Marketing is no longer confined to businesses but is equally essential for churches as well. After all, you need to make sure that people k...
Marketing is no longer confined to businesses but is equally essential for churches as well. After all, you need to make sure that people know about your presence so that they can come in bigger numbers. Not doing so means that you will not be able to grow your members and followers. What’s more, retaining the existing members and followers will also become a challenge if you fail to have a proper marketing strategy in place. But marketing your church will obviously be very different from propagating a business brand. So what is the right approach? How can you generate awareness about your church without sounding salesy? Here are some proven strategies that can help.
When it comes to church marketing, you need to take a holistic approach. The best way to do it is by knowing your audience, segmenting them and coming up with targeted strategies that work contextually. Ultimately, the ideal marketing mix for your church boils down to your budget as well. Your efforts should be directed at reaching the maximum number of people while investing minimal time, money and resources.
Top 10 Church Marketing Strategies For Retaining and Attracting Members
1. Engage The Existing Members
To start with, you need to communicate with the existing members regularly. The idea is to keep them engaged because they play a key role in the growth of your church. Know their expectations and align your messaging accordingly. Hold events regularly and encourage them to bring more members. Maintain a mailing list and stay connected with them via regular mails and messages. Engage regularly with simple motivational messages or event information, as the case may be.2. Connect With Prospective Members
While staying in touch with the existing members is important, reaching out to the prospective ones is vital. The idea is to build a database of the target audience in your area and follow them regularly through messages and emails. You can even ask your existing members to list out the people they know so that you can explore them as prospects. Having a survey is also a good idea if you want to generate awareness about your church and bring in new members.3. Build A Social Media Presence
If you are genuinely interested in consolidating your church’s presence, social media is a channel that you cannot miss. This is where most of the current and prospective members are, making it the best platform to connect with them. Have social media pages for all the popular platforms. Build communities across them and encourage the maximum number of people to join them as members. Request the members to propagate your church with likes, shares, and comments.4. Invest In A Church Website
A church website is perhaps the most crucial element of your marketing strategy because it replicates your presence online. Investing in a website, therefore, does not remain a choice for churches. When you have one built, make sure that it has apt worship backgrounds and content that reflect your mission and vision perfectly. Additionally, the website should be user-friendly in terms of simple navigation, clean design, and responsiveness.5. Ensure That Your Website Shows Up In Local Searches
Beyond just having a good looking website, you need to make sure that it is visible as well. Most importantly, it should appear on the top of local search results to ensure that people know that you actually exist. A well-established local SEO strategy is the right approach to reach up there and sustain your position as well. Unless you have a search-optimized website, forget marketing your church because people will not even know that you are there.6. Run A Paid Campaign
Besides having an organic strategy, you can also run a paid ad campaign to give your church marketing an extra push. Google ads are a quicker way to show up, which means that you will be visible to your target audience easily. This is a smart approach that can provide extensive support to your SEO strategy. The latter may take some time to show results but they are sustainable once you reach there. So you can invest in PPC ads for the initial push.7. Build A Mobile App
Building a mobile app is another amazing way to increase the membership of your church and boosting attendance manifold. A mobile app keeps you connected with the audience even while they are on the go. It has a reminder value because your church logo is always visible to the users on their devices. Secondly, you can use them for sending across repeated messages to the users through push notifications.8. Maintain Brand Consistency
Growing your church is as challenging as building a business brand. Likewise, it becomes important to maintain brand-like consistency across all the channels. Whether it is your physical location, website, social media communities or elsewhere, your personality should be the same everywhere. Stick to a tone of voice that the members can understand and recognize across all the channels. Maintain consistency in your messaging as well, whether it is your Sunday sermons or the content on your church website.9. Support A Cause
While you may focus on growing your church by getting in touch with people directly, supporting a cause is another good idea. It is more of an indirect approach but as effective as any marketing tactic. Host a community program such as offering help to people struggling with mental issues, supporting a de-addiction drive in your area or engaging in similar community-related activities. Let your actions speak louder than words and members will surely come pouring in!10. Don’t Forget Traditional Marketing
While you must absolutely have a digital marketing plan in place to grow and propagate your church, don’t forget traditional marketing as well. Invest in tactics such as banners and billboards because these are the best to reach the middle-aged group of audiences who may not be as tech-savvy as the younger generation. Also, put up display ads in local newspapers and have announcements on radio and television as well. After all, you cannot miss on these channels because a considerable chunk of the audience will be here as well.When it comes to church marketing, you need to take a holistic approach. The best way to do it is by knowing your audience, segmenting them and coming up with targeted strategies that work contextually. Ultimately, the ideal marketing mix for your church boils down to your budget as well. Your efforts should be directed at reaching the maximum number of people while investing minimal time, money and resources.
COMMENTS