Church Marketing
If you work for a retailer, like me, marketing is something that you just have to do. To sell products you have to be visible to your customers, which means advertising and marketing. I also think about marketing because of my hobbies. If I want to be a writer or a musician, especially at a professional level, then I need to be able to market myself as such. If you are in a church that wants to reach out to people do you need to be able to do marketing, especially considering the growing numbers of internet-savvy generations? I would venture to say for churches that you have to be able to do marketing, whether you like it or not.
Marketing gives people a sense of who you are as a church. It triggers emotion in people. Advertising gets people to the events you plan. If you advertise and people find it off-putting, they will not come to your event and are less likely to ever come to your church. If you do not advertise then the only way they will find out about you will be through word of mouth (a form of marketing) and the sign in front of your church (again, whether you like it or not, a form of advertising).
These days a lot of marketing gets done through websites, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (ick), and the like. To have someone who can regularly update these things with events like clothing drives, concerts, and movie nights can be invaluable. The thing about online social media is that much of the marketing is done by having that initial connection with people, both members and visitors, creating an entry point at all levels.
The challenge lies with managing time around these things, for they can become a hindrance to your work schedule and an excuse to not interact in person. I know they are for me. They keep me from doing things that I should be doing, and really that I would rather be doing. What are your thoughts on church marketing?



