Practical (and Effective) Tips to Market a Church

Every church markets itself. Whether this comes from subconscious word-of-mouth marketing, elaborate online initiatives, or anything in between, church leaders are always happy to get the word out about what their churches are doing. 

Is your church communicating effectively right now, though? Is your message reaching its intended recipients or is it falling on deaf ears? Do you have a plan? 

Let’s go over some practical and effective tips to help with marketing your church — starting with the foundational need for a plan.

Create a Clear Church Marketing Plan

There are many communication channels and strategies to market a church. The key is turning all of those techniques and ideas into a clear path forward that serves your church’s needs.

This is where a church marketing plan comes into the picture. If the marketing lingo is confusing, we get it. Let’s break the terms down:

• Communication channels are the ways you can reach your audience with your message — things like emails, social media, and even traditional methods like church mailers.

• Marketing strategies are big-picture in scope. They align goals with resources and set the stage for long-term success.

• Marketing plans are more specific, actionable roadmaps that define what, how, and when you will market your church.

So, when we say do you have a ministry marketing plan in place, we mean do you have a practical path forward to help your church meet its present marketing goals? If not, the next two tips can help you flesh out an effective plan to orient your ministry’s marketing efforts.

Understand the Different Kinds of Content

You’ve probably heard the phrase “content is king.” It’s true. But just because content is one of the most important church promotional items doesn’t mean it always works. 

A good marketing plan contains content with purpose. This starts by understanding the different kinds of content you can use to market an organization:

• Owned content is content you retain the rights over when published. An article on a church website and an archived sermon are good examples of owned content.

• Earned content comes from content that originates outside of your company. In essence, this is public relations (PR) and could look like a press release pick-up or a news outlet interviewing a staff member during an event.

• Shared content is similar to earned content, except it originates with you. In most cases, this takes place on social media platforms where others distribute, comment on, and engage with posts by your church.

• Paid content is content that, well, you pay for, like buying a digital ad to promote an upcoming Easter service or summer community outreach event.

Together, these forms of content create the acronym PESO. Make sure you’re at least considering the full PESO experience as you plan different kinds of content. This will optimize the impact of your resources and create marketing and communications synergy.

Create a Marketing Timeline: Follow the “Four D’s”

Structure and organization are critical pieces of effective marketing — especially in church. Ministries have different short and long-term goals driven by mission statements and prayerful, God-led leadership. As you navigate these different focal points, a marketing plan can help you communicate with the right people at the right time.

At digifora, our team has worked with many churches, and over time, we’ve developed what we call the “Four D’s.” This is a four-step approach to church marketing that brings everything into focus:

• Discover: Reevaluate goals, mission, and vision.

• Develop: Create a strategic plan.

• Deploy: Execute that plan.

• Dissect: Analyze the results and plan for the future.

Your church marketing plan takes shape in the Develop stage. This is where we take all of the information regarding resources and objectives and form them into a clear vision for where you want your church marketing and communications to take you in the future. Deploy is much easier and more effective when you have that plan in place, too.

Clarifying Your Church Marketing

Churches market themselves by communicating the right message at the right time to the right people. If your ministry is struggling to do that effectively, you want to clarify your marketing. Use these ideas to create a plan that brings all of your marketing and communication elements together.

If you need help with that process, try working with a veteran marketing team like digifora. Our church-specific marketing consulting and support can help you create a strategic church marketing plan tailored to your ministry's goals, needs, and capabilities.

Let’s talk. No matter what size or stage your ministry is in, we can help you build a digital marketing strategy that fits your needs and then create an effective marketing plan to set that strategy in motion.