Ministry Marketing CoachMinistry Branding and Marketing that Works

Imagine your church was having an event or activity designed to reach out to people who are not believers. What kinds of things would your church do to reach people? If you are like most churches, don’t you do some or all of the following tactics?

• Give the event a catchy name
• Develop a logo or other graphic design to give the event more eye appeal
• Print an invitation card or develop a flyer to give away and/or mail out to people who live in the neighborhoods around the church
• Make announcements in the church worship service, encouraging members to invite their friends
• Give out invitation cards, door hangers or yard signs to promote the event
• Post an announcement on the church sign
• Put the information in the church newsletter
• Send out e-mail announcements
• Mail reminder cards or letters and call the leading members in the church, mobilizing them to get the word out
• Post information about the event on the church’s Web site
• Send a news release in hopes of getting a mention in the town newspaper and other media
• Look into buying an advertisement in the newspaper, getting a radio spot, or even trying television commercials
• Consider leasing a billboard to advertise the program

Most churches have tried most of the ideas listed above. There are a lot of great ideas about promotion in the list, but churches that use ideas like those above are seeing diminishing results from their efforts. Tactics that used to work are no longer as effective. Something is broken somewhere! Ministry leaders wonder, “What’s happening?”

The reason churches are seeing decreased results is because it really is getting tougher out there. There is an amazing increase in the amount of media in even the smallest communities. Secular advertisers are overshadowing ministry communications and making it tougher to reach people. The advent of desktop publishing and the Internet has turned anyone with a computer into a marketing force.

Our Media-Saturated Age

Each day, Americans experience attempts to persuade them to pay attention from the efforts of national and local advertising campaigns in direct mail, billboards, radio spots, television commercials, print and the Internet – information overload is our daily experience. Media researchers estimate the average American is exposed to 1,500 to 3,500 attempts to get his attention every day.

Considering the number of marketing messages already cluttering the public square, how can your church, with your limited budget, get people’s attention? Ministries need to market themselves – not just promote events – if they are going to have an impact in their communities these days.

Ministry leaders need to know how to add effectiveness to their outreach efforts. Promotional tactics that worked only a few short years ago no longer have the impact they had before.

Creating a slick new identity is not your ministry’s greatest marketing need! You don’t need marketing fluff—you need sound communication disciplines! You need to know more than what to do with media (style or production for example) but why you do it and how it connects with people. Media strategy cannot be reduced to dogma, you need an understanding of how to contextualize your outreach to the people you want to reach.