Secret One: Marketing begins at home.

Mobilize the congregation. Your congregation is your witness. This is both good and bad news. Consistently, every survey says that the number one reason people choose a church is that someone invites them. Whether yours is a new or renewing situation, you must mobilize the members of your congregation in the inviting process.

Secret Two: Consistent persistence is vital.

An example from old media is insightful here. On the radio, by the time a song is climbing the Billboard Charts, radio DJs are sick of it. Marketers generally say that a person needs to hear your message seven or eight times before it begins to penetrate. The repetition principle applies regardless of the medium. By the time your message finally penetrates your congregation, you will be sick of it. By the time it penetrates your community, your congregation will be sick of it.

When I teach preaching, I always can tell who in the class will be most successful. It hardly ever is the smartest person in the room. That person will go out and try to communicate deep and profound truths. As Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman says, “Facts go straight to the head. Stories go straight to the heart.” I would add that doctrine goes straight to the hips! Find new and creative ways to let your congregation tell their story/stories.

Secret Four: One Size Fits Some.

Jesus used various means to communicate his message. He understood that people take in information in different ways:

• Visual: “Show me a coin. Whose image is on it?”
• Auditory: Sounds have great power, and it doesn’t always need to be the sound of the spoken word. We all have had the experience of hearing a song and having the music transport us back to a former time and place in our lives.
• Kinesthetic: What is the feeling that you want to evoke? Anticipation? Hope? Devotion?

Secret Five: Use all your tools.

For the most part, our churches are communicating in the same way we did 100 years ago. Oh, they may have a website, but most of the time they are static electronic versions of our Yellow Pages ads. Few are using their web presence as much more than a church sign on the Internet highway where people are zipping by at 4g speed. Like me, you may be wondering how on earth you are going to find the time to learn what all of these modern tools are, let alone how to use them. Well, that really is the point of this secret … There are people out there who know a great deal more about all of this than we ever will. It is past time the church asked them to help. If we do not mobilize those people to serve the Realm of God then we certainly have not used all the tools God has provided.

Secret Six: Think multilevel.

With marketing, we need to begin to think of it as an investment. In most churches, marketing consists of creating throwaway pieces that they give to their members. We should think of everything as though it is going to be forwarded. Email newsletters should be designed so members can forward them as invitations to their friends. Tweets should be written so people will re-tweet them.

Secret Seven: It’s all about the experience.

Richard Reising, in his great book Church Marketing 101, talks about Starbucks and how they are not selling coffee, but actually are trying to become America’s front porch. They are selling you an experience. What would people experience if they came to your church?

One of my favorite websites is “Church Marketing Sucks.” Generally speaking, it really does, but it doesn’t have to. We have a story to tell. We have good news for people who desperately need it. What we haven’t done so well is getting that good news outside our own walls.

Michael Piazza - Executive Director
The Center for Progressive Renewal

Featured Resources:

• Church Marketing Sucks
• Church Brand Architects
• Richard Reising
• What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church? A Parable (YouTube video)