Church Marketing Issues
For most people, a house of worship is a very important place.
Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, they’re all crucial components of modern society that allow members of the public somewhere to congregate, worship, support one another, learn, share, and study.
Church Marketing for Growth
Many times, however, church members, and even church staff (including senior staff) can forget that at the end of the day, a church, any house of worship for that matter, is still essentially a non-profit organization reliant upon donations from the community and associations, grants, and mostly outside financial support that is then reinvested back into infrastructure in order to continue spreading its message, continue to function and operate, and expand into new markets so it can further spread its word and serve more people.
Without money coming in, the house of worship is operating without a vital connection it needs to continue, essentially what is “faith without works.” If this were not the case, after all, why ask for donations in the first place? Why have a church gift shop, or hold fund raisers?
Yet in my well over 20+ years’ experience working in marketing and advertising, advising startups (including many churches), I’ve yet to meet a single pastor or church administrator who admitted to me that they were doing everything possible to ignite growth in that church. Not one.
So if churches are such vital core centers of every local community, why do so many seem disconnected from actually generating revenue or doing as much as they could to bring in more congregants and serve as more robust centers of the community?
The answer is in the marketing. Digital marketing is just one aspect of marketing, please bear in mind, that ideally should overlap and compliment online efforts; and if churches in general could more fully embrace marketing, see their institutions as businesses in need of revenue, to take marketing as seriously as they do the power of their sermons and services, it would seem the disconnect would be much less.
Bringing Digital Marketing Into the Church
Let’s review some of the ways digital marketing could further the mission of a church and held increase its marketing reach, thus bringing in more congregants, which in turn increases donations and activities.
Sermons are powerful statements of faith, often explanations of principals and vision, yet most churches don’t post these on their own websites. Why not post them?
It’s what people need and want, yet can’t find on the vast majority of church websites. All sermons should be recorded for audio, recorded by video, and transcribed. Doing this allows each sermon to be used as actual marketing collateral that can be repurposed and used in overlapping ways:
Podcasting Sermons
Each and every sermon should be saved in MP3 audio format and sent forth into the world as a podcast. Why bother? Isn’t podcasting just another silly fad? Who uses the internet, anyway, right? Wrong. According the folks at Pew Research, whose purpose is to research media, podcasting has risen hand over fist and will continue to do so.
Back in 2016 over two thirds of Americans had already listened to a podcast, and that number continues to climb daily. If your sermon is not in podcast format, being sent out to the world through Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and other podcasting channels, why not? The startup costs are very minor since your church will already have a sound system in place, so all you need is the will to record them in the right format and desire to share them with others…which is kind of what church is about in the first place.
Videos
If you aren’t video recording your sermons for presentation on YouTube, you’re losing out. Big time. YouTube is the earth’s second most-used search engine, second only to Google and also owned by Google and studies have shown that more and more people searching online prefer video format content because it is simpler to consume, easier, more entertaining, and easier for them to digest.
Blog Post Sermons
It should go without saying that each sermon should be transcribed so it can then be written up in blog format, with appropriate links added to scholarly biblical citations, references sources so it can help more people, include photos of the church, the pastor, whatever is being discussed to make the sermon more relevant to the reader and more engaging,
eBooks of Sermons and Overvies
If you have content (written material) sufficient for a blog post, eventually you’re also going to have two to three sermons that tie together common shared themes. Joel Osteen is a master of putting together several related sermons, republishing that content as a book, CD set, video series, download, or book, or audio book, or series of podcasts. Why not learn from his example and do it, too? You’ll have the content quickly enough once you start recording and tracking sermons, so all that’s required is the will to grow, organizational ability, and technical assistance (if that).
Physical Books
Like we said above, just taking it a step further. Once you have enough content that is related in theme in several sermons, you’ll probably have enough content to (at the very least) begin writing a book. A series of sermons on hope, for example, or making it during tough financial times, or on overcoming adversity, is the foundation for what could be a fantastic inspirational book many could find beneficial and that the church could sell online and in its book store and that the pastor could promote in speaking appearances. If there’s interest…
Church Website Forum
I’ve yet to see a church website with a forum. Who would want such a thing? Well, a forum is nothing more than a place online, on your church website, in which church members can openly (or privately) discuss areas of concern for them, like their own private moderated Facebook, obviously without ads you don’t control yourself, and without privacy issues or inappropriate content. Most churches have many different members attending them, and many different types of community groups meeting there, so having a forum where church members could ask for help, share inspiration, could be very helpful indeed and steer even more people to that website.
Church Store
A church store doesn’t have to be only inside a physical church, only open one day week, staffed by a volunteer. It can also be online, staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days per week and set up to sell items such as ebooks, physical books, church t-shirts, church key chains, church bibles or other books, event tickets, fundraiser information, posters, CDs, audio books, video series, and even services. It can also be set up to accept donations for specific causes.
Church Classified Ads Section
Just about every church has bake sales, fundraisers, community forums, bulletin boards, and other things where community members can post items they have for sale or would like to even donate. Why not make their involvement easier with an online ads section where you can even charge a minor fee for the posting, similar to a hyper-local church version of Craigslist or similar online forum? It’s another revenue generator for the church, requires minimal moderation, and increases church participation as well as website visits.
Church Dating Section
Very few church attendees are asexual or disinterested in finding a life partner. Why not have a customized dating website sub-section where church members (if your church is large enough or growing) can list their interests, faith, preferences, and search online for suitable partners within the church community itself? It doesn’t have to be a silly or lurid affair, but can be very easily moderated and maintained while increasing church website visits, increasing church revenue, increasing church participation, increasing church visits (after all, where would members want to meet on their first date but the church itself). You could charge a minor fee for membership, that would go toward infrastructure and growth, while further serving community needs.
Church SEO
Most church websites simply don’t have SEO. Any SEO at all. So what is SEO? It’s how you outrank competitors online, very simply. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is what Google uses to index and list websites. If your site has no SEO, Google simply lists your site as its organizational name (maybe) or as the word “home” it sees listed. So the only way anyone would find your church then is to look up the specific correctly-spelled name of the church. They would NOT find the church if they entered a city, state, and then started looking for churches in a particular geographic region. Imagine how many people use Google every day. Now imagine your church being number one in search results for churches in your city and state. Does that equal out to more congregants? Of course. But you have to be in the game to win. Find out if your site has appropriate SEO to be at the top of local Google search results for churches in your area, and make it important enough to act on it. More congregants, more donors, more bodies coming in, are worth the very minimal effort and investment to be at the top.
Room Rentals/Event Space
Every church in America has meeting space, yet most act as though they don’t want you to use it, even if that means more money coming in for them. Make your church rental spaces available for revue on the church website, with rates clearly posted, a way to book reservations online, a way to pay online, online forms stating policies (such as whether you permit food or drinks, technology available for presentations, wifi, and so on) so you can actively rent out more spaces, more often, and make more revenue for the church. Each community is actually filled with small business owners and associations and groups who are looking for spaces to hold meetings, yet can’t find any. I’m one of them. I’d love to have meetup group meetings at local churches, but can’t, because they won’t respond to emails or phone calls, don’t list rental spaces online, and have no way to pay online, and don’t state policies even if you can reach them. Why not make the church user-friendly to the community you serve and want to attract more members from?
Fundraisers/Events
Most churches don’t actively promote their events online through their church website. Many churches will show event calendars that are empty year-round, have zero information, or don’t have one at all. Use sites such as meetup, Facebook events, LinkedIn, even sites such as Instagram to actively advertise upcoming church events and then include a link to the church website where people interested can purchase tickets. It requires of course that you actually have regular events, marketing collateral such as photos and logos that match the church website and its other marketing branding material to to use in coordination with that, but it’s easy enough to post events online and in an interactive event calendar if you want to attract more people to the events.
Offline Avenues
This refers to physical brick-and-mortar locations and old-fashioned “boots on the ground” work that coordinates efforts with online efforts. When offline works hand-in-glove with online media marketing, it produces results, every time.
Physical Signage
Every church should have physical signs on sidewalks so those driving past can find out about when services are held, when they’re open, about upcoming events, and fundraisers. Every time I drive past a church, I’d love to learn more about whether or not they have evening services, but since none post such information, it’s one more marketing avenue that we both miss out on. Why not just buy a few signs from the local hardware store and put signs on area sidewalks so passers by can see what’s going on in the church and know what events there are and when?
Flyers
Nobody likes to have their car windshield covers with marketing flyers, but by the same token, most people know what a church is, too, and know that a church has events, concerts, fundraisers, community activities, sermons, services, and other events all the time, so putting flyers up at local bus stops, maybe in post offices if permitted, in local restaurants, could bring in more congregants. The costs are very minimal and if that effort brings in a few more of the needy, or those who could donate time or money or volunteer, isn’t that worth the effort?
Resistance to Change
Now, when I first wrote an earlier version of this post and submitted it to several web developer forums online for consideration, the concepts and approaches listed here received a tremendous amount of push-back.
The web developers complained that they could not see how doing such things could actually deliver more church-goers to a house of worship, or how such approaches could boost a website’s Return On Investment (or ROI) for a church, or increase church participation online. Many complained that my ideas were too difficult to implement. The funny (or sad) thing, was that none of the people on the forum had ever tried any of these ideas listed. None. They were fine to complain that no church website could possibly have a church singles dating website (even though every church they had ever seen did manage to somehow have a functioning, active singles group, however), or classified ad section (even though they all admitted that every church had bake sales, flea markets, and other fund raising activities regularly and often). They said having an eCommerce store to sell church swag and downloads wouldn’t work because Pastors and church leaders would need training in how to maintain the store and wouldn’t be receptive or see the value in it – and yet every church has a church store whose purpose is to raise money.
I simply replied that this post was not and is not for everyone. It’s for those who want to grow a church’s base and are willing to put forth deliberate effort through digital marketing in order to move that needle. It’s not for order-takers and template installers. They won’t know how to do the work and won’t be able to communicate the value in any of the strategies. And it’s not for church leaders who don’t want to stimulate growth or take measured, albeit minimal online investment. And of course not every approach will work with every Board and many churches won’t see the value in marketing or trying new approaches. It’s for real church leaders who are passionate about igniting growth and truly care.
Summarizing and Taking Marketing Even Further
Obviously the list of ways in which we could market and build revenue for a church are virtually limitless, because a church itself is a business (even if it’s a Non Profit one) on multiple levels, with a virtually infinite number of ways in which it interacts with and serves its local community, so we’re really limited by imagination and will to grow.
If your church were to try some of the methods for building revenue mentioned in this blog post, who knows what doors they might open for igniting growth, provoking further interest, and generating revenue?
If we combine and overlap efforts, it’s easy to see how several of these methods could create greater interest and more robust participation at the very least.
So in summary, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg in what could be done to ignite transformational growth and increase donations for a house of worship.
If you’d like to dig even deeper, below is a podcast episode in which I help a Rabbi transform his life, his marketing, and how he builds his own practice.