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« Tasks for Ministry Marketing Coaching: Deliver the Message | Home | Without a Vision the People Perish…and You Have to Watch »
Tasks for Ministry Marketing Coaching: Do the Ministry
By chris | December 7, 2006
Ministry marketing is made for ministry. If you do it right, you attract people. If your focus is people, then the response you get brings excitement and joy–you are reaching more people than ever before! But if your focus is programs, you are only focused on moving on to the next event in your annual parade. People get in the way of your planning. “I could really plan a great minsitry if these people would stop bothering me!”
If you don’t get excited about seeing people trust Christ, in following-up on new people in your church, in not losing contact with the people you worked so hard to attract to your church, you are no ministry marketer!
Many churches work hard to attract new people, yet when they come they eventually ignore them. I know of a small church that was in a high traffic area of their city. They had about 5-6 guests visit their church each week. None of the members could wrap their minds around the concept of greeting them. The minister expressed displeasure to me with the members for not greeting the new people, yet he did not extend a greeting to them either, unless the guest sought him out. He didn’t set the example for his people to follow.
With an average of five people per week, the church could reach at least 260 new people every year (that’s 1,300 in just five years–that could be banner growth!). Of course, not all of them would really stay, but that is not what ministry is about–God brought 260 people to their doors and they did nothing. Where is the ministry in that?
Imagine on average in that church the per capita giving is just $1500 per year per person that would mean that the 260 people would bring a total of $390,000 to the church each year! If someone came into that small church and plopped down nearly $400K, you can bet the church would put that money in a bank, and keep a tireless vigil over their account books. I imagine they would even get expensive software and hire a CPA to keep track of every penny. Not just because they know they could get audited by the government, but also because they want to be good stewards of God’s money.
I am not trying to be crass. I don’t want anyone to have dollar signs in their eyes when they see people coming in the doors of the church. Yet when God sends people to our doors that we ignore, we show we don’t value them if we don’t follow-up. If our churches would treat every person with the same level of care they show to every penny they receive, we would not have the growth problems we now have in churches. Help ministries you coach do everything they can to be good stewards of how they do the ministry.
These are the tasks related to coaching churches to do the ministry. We will cover more of this when we get to the sessions about doing the ministry.
Close the Loop
Just because we have a promotional plan doesn’t mean we are done with our marketing! The biggest enemy to a successful marketing campaign is the lack of effective follow-up. In this phase we will develop a personalized plan for your church to maximize on-going relationship-building. We will keep the communication flowing through listening and adjusting to feedback and establish a process for the continual evaluation of your marketing efforts.
• Brainstorm a follow-up process for new people who come to your church that works for at least six months
• Develop a lapsed member follow-up program for people who stop attending your church
• Evaluate the present database used at your church in light of the follow-up process
• Evaluate all the response tools used by your church (visitors cards, processes for getting information, etc) in light of your follow-up process
• Evaluate of last 12-24 months of activities to see the status, the prospects gained from them, and determine what changes may need to be made to future systems
Launch Your New Marketing and Branding Campaign
Now it’s time to launch the plan! What better way to launch it than with a celebration? It is the beginning of a new day of communication excellence for your church! As your church integrates a sound marketing approach into the fabric of its day-to-day activities, you will no doubt also want to keep growing in your understanding of your audience, learning more about their needs, and linking new ministries and communication solutions. You may want to begin praying and planning for reaching out to new groups.
• Consider a special celebration for all parties involved in the process
• Schedule the regular follow-up meetings for marketing efforts
Topics: Doing the Ministry |
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