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”.
8 Comments
Stu Gray on March 16th, 2009
Alan –
Great Post! I am right with you about Churches marketing to disconnected folks on Christian Radio.
Very cool thing happened though, for me and my wife several years ago. We had moved to New Orleans where I was working fulltime radio on the Top 40 Station in town (more hip hop at the time).
But I was doing a weekend shift, Easter was coming up, and this church was running commercials for their upcoming Easter Service.
The Spot was put together nicely. A blend of great worship tunes from the worship band at the church, inviting people to celebrate Easter with them.
Not that it works for everyone, but it did for my wife and I who were disconnected at the time from church.
We didn’t get a personal invitation, like you suggest, but it was uncommon to hear this appeal on a very urban leaning mainstream station.
Thanks again for the post! – Stu Gray
AJWired on March 16th, 2009
Hey Stu, that’s a cool story. We actually ran some commercial spots on several different genres of mainstream radio last year for our Easter services, kind of like that church did. We had some that sounded like a monster truck commercial for fun as well as a few others. Check it here:
AJWired on March 16th, 2009
thanks for the thoughts Jon. I would say that most people in Aiken, unless a transplant, have some sort of exposure to church. Unfortunately for too many, it wasn’t a good experience. Our hope is to remove the stereotype that Jesus and church are boring and irrelevant. Part of our process that I’m involved in is helping to creatively produce the Sunday experience to accomplish that. Always a work in progress 
Stu Gray on March 16th, 2009
Alan –
Those are awesome!! I love the “annihilates” line – and the “We’ll give you the whole seat, but you only need the edge” lines.
Sounds like you have a great forward thinking team with you – those messages covered the whole range of people you could really reach with a large service at a “Convention Center”…and you weren’t limited by running the same spot that may have sounded out of place perhaps in one format or another.
NICE!!! – stu
Ryan on March 17th, 2009
This is kind of out there, but I’ve always thought the Christian radio station here would get more hits if their frequency was something much higher than 88.3. Most of the pop/rock/r&b/country stuff is in the upper band – from the mid 90’s to 107.7. You would think it would stand a better chance of getting heard as people scan the frequencies in this range. There are a couple of stations around Spartanburg and Atlanta that are like this. Furthermore, most of those stations play music which is much more relevant to a younger generation – you at least hear some hip hop and rock tracks mixed in with contemporary adult. We really don’t have a station here that provides that type of mix.
Drew Goodmanson on March 17th, 2009
Good word. For better or worse, one thing we’ve found is that according to the 100 churches we are surveying “27% of the respondents (peopled who attend) said the church website was how they first learned about the church.
http://www.goodmanson.com/2009-03/04/the-truth-about-church-websites-and-effective-online-outreach/
AJWired on March 17th, 2009
ryan, I would agree. THE FISH out of Atlanta is a good example that mixes it up. SO wish that 88.3 would do that.
Alan Jones is the media pastor at 
John Panico on March 16th, 2009
Alan,
This is what happens when churches want to “be like the big church on the other side of town” or words to that effect.
Rather than trying to fill a need or provide something different that might appeal to someone, they go the “tried and true” approach of what has worked for others.
As such, their brand is diluted.
Though while I get what you are saying about your competition is not other churches, it is easier to get someone to your church regularly that already has that habit. At that point, you just have do deliver what you do better.
And while 95% of your visitors are a result of a personal invitation, you might want to find out what percentage of those are non-churched (haven’t been to a church in 6 months or more). That would be interesting to find out.
Good stuff as always.
John Panico