Part 2 of 4 - How To Create an Effective Church Ministry
Marketing Plan
Does your church or ministry have an Evangelism plan? How
effective are you at reaching prospective worshippers and
members? Here are the four steps you MUST follow if you want to
kick-start your growth for the next 12 months ...
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
- Bob Hinds Marketing for Congregations: Choosing to Serve
People More Effectively - Norman Shawchuck 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.
Next: Craft Your Ministry Marketing Plan...