Marketing for Church

A lot of this depends on the programs his church offers. In other words, when it's time for VBS (vacation Bible School) you need a way to market to the parents of young children.

If they have an active youth group then you can market to teenagers as well as their parents. Anything hi-tech is a good way to market to this age group.

If he wants to market to an older demographic then print ads in the newspaper still work.

Also, whenever they have a big event they should send a press release to the paper since they're often good about using articles from non-profits. This is especially true in smaller towns.

When someone is moving to a new town they often look for the websites of church in their new town. So having a presence on the web is important.

Many churches use Facebook.

You can also get addresses of people who recently moved to town and mail them a "Welcome to the community and we'd love to have you visit us" letter.

Rose

I agree with everything Rose says and SMS is great too. I haven't used it for marketing a church to new members, but they are using it to stay in touch with existing members with reminders, announcements, scriptures, etc.

You can check to see what it would be to be a "sponsor" or "underwriter" on the local christian radio station.

There's probably a local christian newspaper he could have a story written in.

Anytime they do anything for the community, like Rose said make a press release about it for online and offline.

Sorry I said christian radio and newspaper, but you didn't say it was a christian church so whatever religion they are, of course you'd go with that.

Social Media presence is important as well. Facebook, Twitter, and if he's ready for it Youtube.

Thanks for both of you!!

He has a facebook page, I am not sure about twitter and youtube. I will recommend to him.

And since he said sms works great for him, but he is too lazy to do it by himself. hopefully, I am able to convince him to hand it over to me, so I can charge him monthly fees.

Thanks for the tips about press release and christian newspaper and magazines. I will do more research on them.

The thing with churches is that "invite a friend day" to church can work good, and then they can invite friends, etc. He does not even need to know you did offline with offline. There could be QR codes or a link printed in the program that is given out during the service and the members encouraged to give their programs to a friend or stranger after church instead of them ending up in the trash.

Shawn

I think getting churches on Facebook is good.

Good way to keep them interacting with their members. Get the church on Facebook and even twitter, etc. Facebook and twitter are probably the two biggest ones.

Then you should make sure he has a way to email all the church members. That or using Facebook updates at the very minimum. Even tell him to push liking the Facebook page or opting in to the church newsletter, etc.

To really go and try to appeal to more people to get them to at least come and visit the church, you could even think about something like Facebook ads. Since you would be targeting a local area you could do a few different types of ads to different demographics (i.e. men of a certain age, married men, single men, etc.) and since the ads would be so targeted by area and demographic the cheaps should be really cheap. Should be able to get one cent clicks or close to it.

Just off the top of my head, instead of something like "Visit our church!" the ads could be something like, "Worried about the state of the world today?" or "Looking for answers in a world full of questions?" or something that appeals to people's worries about life and then a call to action such as "Click like for help." or "Click like to get answers."

Not necessarily the greatest ads there but something along those lines if you fiddle around with the wording may get you more clicks.

Shawn and J,

thanks for your suggestion. now my head is full of ideas, I need to organize all the suggestions and prepare a marketing plan for my potential client!!

waiyi

Say a Prayer?

Does the church have a brunch or something after the service? Sell the comraderie.

Okay, some of you might think I'm evil for saying this, but what do you expect a QR code to do for a church? I advise my clients AGAINST QR codes in general. I know you guys want additional ways to make money but it is so limited.

A mobile website also won't cut it.

When doing offline marketing, it isn't important to do what everyone else is. It is important to get results for your clients. You need to go with the ways that will drive the most traffic, conversions and keep people coming back for more!

Facebook, twitter, seo, places, direct mail....That is going to be most effective for a church. Since it is a church, they should also be going door to door on outreaches every now and then too. That is effective. Social media, SEO, places and direct mail are going to be the best formats for churches. After getting that down, then maybe expand to other avenues.

1. Get a list of new residents moving into the community from the CofC or RE board.

2. Enlist volunteers from the church (college group?) to deliver a few homemade cookies attached to a flyer that prominently mentions some of the church activities, as well as times of service and features the facebook page or website.

3. During services, regularly mention that the website is the source of news and info, and ask for signups to the church email newsletter. Our church has a sign in sheet that is circulated for attendance calculation that has a spot for email addresses.

4. Put podcasts of the sermons on the website for download. Get on online community sites.

Before long, you will have a vibrant online community that you can feed new people into, and "market" to the internetizens in your area.
Just some thoughts.

thanks for all the input!!

I just talk the pastor over the phone, his church is very small. He said his budget is very tight, he can't even afford $69 a month for sms marketing.

But I gave him all the suggestions you guys told me here, I hope it would help his church!

Don't use SMS and mobile marketing. It is too expensive. For a church on a tight budget, use free social networking sites. If you incentivise people to like the church's facebook with an opt-in and a great freebie, I can see them building quite a following. Use the free social media and networks to pull them in and build a circle of people who will post events for the church and share things. Have the church to offer community services such as school clean ups, soup kitchens, back to school giveaways, Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, etc. Spread the word with free Social media postings. Also, Circlebuilder is a church social networking software.

Trumpia is used by many churches for their marketing and communication with the congregation.

What we've found to work most with churches is that they will rely very heavily on email and social media. The churches we work with will typically send about 3-4 emails a week and update their social media sites at least twice a day.

For SMS, the growth has been steady, but most churches are still only comfortable sending about one message a week. This message will typically go out Saturday evening or Sunday morning reminding them to attend their weekly service.

Overall, we've found that with churches, they are looking to market and communicate in all manners, so don't restrict yourself to just one mode of communication, for on an ALL-IN-ONE marketing approach!

Most powerful marketing piece I ever got was a handwritten note from a pastor at a local church.

Full of ideas I like it!! i am going to do the practical now!!

thanks for all suggestions! I didn't get the client. But I may have a chance to use in the future.

On the invite say "no collection taken"...they will show up but your contact at the church will not like it