Church Marketing and Outreach

Ideas to help you with church marketing and outreach to build a thriving Christ-following church.

The most important thing to know about church marketing:

To attract new members, focus on your existing members. Meet their needs and turn them into "Brand Fans" who naturally share positive word-of mouth about your church to others. Most people come to a new church because of a personal invitation.

Two new articles to help you:

Brand Fans - this article explains how to identify the people who are your "Brand Fans" and the people most likely to be the ones to share word-of-mouth. Brand Fans aren't just the people who "like" your Facebook page. They're the people who share positive word-of-mouth online and in person. They are like your sales team.

Brand Fan Marketing Strategy - this article gives specific recommendations on how to generate more positive word-of-mouth. Brand Fans for a church are the contagious Christians who are influential in attracting new members.

Remember to market/promote your Children's Ministry programs. Many people don't attend church until they have young children and then they are looking for the church that has a great children's program and a service and people they'll enjoy too.

Know this: Most "mass marketing" approaches don't work well for church outreach and marketing. They take a lot of time and money and have a low response rate generally of 1%. It seems easy to run an ad but how many people are going to come to a new church because they saw an ad? Not many. This may be effective in reaching "Easter and Christmas people" who are looking for a church service to attend but it doesn't work well to attract serious seekers.

Church marketing and outreach

What did Jesus direct us to do as His followers?

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."
"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

From our experience: If we focus on doing what Jesus asked us to, loving one another, taking care of His sheep (other Christians), and following His lead to become fishers of men (not-yet-believers,) we will be pleasing God by following His direction.

Marketing Strategies for Church Outreach and Growth

Build strong relationships and community among your members
Welcome and quickly assimilate new people into your church community
Encourage members to regularly invite others
Build very strong programs for children and teens
Make sure people looking for a church find you
Go out and serve local people in need

We're starting the conversation. Give advice on church outreach and marketing. Use the tabs on this article to see the advice shared by the community. We are better together! We'll use the best ideas shared to continuously update this article.

Church marketing job #1: build strong relationships and community among your members

Love one another. Care for the sheep.

Are the sheep (your members) being cared for? Is there ministry going on to help church members who: have lost their job; are sick; are battling a long-term illness; are caretakers of people who are ill or elderly; are in a troubled marriage or relationship; having challenges raising their kids; working to overcome drug or alcohol addiction; are single parents; can't physically come to church any more; have a new baby; have lost a loved one and are grieving; are lonely; in financial crisis... Do people have a way to share their prayer requests? Is there a team reading and praying for their needs?

TIP: Focus first on teaching members to care for each other. That will have two outcomes: it will build strong relationships and community among members and it will be noticed by people who don't go to the church.

1. Help people make meaningful personal connections. Facilitate people easily and naturally getting to know people.

Offer a lot of low-risk opportunities for people to come "drop in" for a class or social gathering. Learn to knit, play basketball Friday night, come with your kids for a family game night, meet the missionaries we support, talk about parenting teens, connect with others who are dealing with drug and alcohol addiction, single moms support group, discussion on a book...
At these classes and gatherings, allocate all or half the time for discussion. This allows people to meet and interact with a variety of people. People will naturally connect with some people more than others and that may foster friendships for people to start a small group or initiate getting together for social activities outside of the class.
Each group should have an email list and a shepherd who ensures people are comfortable and make connections with others. These leaders need the gift of hospitality. Their role is to help people connect with others and to Christ.

TIP: an effective measure to know how strong the connections and community is at your church is to ask people how many people they know by name who go to the church and to ask them to note how many of those people they didn't know before. The most basic part of a community is that individuals are known by name. Also ask everyone how many people on the church staff know them by name. This can be done with a simple survey card that people put in the offering plate.

Know this: As a pastor or church staff member, you probably know a lot of people and may think everyone has the same wonderful connections that you do. They don't. At a minimum, every person who attends the church regularly should know at least three other people by name and one staff member should know their name. The more connections they have, the stronger the community and the more likely they will want to invite others to be part of what they are experiencing.

2. Quickly assimilate newcomers

If someone is brave enough to come to church for the first time, will they want to come again? Do they understand how to meet others and get connected?

Know this: This is more than sending a welcome package in the mail or having a team make follow-up phone calls! This requires an investment of time to make a meaningful, personal connection with a newcomer. That means inviting someone new to coffee before or after church or inviting them out to lunch. It's recognizing someone is new (and vulnerable to leaving) until they have met at least five people who know their name and they feel some sort of connectedness to the church. Does your church have a "connectors" ministry team to do this?

From our experience: It's very uncomfortable to be new in any situation (a school, a neighborhood, a club, a church). There are some great best practices to be learned from colleges that assimilate freshmen onto their campuses. The students are assigned an RA who acts like a shepherd; they host social activities with lots of icebreaker activities; they recruit older students to be mentors; they promote all the different clubs and activities with members manning booths. They make this fun and are very intentional. As Christians we are to be connected to Christ and then to each other. Many church "insiders" (pastors, staff and very involved members) forget what it's like to be new. It may be helpful to encourage staff and members to visit other churches in the area and when they are on vacation to create this awareness and empathy for newcomers.

TIPS from Brad Bennett in Chicago on church marketing:

"Make the barriers of entry very, very low. Make it a safe (low cost) place to check out. Don’t pressure commitment until they are ready."
"Let the seeker be the pursuer…don’t over-pursue. When we moved to Chicago and were looking for a church one church sent a team of 4 people to our apartment the Wednesday following our first visit. It was OVERWHELMING, and we were believers who had gone to church our whole lives. I doubt that that happens (at least in that way) much anymore, but other, more current tactics, can have the same effect."
"Just like all marketing, the most powerful marketing is word of mouth…it just can’t be measured as easily as other marketing tactics. Live it first, then talk about it. People are more likely to believe your words if they see it in your actions."
"Promote the programs the church offers to the regular attenders…highlight the powerful impact the ministries are having…and then challenge the attenders to notice the needs of the people around them. When they see a need that aligns with a program it’s very easy to say, 'Our church has a group for couples who are struggling in their marriage. You might want to check it out on Monday night.”

Know this: caring for newcomers isn't another item for the "to do" list for the pastors and church staff. How can you instead identify, empower and train up others in your congregation to take on these important roles of mentoring and caring for new sheep in the pasture?

Next page - how to collect customer information and set up contact plans

These articles will be helpful for church marketing and outreach

How to collect and save church visitor and member names and contact information (so you can send email newsletters and mailings)
How to cluster and segment your members and visitors (so you can send them the most relevant information)
How to set up a customer contact plan
How to select an email marketing service
How to create and send an email newsletter
Email Marketing Overview
How to do Email Marketing Yourself
How to Increase Email Response Rates
Measuring ROI for Email Marketing
Email Marketing Campaigns
How to measure attendee and member satisfaction
How to start a blog
Best sources for marketing freelancers
How to create and print business-sized cards to give members to share with friends and colleagues with key information about church services, directions, and your website address.
Mystery shopping can be done for churches to learn what visitors experiences are
How to get more referrals
Video marketing
How to create a website
How to attract more people to your website
Podcasting
Search PPC (pay per click) advertising
Creating and printing brochures
Direct mail marketing
Word of mouth and viral marketing
Social Media Marketing
Public relations
Branding
Advertising
Costs for marketing
Top suppliers and tools for marketing
Printing costs from top suppliers for banners, business cards, flyers, direct mail postcards (to save money and time by comparing costs)

Amazing Website

July 27, 2011 - 11:30am
Louella

Just want to say I've been a student of marketing for over 20 years, constantly reading and researching - especially about church marketing. This website has an incredible amount of excellent, useful information. I will definately pass it on. Louella Hext

Church Marketing and Outreach

Church Marketing and Outreach

Church marketing and outreach

Marketing Strategies for Church Outreach and Growth

Church marketing job #1: build strong relationships and community among your members

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