The Church and Marketing

Today I was taking the kids to school, and the local Christian radio station was on.  I heard a commercial that really took me back.  It was for a new church plant that was about to launch over in Augusta in the next week or so.  The voiceover for the commercial was inviting people who were disconnected to church or had been turned off to/by church to come to their launch service.  The thought hit me “that commercial totally missed the mark.”  Think about it, how many people do you know that have been burned by church or are disconnected to church and are riding around listening to Christian radio.  I guess it is possible that some may listen to Christian radio…..but not the majority for sure.  Granted, it didn’t cost that church any money as the commercials are free there, but it did cost, time, resources and possibly attract some “lookie lou’s” that are just taking up seats to check out the new show in town; seats that could be open for people that need Jesus, the unchurched/dechurched.  It’s the same broken concept of advertising a big outreach event on Christian radio.  It misses the target.

I think one of the reasons why so many churches miss the target in marketing is that they don’t understand who and where the competition is.  If you’re a restaurant, your competition is other restaurants.  If you own a dry cleaning business, your competitor is….other dry cleaners.  For the local church, the competition is….other churches….right?  Wrong.  The competition for a local church is every thing that vies for the attention, time and commitment of people in our community – NOT other churches.  That may seem like a no brainer, but it is huge if you take it to its logical conclusion.  It means that every church, instead of trying to think through the framework of “how can I fill my church with more church people?”, we began to seriously ask the question “What can we do to help create a worship environment that someone who doesn’t know Jesus would want to come to?”

A final word on marketing in the church.

At Cedar Creek when we ask people, 95% of first time guests come because of a personal invitation.

That has been true since day one back in 1993.  The best marketing practice is to encourage people to invite a friend (it helps them to come back if they’re not bored out of their mind when they get there, but that’s a different post for a different day).  That’s not to say that marketing using mailers, facebook, invite cards, billboards and the like aren’t important.  They are.  What those marketing pieces do is equip your people with name recognition and branding so that when they do invite someone, Cedar Creek will possibly be familiar to that person: “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that church” or “I saw that billboard the other day on the way to work”.

even more U2 goodness

I was browsing around amazon checking out some music and came across another sweet deal for U2 fans.  It’s a collection of 18 top singles called U218.  Available for only 5.99.  Check it.

U218

U2 – No Line On The Horizon

Just picked up U2’s latest release No Line on the Horizon from Amazon.  You can get the whole album for $3.99..love that!  So far it is sounding good.  Plenty of new sounds with some familiar grooves and tunage.  Think this one will grow on me big time.  Hit the link below to preview the songs or pick up the album.

U2 No Line On The Horizon

movie trailer addict

All my life, I’ve been a huge fan of movies.  Some of my earliest memories that I can remember to this day are ones of our family going to the drive-in theater that use to exist in North Augusta.  My mom would pop literally a paper, grocery sack full of popcorn, and we would load up and head to the drive-in.  My first job in high school was at Master’s Cinemas on Washington Road in Augusta.  I always loved working on Friday nights when there was a new, summer blockbuster being released.  The place was packed, people were excited to be there, saw people I knew….hmmm..similarities to a church there…but I digress.  Kim is my movie buddy and we watch a lot of movies at the house and love to spend a date night catching a new flick. (side note here: one of my pet peeves – people who talk during the movie…just be quiet, really, seriously…people don’t like you at all when you are flapping your gums during the movie. Save your money, stay at home, wait for the dvd, talk all you want then and allow us to watch the movie that we paid half a mortgage payment to see)

Along with movies, I also love movie trailers.  Most of the time, studios will include some of the best scenes and lines in that glorious two minutes or less.  This spring and summer looks to be full of a lot of movies that I’ll be checking out.  Here area couple of links to sites that I frequent to get my movie trailer fix.  Enjoy:

Fancast: http://www.fancast.com/trailers

Apple: http://www.apple.com/trailers

Mark Driscoll on CNN

Checkout this interview between DL Hughley and Mark Driscoll.  Driscoll has taken a lot of heat lately from different groups on his messages at Mars Hill on the subject of sex.  My opinion is that the church has two options: 1. talk about a Biblical view of sex or 2. bury it’s head in the sand and hope it goes away.  Many, and possibly most, churches take the latter approach and continue to perpetuate misconceptions about the church and sex.  What are your thoughts on that?