I have been lucky enough to be a part of some church events that have been a slam-dunk success. I have also been lucky enough to be a part of church events that were a flop.
You’ve probably heard the old question, “if a tree falls in an uninhabited forest, does it make any noise?”
My question is, if you have a great event that no one knows about; did you have an event at all?
It’s really simple church marketing but a lot of people who plan events forget what is most important. You have to let people know what is going on. You have to know how get the word out about your event.
What are some awesome church event advertising methods? Well, I don’t know how awesome these are but here is a list of things you can do to market your next church event. [Read More]
So you’ve spent a good deal of time purchasing a great, new church website. It looks great but nobody is visiting. As a matter of fact, you’re not getting many hits at all. What’s wrong? Well, a lot of companies don’t optimize your website the way they should. They simply build some eye candy and give it to you without doing much homework to make sure the site operates correctly.
The bones of a website are just as important as the pretty skin on the outside.
You want people searching for churches in your community to find yours first, right? [Read More]
First things first. We know that nobody is going to come to God unless the Spirit draws him. We also know that no matter how much we plant and water God is the only one that actually gives the increase.
But for those churches that have an increase in crops and just struggle to get them into the barn, here are some practical things you can do to help your church grow.
Church Growth for the Long Term
A lot of churches make the mistake of putting all their eggs in one basket and pushing one, special service. They spend hours and dollars trying to focus all outreach on one, single event.
This might work every now and then but, if this is where you find your church marketing effort going, you aren’t going to be growing much.
The church was never designed to grow with get rich quick schemes. In other words, filling the pews overnight is probably going to give you a lot of disappointment rather than people.
Church growth was never meant to be the focus. People were. Remember the church is not the reason for church marketing, people are the reason for church marketing. People are reached by people. Friendships are built by friends. And churches grow by relationships, friendships, and meeting people’s needs. [Read More]
Even Carman is getting involved with Faithfunder. I’m sure everyone remembers the 80′s Christian star Carman. Well, he’s back and ready to record a new album. He is using Crowd Funding to get his new project financed.
Websites like Kickstarter and Gofundme are popping up all over the internet. We’ve even discussed what your church can do with Crowd Funding on this blog. But there was never a good place for churches and faith-based organizations to fit in. Until now. [Read More]
The average amount of Facebook friends per-person is around 500. Let that sink in a moment. You’ve heard about viral marketing. You want to know why it is the most coveted aspect of marketing? Because it can spread faster than any high-dollar commercial.
Think about it:
You post an update on Facebook. If you’re friend list is an average size, the potential number of people seeing that update is around 500.
If 3 people connect with your update and decide to share it with their friends, you now have the potential to reach 2,000 people.
If your update was really great and 3 more friends from each of your friends share the update you now have the potential to reach (2,000 + 4,500 =) 6500.
Sharing an important message with one click can get your message in front of, literally, thousands of people.
The bad news:
It works with negative comments as well. Secondly, people believe and spread bad things a lot faster than they do good things.
Apathy is not a luxury any business or church can afford in this information age. Being a reactionary to bad comments will always put you on the defensive. Someone defending their reputation is never a pretty sight.
Marketing is not a difficult concept to grasp. You use tools available to spread a message and increase awareness. Viral marketing is the golden goose that is getting other people to spread the message for you.
Success in marketing is easy to benchmark. You have stats, increases, number crunching, and income to show you how well your marketing is doing.
I was the promotions director for Texas Bible College a few years ago. Promotions = Marketing in the pentecostal world. My focus was simple. The more students I had requesting information, the more students we would have at Preview Weekend; the more students at Preview weekend, the more students enrolled.
Successful marketing equals growth in awareness and increases in whatever service or product you are selling. [Read More]
I read an article today about a man seeing a hand-made sign offering free rides to church. That article gave me an idea for an entire marketing campaign for churches.
We need to realize that church evangelism isn’t a one-time push for a special service. If you’re serious about church growth you don’t need to buy into the get-rich-quick scheme of church growth. Real, sustainable growth is an every day culture of a church.
We shouldn’t spend all our finances, time, and effort on marketing one, special service. We should, instead, be putting our effort into evangelizing and marketing what our church is 24/7/365. People may be wowed by a large crowd and special program on Easter Sunday, but, if they are going to stick around, they need to know what your church offers on regular a regular basis.
Below is an idea for a marketing campaign to span over a few months. It will take a little bit of funding and a few volunteers but it could be a way to keep a steady stream of visitors in your services week after week. [Read More]
Some people might be turned off by the thought of crowd-funding for churches. The truth is that churches have been crowd-funding since the very beginning. It’s just been everyone within reach of the offering plate. The problem some churches face is that there isn’t enough people in reach of that offering plate.
What if you could reach millions with your offering plate? We all know that money isn’t everything but we’ve all heard the stories of the people that call the church wanting to donate money. They’ve never been to the church, will never visit but, for some reason, they want to give.
What if you could make yourself available to thousands of people like that. You can with crowd-funding.
I recently wrote an article about what crowd funding means for churches. I talked about the idea of missionaries not having to spend years on deputation because their partners can find them online easily. Not only that, but they can reach thousands more than they would just going from church to church.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to harnessing the power of crowds and their willingness, desire to give to worthy causes. Your church is a worthy cause. [Read More]
A lot of churches, and I do mean a lot, have jumped into cyber space for the completely wrong reason. Of course every church needs a website but you should first ask yourself why you need a website. If you’re one of the churches that has a website simply because you should have a website, shut it down. If you’re church is one of those churches that buys a website just to keep up with the other churches, shut it down.
Websites are not bragging rights or turf wars. They are completely different. They are your first impression ambassadors that are beamed into strangers homes all the time. If someone is looking for a church today, they start looking online. Usually, it’s a simple google search for their city, and a church. This is a major reason you should know what google is saying about your church, if anything.
The sad thing is, they are going to find your website. Probably before they ever even think about walking through the doors. As a matter of fact, your website might be the reason they don’t walk through the doors.
If that is what you want, here is five ways to make sure your website stinks: [Read More]
Here is a short, five minute how to video on creating a Facebook page ad and making it local. This is the first video in the series I promised to show how it impacts the marketing of a local youth group, the Revolution in Dyersburg, TN.
You can watch the video in the top-right corner. I will also post the link strait to ScreenR, which I used to record this screen cast. Please don’t judge the amature screencast, I did it as fast as I could.
I have been lucky enough to be a part of some church events that have been a slam-dunk success. I have also been lucky enough to be a part of church events that were a flop.
