then DON'T USE IT! Should a church use Twitter? Only if it fits with what your mission is and if you are going to take the time to plan it out and use it. This can be applied to any Social Media site and can be done by asking the simple question of, "Why are we using it?"

Problem:  Perception

        Solution: ?

Not the answer you were expecting. This really depends on the people and as much as I would love to brainwash people to be kind and loving, I can't do that. This is a difficult one, because it has to be a one-on-one connection that can change that. Also you have to realize that since the Christian community is so large and there are many people who believe different things in the community that one person may bring a positive image while someone else brings a negative. Perception is such a difficult area to improve on, but it needs to be looked at and be evaluated. 

This has been an overview of church marketing and wasn't even that in depth. I find this overall topic to be exceptionally complicated and can change depending on the church and location. This may be a topic to be further evaluated later in this blog (not in this series but can be focused on).

What to Expect:

    Week 5: Church Strategic Planning

    Week 6: Church Force- Volunteers

    Week 7: Personal Experience/ Wrap Up