Marketing a church is no different than marketing a business. You’ll need to implement marketing strategies and campaigns that will boost your visibility and brand awareness. Your church’s brand could be its devotion to God’s Word or the missions you go on in other countries or locally to help and serve the people. The idea here is to recognize why your church is the best church someone can join and use that to reach other like-minded people.
For instance, The Gathering is a non-denominational family church that has been serving Knoxville, TN for over 20 years. This church is centered around the Biblical teachings, Jesus’s love, and God’s presence. Their goal is to love every member of their church as Jesus loved and help each other grow into the Christian life. They offer in-person and online church services so you can hear the Lord’s message, participate in the sermons, listen to their podcasts, and bring other, new members to Jesus. Here are four marketing strategies to attract new members to your church.
1. Use text messaging.
Text messaging is one of the most effective ways to communicate with people nowadays. They are easy to compose and send to masses of people. As a marketing strategy, you can gather every members’ contact information as they enter your church so you can keep in touch with them and keep them updated with news regarding your services and special activities. You can easily use online forms to save this information as well as manual forms to simply fill in their information.
2. Update your website.
Another thing you can do to improve your marketing strategy is to update your website. You can do this by keeping your information fresh, updating your calendars, and adding relevant content that will help your churchgoers and fellow Christians online. You can also take professional pictures of your church clergy or staff so people can see the quality of your services is as high as that of your beautiful photos.
You can capture these images with a photo studio rental in NYC’s Parlay Studio, which offers modern and flexible studio spaces where you can use your own gear or rent photo, lighting, and electrical equipment for your convenience. Apart from the photoshoots, you can create music videos for your disciples to enjoy the Gospel through sounds.
3. Create a digital marketing plan.
As part of your marketing strategies, you’re going to want to develop a plan for your digital marketing. This will include going beyond your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to spread the word about your church. Digital marketing will lay out long-term and short-term business goals, the strategies that are needed to achieve said goals, the channels which you’ll use to accomplish them, and the budgeting and investment plans. It will also include a roadmap with milestones that will help you reach each of the goals. These digital marketing strategies will include creating online content like videos, blogs, and articles, among others.
4. Keep in touch with your members outside of Sunday service.
Lastly, you’re going to want to involve your community in more activities outside of the usual Sunday services. This includes generating programs for your youth, elders, and adult groups and projects. For example, you can create a whole schedule based on these programs that can look something like this:
- Monday—Online service
- Tuesday—Guest speakers
- Wednesday—Adult Bible studies
- Thursday—Marriage Bible studies
- Friday—Youth Bible studies
- Saturday—Baptisms
- Sunday—Normal services
Be sure to publish your offerings on your webpage and social media so others can have insights into the actual activities happening at your church. Churchgoers search for new experiences, hope, and members that are invested in the community.
Use these marketing strategies to keep your church’s reputation from going stale and embrace the everchanging, modern campaigns.
