Podcast

037 – 4 Ways to Market the Church

Posted on August 10, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

Have you ever wondered what it takes to get the word out about your church, especially in today’s age where things are changing so quickly? Things are moving online, and so it causes us to have to do more marketing. But then you wonder, well, is marketing the right thing for the church? Is there a way to do marketing that helps build the church and honors God? Well, stay tuned, because in this episode, we’re going to talk about 4 ways to market the church.

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:20
The church I was working with a few years ago was a great church. They had really a rich history. And they were doing a lot of good things, but they’d found themselves rather flat in their attendance. And they came across an effort, a marketing effort that actually was a TV ads that they wanted to put together to be able to speak directly into the community. They had zero dollars for this. So I remember we put an effort together where we went to the individual donors, and I don’t recommend this for everything you do, but in this particular case, we shared with about five individual donors, a vision for how we saw in this launch year, we would put money in the budget in the subsequent year, but in the launch year where we had no budget money, we asked them if they would help us. And they put in chunks of money that allowed us to develop this advertising marketing effort to speak to the community that we had never ever done before. This church had never done this, but they did it. And they really ran this for a number of years. And people in the community began to be more and more aware of them. Now, that singularly did not catapult the church forward, but that in combination with all the other things that were going on the church, was those things, that effort was a significant effort in helping that church move forward in their particular community. It was a great story of how to market the church in a good positive way.

Jonathan Hardy 1:58
Well, and I think that just brings up the point that sometimes it’s hard for us to think about a church and even the word marketing.

Dick Hardy 2:05
It feels so secular.

Jonathan Hardy 2:06
Yeah, yeah. But the reality is, marketing is simply getting the word out it you know, it’s just like the billboard that McDonald’s puts on or you know, I mean, you do, you might do billboards, or you might do commercials, or you might do Facebook ads, or, you know, well, those are all different marketing pieces. And, you know, we had the privilege of partnering with Ryan Wakefield from Church Marketing University a few years back on a survey that we sent out and had over 2000 churches give feedback that really helped us develop it. It was a full assessment really, of churches, and we learned a ton. And so we want to take a few things from our learning of that experience today and talk specifically about four ways to market the church. So, what’s the first one?

Tip #1: Budget at Least 3% for Marketing

Dick Hardy 2:45
Well, the first one is that the recommendation is made that for your church, you budget at least 3% and I think normally the range is between 3 and 8% on marketing Church. If you want to communicate outside the walls of your church, you’re gonna have to put your money where your mouth is. And budget at least 3%. And again, I use the range 3 to 8%. But if you’re doing nothing, get yourself to 3%. Take the steps to get there.

Jonathan Hardy 2:54
And I think your example of what that one church you’re talking about did… You know, if you don’t have the money now, well…

Dick Hardy 3:20
Raise it.

Jonathan Hardy 3:20
Yeah, yeah, that’s a possibility. That’s a great way to get started.

Dick Hardy 3:24
Yeah. And I think the key with that was not raising it forever, but getting you into this year.

Jonathan Hardy 3:31
A finite time.

Dick Hardy 3:32
So that you can plan for it next year. You know, talking about what’s happening at your church is worth something. It is what’s going on the church worth zero to you. I mean, you’re gonna say no, what’s happening here is great what the Lord is doing. So, you’ve got to put that money aside, 3% or more and get aggressive with it. It’s not gonna just happen. If you’ve worked with your budget much at all, you’ll know money just doesn’t grow on trees. But if you’ll set it aside, and then move forward with it, and part of your spending, you know that spending we did in that church was, you know, television ads and so on which that cost some serious money. But some of the things you can do with digital advertising today, I need to tell you can multiply your effectiveness for really smaller, smaller dollars,

Tip #2: Regularly Solicit Google Reviews

Jonathan Hardy 4:25
Well, and on the heels of that, I’d really like to jump into what number two is because things are moving online, people are checking the church online, then when they’re new to the area. What are you going to do? Well, I’m going to search for churches in my city.

Dick Hardy 4:37
What do you mean they’re not just driving by churches?

Jonathan Hardy 4:38
Well, they might do that. They might happen to see that.

Dick Hardy 4:40
Not much.

Jonathan Hardy 4:41
Well, they might happen to see it, but less people than ever are just driving to go to a church. They’re going to go online first and look, and so one of the beneficial things that we would encourage you to do, a way to market your church, is to have a process in place to solicit regular Google reviews from people. So, because Google reviews increases your visibility online. And so there’s, you know, you want to get your Google page set up your Google My Business Page and all that stuff. And, in fact, a lot of that really became aware to me, when we were working with Ryan and the stuff that we learned as he was doing that and as Ryan and I were partnering together, we were on the team together to help start the church that we would plant. And so, you know, we were putting this into practice, and as a church plant, and so we would encourage you to do that, the more reviews that you get, the better this is. And that’s marketing. I mean, that is truly marketing. Now, you would say, oh, that’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal. In fact, you should want to get that. Get as many people doing that as possible. So that’s the second thing I’d encourage you to do.

Dick Hardy 5:47
And you want to be sure that you’re… you’d be amazed, if you just Google churches in your area, and churches pop up, you’ll be amazed how many churches have no reviews, and you’ve got to get at least five Google reviews. And that’s so easy to do.

Jonathan Hardy 6:04
And don’t stop there.

Dick Hardy 6:05
No, don’t stop there. But get that moving!

Jonathan Hardy 6:07
Well, and the key is, what the whole point I guess is, you want to have a system in place. So figure out, now at first you can start by asking the current people, but then as new people are coming or you know you periodically, you’re saying hey, you know, so and so, you know, we’d love to get a review or whatever and just ask.

Tip #3: Create a Brand or Style Guide

Dick Hardy 6:24
So the third one is to create a brand or style guide. Now, if you’re familiar with what that is, you’re maybe rolling your eyes. If you’re not familiar with it, you’ll say what in the world is this? Here, I’m gonna say some words here: Walmart, Amazon, Apple, Toyota, Starbucks. Now, you had an image pop to your mind when I said each of those words. You had a color come to mind. You had a feel come to mind. This is all about consistency. That happened, because those corporations had a brand or style guide. My question to you is, is your church worth people having a feel about it, having an understanding? Yeah! Picture in their mind. “Oh, this is good. I like this. This ministers to my family.” You’ve got to have consistent branding and style in everything you do. And then somebody has to be the brand or style guide police to keep everybody on task because what’s gonna happen is, “oh, let’s go try this over here. Oh, let’s go try this over here.” No, you stick with your brand. You better know, those corporations I just rattled off to you. They’re not sliding all over the place, they’re staying very consistent. And that’s critically important to do.

Jonathan Hardy 7:51
Yeah. And if you want to be marketing the church and getting that awareness out then it has to have this consistency.

Tip #4: Measure and Evaluate Marketing Efforts

Jonathan Hardy 8:01
Number four is to measure and evaluate the marketing efforts. So it’s one thing to be doing some things, throw in a commercial out like you’re talking about, doing the Facebook ads, you know, getting all the different marketing efforts you do, but you won’t know what’s working if you don’t measure and so you have to measure and have some tangibles to be able to say, okay, is where we’re putting our money, are the things we’re doing, is this effective? Is it leading to visiting families coming to the church? You know, and, of course, one of the ways to find that out is through some sort of a guest survey. That’s a great way to do that after a guest visits with church. How’d you hear about us or maybe through other correspondence you have with people. Doing things like that, that’s going to help you determine, is what we’re doing now helping and/or the other way to maybe look at is what is it that we’re doing now? And how is that helping. That’s the fourth thing, so why don’t give us quick recap.

Recap:

Dick Hardy 8:58
Very good. Yeah, four things. Well, first is to budget 3% or more on marketing. Second is to have a process in place to regularly solicit positive Google reviews. Number three is to have a brand or style guide. And number four, measure and evaluate marketing efforts. If you do those four things, you’re going to be well on your way to marketing your church well. Not an exhaustive list, but four great places to start.

Dick Hardy 9:23
So, we really appreciate you taking time to be with us today. I will say that if you’re going to do the kinds of things we’re talking about in marketing, it’s going to start with you, as the leader. You’ve got to be attuned to what needs to be done. And for that to happen, you’ve got to continually work to be a better leader. And one of the things we really want to encourage you to take a look at is the Five Day Leadership Challenge for Pastors. We put this together here recently, and what the Five Day Leadership Challenge does is it puts a 12 to 15 minute video in your inbox every morning for five days straight and they’re all geared to you, not everybody else, but to you getting better as a leader. Because when you get better, then the team gets better, the volunteers get better, and the church gets better and you’re going to be more attuned and effective to mission. So take advantage pf this. Just put in leaders.church/challenge. Leaders.church/challenge and if you do it today, this is day one of your five day challenge.

Dick Hardy 10:26
We want to thank you for watching and listening to the podcast here today. Whatever podcast platform you’re listening to, we certainly encourage you to subscribe and if you’re watching on YouTube, you can subscribe there as well. That just allows us to continue to get the content to you more and more effectively and on a regular basis. I will say to, if you’d go on and rate and review Apple podcasts, that would be very, very helpful to us. We’ve got a review here from B. Lindell, “Jonathan and Dick are amazing and insightful leaders who understand what it takes to build a church and inspire people. Jesus shines through everything they do.” And that’s very kind of B. Lindell. But we, as I’m just telling you, two guys on the journey, this is all from the Lord, whatever content value that you feel is coming your way, we give all glory to the Lord, for allowing us to be a small part and for you to be a great part in your local church. So anything else?

Jonathan Hardy 11:26
Yeah, so if you read or write a review for us, we would be honored to have you do that. Tell us how Church Tips is helping you and we’ll look forward to talking to you next time. Thanks for being with us today. Be blessed.

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Podcast

037 – 4 Ways to Market the Church

What’s in this Episode?