The Ten –Minute Guide to Successfully Marketing Your Church

You will receive some strategies to successfully execute your messages in the various media available today. The message of your multi-site church is the most important decision in an outreach campaign, and all other decisions amply reinforce or magnify that decision. Yet, the actual execution, or how the outreach strategy is communicated to the prospect, has a strong effect on the overall campaign. For the most part, a sound strategy succeeds regardless of the execution. If what your church says is beneficial to the prospect or solves a prospect’s problem, some response usually occurs. For example, a greater number of families are looking for churches with inventive children’s ministries as part of their ministries. No matter what you think about the idea of separating the family during worship, countless numbers of parents are looking for churches that meet this felt need.

As you speak about your church, share the benefits. However, if the strategy is presented in an interesting, exciting, and memorable way, larger numbers of prospects are likely to respond to the message or respond more quickly. Interestingly, while what you say is vital, how you say it can prove to be the difference between a successful church outreach campaign and an outstanding one. We can learn a lot from national television commercials on this matter. For example, food commercials often emphasize taste. When an advertisement begins to run, it usually has the strategy of getting viewers’ attention, but after a few days it changes to the idea of taste. The strategy has not changed; the execution has.

The Big Idea

As your team begins to work and dream, keep looking for the big idea that will make this more than just another project by your church. The big idea is usually simple, but it brings realism, an understanding of the community, and an empathy with the target audience. It makes the promotion jump off the page, off the radio, or out of the letter and into the life of the reader or hearer. The big idea brings the message home in a way that prospects enjoy and believe in, but most of all react to. That is the beauty of a big idea. Churches must learn to use these to their advantage. The big idea is simple and direct. It clearly states the strategy completely. It clearly states the message being delivered. Most important, it empathizes with the audience – the prospects for your church.

How Do You Develop the Big Idea?

In developing the big idea, there is no advantage in trying to be extraordinarily complex. Controlled creativity is the key. But how do you come up with the big ideas? How do you come up with great ideas that will turn a sound strategy into a successful promotion campaign? Big ideas are the result of what I call ideation. Ideation is the development of ideas. But how do you do this? How can a pastor and staff learn to generate ideas and come up with new and exciting concepts that will grab the attention of the audience and literally drive the message home in an interesting and effective way? Are you capable of doing this? Yes. A new idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements. At least five steps help in developing ideas. They are:

1. Gather the raw material. These are the specific and general ideas that help you form concepts down the road. It is brainstorming.

2. Work the ideas over in your mind. If you do not digest these ideas, they will never help you form a big idea.

3. Maintain an incubation stage. During this stage, carry your ideas around. Do not look at them. When the timing is right, the ideas will be with you so that you can work on them. Until that time, they are out of your mind, and your unconscious mind does the work.

4. Birth the idea. At the time you least expect it, a tremendous idea will jump out of your mind. You must be ready. The first time an advertising idea jumps out, it might scare you. You may not be sure it will work or where it came from. Simply make it a matter of prayer and faith, acting in accordance to God’s will. This is the exciting part of the process, but it is not the final part.

5. Develop and shape the idea. Not every idea comes out of you head complete. This is where the work begins and a team of creative thinkers is needed. This is where the idea is fleshed out into practical usefulness. Usually, the idea requires adaptation or refocusing to fit the situation exactly. This is often the stage where good ideas can get lost. Stay tough all the way through the final adaptation process.

This has worked for me and many others. It can work for you. Let me share one further idea on what I call run-offs. A run-off is an idea that has been formed from a prior idea or promotion. Our church has developed five promotional brochures that are examples of the run-off idea. We have one main public relation packet that we send or deliver to prospects. It says a lot about our church, but it does not say it all. Currently, we have four run-off brochures that expand our touch ministry. We have a tri-fold brochure for baby boomers. We have a “Pastor’s Dreams and Vision” booklet for people who want to know where this church is going under this pastoral leadership. We have a tri-fold brochure entitled “Questions to Ask When Trying to Find a Church Home!” These four run-offs tell a prospect even more about our church family.

A few quick pointers will help the team develop ideas. Sharing these ideas in print with the entire team could be the best decision made.

1. Say what you planned to say. Do not allow your efforts to drift from the real goal and course.

2. Make sure your execution appeals to the right audience. If you are no longer targeting the audience desired, go back and start over.

3. Be sure that what you say in print or through radio or television is what you would say to the church prospect in person.

4. Be sure your idea has been written for the prospect and not for the pastor or church. This is not your opportunity to say how wonderful the staff or the idea is. Your goal is to help your prospect make a life-changing decision.

5. Be clear, complete, concise, and convincing in your execution. Do not assume the reader already knows everything about your church.

6. Do not overwhelm the message. You are sold on your church, or you would not still be there. Keep exaggeration from getting in the way.

7. Call for some type of action. Whether you are writing a letter or making a personal visit, end with the idea of “Why not try us this coming Sunday? You will be glad you did!”

8. Be proud of what the Lord and your team have created. Show it off to someone close to you and get a response. If you are not proud of it, scrap it, and start over.

Keeping these few basic planning pointers will not make you a promotion expert, but will give you respect among your team and throughout your church. A positive response to these pointers can help you realize that you have done everything to ensure success. The rest is in the hand of the One who holds our future.

It’s Time to Get Started

This is the moment where you roll up your sleeves and get down to the calling that goes with being a Christian. This is where you are found being faithful to the work of the chuch. This is where you touch lives instead of merely thinking about them.

Here are 16 suggestions to follow in your execution:

1. Know your church benefits.

2. Know your church community.

3. Talk to your prospect.

4. Make an honest promise to your prospect.

5. Get to the point right away.

6. Be specific and relevant.

7. Be brief and concise.

8. Be logical and smooth.

9. Be enthusiastic about your church.

10. Be complete.

11. Avoid the razzle-dazzle.

12. Use real language.

13. Empathize with your prospects.

14. Have only one response in mind.

15. Major on your church’s benefits, not gimmicks.

16. Ask them to visit soon.

George Barna shares in his book, Marketing the Church, seven steps to preparing the way for successful implementation of the marketing plan. In all of my experience, I have not found a better list. He lists them in order of enactment. They are listed here.

1. Establish one person as the market director for the church.

2. Create ownership of the plan among the key leaders of the church.

3. Identify the resources and conditions needed to move ahead with the plan.

4. Identify specific resources that can be used in the plan’s implementation.

5. Train leaders in the basics of marketing, to maximize their input and their talents.

6. Hold people accountable for doing their assignments.

7. Implement the entire plan.

Barna says, “While there are never any guarantees of success, experience has shown that organizations have a greater chance of success if they do follow the path laid out in their plan.”

Has this entire idea blown you out of the water? Does the idea of a total church communication plan seem staggering? Of course it does if you attempt to incorporate all the steps and ideas discussed in this article at once. However, if you and your church set a few realistic goals to incorporate each year, then after a few years you will have developed a total church communication plan. It will not happen overnight, but it can and will happen. This task is never complete. Your church can always go further than it has before. Bravery, courage, and a keen sense that God is ultimately in control are vital if you are going to affect your city with the gospel of Jesus. Keep evolving; do not allow yourself to do simply that which you did the year before. It will be worth the effort as you work with the resources God provides in your church.