By Christopher B. Nelson-Jeffers, CEO - Breckshire Communications
Get it in gear and kick-start your church attendance and church growth campaign - here is the ONE THING that you simple MUST do this year if you want to achieve dramatic growth results …
“Evangelism” vs. “Church Ministry Marketing”
To a great number of pastors and other leaders in the church, the terms “church” and “marketing” hardly belong in the same article, much less in the same sentence, and never NEVER together.
To many people, the term “marketing” instantly brings to mind slick, expensive corporate advertising campaigns, with sleazy, fast-talking salesmen, manipulating honest, hard-working consumers into buying things they don’t want, don’t need, and can’t afford.
While it is certainly true that there are some secular marketers like that, it is also true that there are some ministers, churches and “religious” movements like that as well - though they are thankfully, by-and-large, the exception and not the rule.
In fact, in the minds of many people, the term “Evangelist” itself often means precisely what the term “Salesman” means: a slick, fast-talking huckster manipulating weak-minded people with high-pressure tactics and mesmerizing language, calling upon them to “donate generously” to his “ministry”, a ministry that is little more than a elaborately-veiled scam.
Secular Evangelism and Church Ministry Marketing
When you examine the issue carefully and objectively, you will note that at their root, church or ministry evangelism and secular marketing have much the same purpose and intent - that is, to literally “get the word out” to the people, to create an awareness of a product or service in the minds of potential customers (or in the case of churches, of worshippers and members), and to encourage in them a motivating desire to buy or participate.
By definition, “Evangelism” is “the preaching or zealous spreading [of Christianity], especially through the activities of evangelists”. It also refers to “a crusading zeal, great enthusiasm, or fervor for a particular cause [i.e. Christianity]”. [source: Websters College Dictionary, Encarta English Dictionary).
The term “evangelism” itself is revealing. The root, “evangel” is derived from the Latin “evangelium” and the Greek “euangelos”, which means, quite literally, “well messenger” (”eu” meaning “well”, and “angelos” meaning “messenger”), or - the “bringer of good news”.
Church Ministry Marketing and the “Great Commission”
The “Great Commission” of Christianity, according to the Gospel writer Matthew, is to “go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you …” (Matthew 28:18-20)
Thus in a sense, the biblical imperative asserted by Matthew, is to “go forth and spread the Good News of Christianity to as many people as possible”. What is this, if not a form of marketing?
“Marketing”, in the secular world, is defined as “the business activity of presenting products or services to potential customers in such a way as to make them eager to buy …” [source: Encarta English Dictionary] or alternately “all business activity involved in the moving of goods and/or services from the producer to the consumer, including selling, advertising, packaging, etc…” [source: Websters College Dictionary].
Marketing means, basically, matching a product or service with a human need or desire. In the words of one successful secular marketer, marketing is simply the process of “finding the people who need what you are selling, and making sure they buy it!”
Evangelism, Church Ministry Marketing, and The Art of Persuasion
All marketing involves an element of persuasion … of convincing those who are not our customers to become our customers by buying our product or service.
It also involves persuading current customers to continue to purchase our service or product, in the face of a world of possible alternatives.
Evangelism involves persuasion as well . . . namely, persuading those who are not followers or believers of Christian faith to become disciples, and to accept and practice a Christian paradigm.
It may also mean persuading those who are nominally Christian by way of culture and/or family, to pro-actively commit (or re-commit) themselves to the Christian faith journey.
And like marketing, evangelism seeks to persuade current disciples and believers to continue upon that path, in the face of a world of possible alternatives.
So, in combining the two seemingly unrelated concepts, we can define “church ministry marketing” as “all activities of [the church] involved with the presentation of [the faith or denominational paradigm] in such a way as to make people eager to participate and to become disciples and believers, or to continue to be active participants in [the church] … including activities such as “outreach evangelism” (selling), advertising, public relations, facilities and program (packaging), etc …”
Does your pastor’s mind balk and choke a little at the melding of these two reputedly disparate concepts of the secular and religious worlds? You are not alone.
Yet why shouldn’t religious leaders look to and emulate the most successful methods of the secular business world, as long as those methods are congruent with the spiritual and moral values of the church?
Church Ministry Marketing and the Art of Communication
At its root, marketing is all about communication. So is evangelism. Communication occurs in many ways, from the words that we write or speak, to how we package ourselves and our church; the clothes that we wear, our haircut, our grooming, the facilities we build, the program we develop, and how we maintain them.
Today’s modern age provides a WEALTH of potential communication tools and resources, from newspapers and magazines, radio, television, direct mail, printed materials, voice and video recordings, telephone, personal contact facilitated by our modern transportation conveyances, to the rapidly-expanding cyber-resource of the Internet, email, websites, RSS, and more!
Along with these developments of course come many challenges. People are much more educated, sophisticated, and media-savvy, and are much more aware of the wide, wide world of options and possibilities available to them.
The days when you could roll into town and set up a wagon or tent, and have people come in for miles around just to hear you speak, are mostly gone. People now expect clean, modern, well-maintained facilities, with good heating, air-conditioning, good lighting, handicap elevators, a professional staff, professional-looking materials, and a well-developed program.
Most people will no longer sit still for the “hard sell” or the spiritual guilt-trip. Nor will they participate in church “just because” the church is there, or because they grew up there, or because their mothers and fathers did. People today want options, and they want spiritual experiences that “speak” to them in clear and personally relevant ways.
What People Want From Their Church
People want to “belong” to something larger than themselves, something that enables them to feel involved and “relevant”, and as someone who is themselves individually loved and valued.
They want a “human connection” that the modern world often lacks, but they want it in a way that reaches out and “grabs” their attention, in ways that are exciting and relevant to them personally.
They want things that challenge and engage them mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They want an experience that is positive, uplifting, and inspiring.
They also want to be entertained. That may be frustrating to you as a serious and thoughtful man or woman of God, but it’s true. People want to have fun - they want to enjoy what they are doing - and they want to enjoy being with the people they are doing it with.
Churches and ministries have to compete not only with the wide, wide world of secular options, but often with each other.
People’s time today is severely limited - they have the same 24 hours a day that their parents did, but they now have so much more now to fill it with. You can no longer simply throw open the doors of the church, and expect people to attend, just because it is someplace to go.
You simply have to provide your people with a positive, fun, uplifting experience, and a connection that they are not able to find anywhere else. If you don’t, that’s where they’ll go - somewhere else.
Organizations and institutions (either secular or religious) that do the best job of providing the greatest number of benefits to the greatest number of people (note carefully that I said benefits…), and in fulfilling the wants, needs and desires of those people … such organizations will continually prosper and grow. Those that do not adequately serve those needs or desires will quickly wither away and die.
Here are two classic textbooks for applying marketing concepts to church ministry:
Double Your Church Attendance Deluxe Edition
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=2 .
Marketing for Congregations: Choosing to Serve People More Effectively
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=3 .
Developing an Effective Church Ministry Marketing / Evangelism Plan
Step 1 - Have a Marketing (Evangelism) Plan
There is now a wide and ever-expanding world of marketing resources and tools available to you out there. Most secular marketing campaigns will use a diverse mix of them in order to effectively get their message out. You must do the same.
For example, did you realize that corporate marketing campaigns will often use up to twenty-seven DIFFERENT marketing channels at the same time? Newspaper advertising is only ONE of those possible channels.
Of course not every available marketing channel will be appropriate for your message, but it is important to identify as many available channels as possible, and to craft a plan that uses as many of them as possible in a balanced and sustained way.
Many churches will spend a great deal of money running one or two splashy display ads, or television ads, or perhaps a radio spot or two, and then become discouraged when they have expended their resources without seeing any apparent results.
Professional marketers will tell you that it takes AT LEAST seven exposures to a specific message for that message to even begin to filter into the mind of a consumer. In addition, you will want your message to actually be in front of the consumer when they are motivated and ready to hear it, and most especially when they have a motivation to buy.
At the very least you want to ensure that that your organization comes immediately to mind when the individual starts thinking about solving a problem or a need that they have, a problem or need that could potentially be fulfilled by your product, organization, or message.
Marketers call this “front of consciousness” positioning, and it is critically important. You simply cannot achieve this “front of consciousness” awareness without some sort of regular and sustained advertising and marketing, to that group of your most likely and desired “customers.”
In the same vein, it is important to have some means of actually tracking and monitoring the results of your advertising or marketing, in a way that gives you some indication of the relative effectiveness of your advertising or marketing efforts, especially as it relates to the specific channel or advertisement used to relay a specific message.
This can be difficult at times. For example, if you run a radio ad, how do you effectively measure how many people actually came to church as a direct result of the ad?
You can ask people directly, but often they may not exactly know, or in actuality their response was the cumulative result of several exposures via different mediums, messages or channels, and the final one (the one that they apparently responded to) was only the one that finally “put them over the edge”.
This is why a balanced plan is necessary, in order that all elements of the plan work together in a synergistic and sustainable way.
Your plan should include some method of measuring results of a particular communication effort or channel, so that you can periodically evaluate your plan and then re-direct resources (which are limited) to those channels or media which prove themselves to be the most effective (and cost-effective) in reaching those people in your community that you most want to reach.
A well-crafted “master plan” for your marketing and media efforts will be a tremendous help for you as well when it comes time to present an annual budget to your finance committee. It might also prompt additional donations from members of the church who see the value and effectiveness of your proposed efforts.
Step 2 - Know Your Target Audience
Perhaps this (and the points that follow) should be listed first, as they are critical to the crafting of your church ministry marketing (evangelism) plan, but it is important to impress upon you the necessity of having a well-thought-out, balanced, and written plan in the first place.
This point and those that follow are however all key points in the creation and execution of your evangelism and marketing plan.
When asked about their target audience, churches, ministries and pastors will usually say that they want to reach EVERYBODY (after all, the Great Commission does say “to make disciples of all the nations …”, does it not?).
And while it is certainly true that the gospel message is for everybody, as a church or ministry, and as a church or ministry with decidedly limited staff, time, and resources, you must start somewhere.
You must strive to focus your efforts in those areas that will do the most good, or which are most supportive of your overall central vision and stated organizational mission.
Not every prospective member or worshipper will read, listen, or watch the same thing, or even respond to the same message in the same way. Therefore church advertisements and marketing efforts must be tailored and customized to their intended audience or recipient.
For example, a young person or youth will have different interests, perspectives, and problems than will a more senior or elderly person. What will the tone and content of your ad be? Serious? Humorous? Fun? Scholarly? Reflective?
A young prospect is more likely to hear your message on a radio station playing “his” or “her” kind of music, or perhaps on the Internet, or on television, or from signs or posters in places where they hang out.
They may respond to messages that offer fun, an opportunity to socialize with their friends, or that offer some source of guidance and direction to them as they attempt to find their way in the world.
An older prospect may be more likely to read the newspaper, watch the news, listen to an “oldies” radio station, or read a direct mail piece. They may also respond more to a serious or reflective, inspirational message.
Adults with families are likely to be concerned with bringing up their children in healthy ways, in family-oriented environments. They may be interested in participating in missions projects in the community or in other parts of the world, perhaps in response to some recent event or disaster in the news.
Once you have a specific target audience in mind, or have at least broken it down into identifiable categories, you need to learn as much about each group as you can.
What are they like? What do they read, listen to, or watch? What message, program, or activity will be of most interest to them? What is it about your church that they will be most interested in, and most likely to respond to? How can you make it easy for them to become involved, or to participate?
Links to some resources for gathering this information are included at the end of this report.
You need to develop a sense of openness and a willingness to learn as much as you can about the people you most specifically and immediately want to reach. Making un-informed assumptions will not be productive, and may even be counter-productive to reaching the people in your community.
For example, the needs, concerns, and culture of a poor, inner-city multi-ethnic community will be markedly different than an affluent, homogenous suburb, and different from a small-town, rural, or farming community.
Demographics specialists and professional church ministry marketing consultants can help you to identify and acquire the demographic information that you need for your specific community and target audience.
You can also conduct your own surveys. Just walking around the area where the people you want to reach live, work, and play, can give you a lot of information as to what is important and relevant to them, and how best to reach them.
Step 3 - Match the Media Channel to the Target Audience
We touched on this briefly in the paragraphs above. It is vitally important that you put some time, thought and effort into properly matching your ministry communication and marketing to the needs and preferences of the people you are trying to reach.
Often, churches will produce forms of media simply because they think that they “need to” or “should”, without giving much thought as to the appropriateness of the form, content, or ultimate message.
One example is the ubiquitous church brochure. It seems like a good thing to have, and generally it is a good promotional tool, something to give to visitors and prospective visitors, or even to new members, but it is of little value if the target audience really doesn’t like to read.
Slick, expensive, pretty-looking brochures are a waste of money if they don’t say anything or communicate any useful or motivational information, that would cause the reader to respond.
A church website is one of the latest high-tech tools for reaching people, but what if the majority of your target audience doesn’t yet have Internet access, or a computer?
Newspaper, or radio ads? Which newspaper? Which section? Which day? Which radio station? What time of the day? What kind of message? The more that you know about your target audience (or target sub-group) the easier it will be to answer these questions, and the more savvy and sophisticated a buyer you will be when talking to the advertising reps at those media companies.
What about billboards, or church signage? The possibilities are endless.
Often, especially if you are just getting started, you will find that pre-packaged promotional materials are a big time-and-money saver, and you can learn a lot by starting with them. After all, they were designed by professionals in the church marketing field.
On the other hand, such materials are often too generic, and do not specifically address your own church’s strengths, ministry message, or calling.
Another option is to employ the services of church marketing professionals or an agency to create customized and tailored promotional materials especially for you to use.
This can “quick-start” your efforts, and save you much time, and many dollars, in “trial-and-error” experimenting, but it usually will involve substantial front-end cost.
In the end however, it is how well that you actually meet needs and wants that will attract and retain people, not how “slick” your promotional materials are. Again, knowing your community and your target audience will better enable you to identify effective and appropriate methods of reaching them.
Step 4 - Following Up
There are two sides to the following-up stage. One is to follow-up with and evaluate the effectiveness of your various marketing and communication efforts, and the other is to follow up with the people that your efforts actually attract.
As we touched on earlier in this report, your efforts will be a colossal waste of time (and money) if they are not producing the results that you want - which is, getting your message out to the people, and getting them to actively respond.
And just what is your intended message? Ultimately, it may be to fulfill your role in the Great Commission, and to “make disciples of all nations”, or it may be simply to attract more people to become worshippers and members of your own local church, and thus to increase the amount of resources available for your church to conduct it’s ministry mission.
Are your media messages primarily positive “feel-good” inspirational messages? Or are your efforts intended to get people into the church, attending your worship services, and actively participating in your ministries and missions?
If they are the latter, just how effective has the particular channel or media been in inspiring worshippers to attend? Which method or message has been more effective? Time to evaluate, assess, and adjust your planning.
Find out how people found out about you. Ask them what specifically inspired them to begin attending, or participating in your church. What messages have they seen or heard out there in the various media? Do they use your website? Do they read your newsletters?
Assimilation
The other aspect of evangelism and church ministry marketing that is most often ignored, is doing something with the people once we’ve gotten them in the door.
Is your church a warm, welcoming, and friendly place? Is it really? Most churches think they are, but from the first-time visitor’s perspective, they are very often a closed, inward-looking group of insiders.
What programs and mechanisms do you have in place for getting the first-time visitor involved and included in the various activities of your church? Do they have a reason to return, week after week?
Is your church a place that they are likely to want to bring their friends or other family members? Before you say “yes”, think about this carefully, and be honest with yourself. You may need to face some unpleasant truths.
In religious circles, this process of involving new members is known as “assimilation”, now a popular buzzword for turning first-time visitors into active and continuing participants, and hopefully members.
You need a well-thought-out program and plan of follow-up and assimilation, just as much as you need one for marketing and evangelism.
The fastest-growing churches, and those most likely to survive and thrive, are those who know how to follow-up well with both new attenders, and also with current members, worshippers, and participants.
Recommended Church Development and Ministry Marketing Resources (available from Amazon.com ):
Double Your Church Attendance
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=4 .
Natural Church Development International (website)
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=5 .
Market Research Made Easy
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=6 .
Focus Group Research Handbook
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=7 .
The Purpose-Driven Church
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=8 .
Permission Evangelism: When to Talk, When to Walk
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=9 .
The New Marketing Paradigm:
Integrated Marketing Communications
http://doubleyourchurchattendance.com/go/t.php?l=10 .
Christopher B. Nelson-Jeffers is CEO of Breckshire Communications, which offers a free Church Growth Newsletter to pastors and churches interested in church ministry development and growth. He may be contacted at http://Double-Your-Church-Attendance.com . A copy of this article in PDF format may be downloaded free of charge at http://DoubleYourChurchAttendance.com/go/t.php?l=12
