Why Marketing, We’re a Church?

I had a conversation with a pastor recently that was quite enlightening. They said they didn’t think they needed my services, “their church didn’t have a marketing problem.” Not to be deterred, I asked the pastor to tell me from their perspective what are the biggest challenges the church faces.

The pastor responded that the church was struggling to connect with new people and actually during the pandemic, it became really difficult to connect with their existing congregation. And, if they did engage with a new person, it wasn’t clear how to guide them into a deeper relationship with the church.

I affirmed to the pastor that I have had many conversations with churches and nonprofits facing the same challenge. And then I asked, “do you know what classes I took in college and even today that help me to assist churches in overcoming these challenges - MARKETING! Now let me show you briefly how that looks for your church...”

I don’t know why, but when we bring up the word marketing, many of us automatically think that it’s just about selling a product, or worse yet, the used-car salesman approach to selling a product. Marketing is the process that leads someone with a problem to your church or nonprofit that has a proven solution to help them resolve it. The same tools that help companies sell their products and services successfully can actually help churches connect with more people.

The problem that most churches face is that they are not equipped to implement a marketing solution to solve their connection problems. Many churches and nonprofit organizations blame the problem on poor communication (which is a contributing factor) so they hire a graphic designer or tap the youth ministry intern to do social media publishing to create better communication. 

Even if they are successful in creating better communication or more engaging social media posts, there is still a disconnect between the audience and the church. We have to create connecting points to invite people to take a closer look, and then processes to help guide them to the solution they are seeking. 

Marketing is not using high-pressure tactics or sleazy approaches to trick people into a bad decision.

Marketing in the church is the process of understanding your target audience’s struggles and challenges, and then presenting them with a message and a path to help them resolve it.

If any organization is called to be guides in our society, the church certainly fits that description to a T.

I understand that most pastors and church leaders weren’t called to be marketers or have any experience in marketing strategy. That’s why I created ChurchCMO, to help churches develop marketing strategies to fit their mission, resources, and teams that will enable them to connect with more people. We want to help as many churches as possible be successful guides for their communities because we believe that when the local church connects with more people in their community, together they can change the world!

It doesn’t cost anything to get started! Simply click the Schedule Now button to schedule a no obligation, initial conversation to help us understand more about your organization. We will gain a clearer understanding of your church, it’s goals, and the obstacles you are facing; and after some additional research, we will present you with some ideas for improving your connection process.

It’s that simple and what do you have to lose except 30 minutes to an hour of time. I can almost guarantee that you will learn something new, and just to make sure you don’t come away with nothing, I will buy you a cup of coffee for your time!