Are you wondering how to market a church? Every church wants to market itself. It wants to attract new members or congregants or whatever you like to call them. But there’s that problem of getting the church name and reputation out there to the people. Without doing that, it’s hard to gain members.
I think every church in America is capable of and should start marketing itself. But there are some things you’ve got to get right.
1. You’ve got to understand why you’re marketing your church
If you’re marketing simply to increase your numbers, good luck. I really hope that works for you, but this article isn’t about that. You should want to get the word out because you know that people that come to your church will have their lives changed. That’s really the only reason you should want to get people to your church in the first place.
People buy the why. Why do you do what you do. If you’re doing it to simply help people, then people are going to love it.
2. Planning and setting goals
You’ve got to plan any kind of marketing. A haphazard approach will leave you wishing you hadn’t wasted your time trying to market in the first place.
Marketing is all about strategy, knowing what your “customer” needs, and doing everything you can to meet those needs. So make a plan. Get strategic. Your whole church staff should be working as a team on this. One marketing guy cannot steer a whole church on his own. Get people to collaboratively figure out what the game plan is.
It could look like having monthly themes where sermons, articles, videos, podcasts, social media posts, etc. are all tied together through a common theme. This not only looks and feels professional, but it feeds people more so than a one and done random teaching or piece of content.
So make a goal like that or something similar. Do it. Then see how it works and if you want to continue. Being consistent is a big thing when it comes to content producing. If you have a YouTube channel or an instagram or whatever content channel you’re using, use it consistently.
3. Go all out
You can’t just make a Facebook and Twitter and post all your church’s content to it. Sure, that’s cool you’ve got social media accounts, but people have to know about them.
Research how to grow each channel that you use. If it’s YouTube, there are strategies you can use to grow that specific channel. Aside from that, be sure to make physical handouts or posters or at least a slide that has your social accounts on it. That way your congregation knows about the accounts.
Make sure the name is the same as your church and has a username that is the same or close.
4. Analysis
Once you jump into this marketing world, you’ll find out what works. You’ll figure out what type of graphics work best, what email subjects get the most opens, and what kind of videos get the most views. This is the analysis stage. This is where you change, innovate and just streamline your process.
Marketing your church will never look the same for long. It will constantly be shifting but if you stay on top of it, your church will benefit greatly.