Thursday, July 01, 2010

Marketing without money

I read the following post from Tony Morgan. It got me thinking and I wanted to share it to get you thinking too. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

10 Ways to Improve Marketing without Spending Any Money

  1. Improve guest services on Sunday mornings. Stress that Sunday mornings are a time for your hospitality team to be focused on visitors. The number one reason people will come back to your church is if they find the church to be friendly.
  2. Follow through with your promises. If someone volunteers to take a next step in a group, serving or an event, make sure the process is in place to follow up in a timely and personal fashion.
  3. Make it easy for people ask questions. Create a one-stop location, physical or online, where visitors can receive more information about your church.
  4. Create ministry environments that compel people to invite their friends.Excellent preaching and worship music is not enough. Every environment in the church needs to create an opportunity for life change. When that happens, you won’t be able to stop folks from inviting their friends.
  5. Embrace social media. Facebook, Twitter and blogs are an easy way to engage people in conversation and develop relationships. As relationships are developed, you’ll earn the credibility to encourage people to take next steps.
  6. Be different. Begin an unexpected series, have a unique worship experience or do something (good) that gets people talking.
  7. Make your church an active part of the community. Open your campus to the community, but also get engaged outside the walls of the church where you can directly impact people’s lives.
  8. Eliminate the noise. Prioritize what needs to be communicated. Eliminate competing messages. Stop the spam. The fewer the messages we deliver, the more likely the important messages will be heard.
  9. Encourage word-of-mouth marketing. The number one reason people will show up to your church for the very first time is because someone invites them. If you have stopped growing, your very first question should be this: Why have people stopped inviting their friends and what would have to happen for that to change?
  10. Lead by example. Although leading a church can become all-encompassing, find a way to cultivate personal relationships with nonbelievers. I know of a student who refused to walk through the doors of the church until her youth pastor, who got to know her at an outreach event, wrote her a two-line note thanking her for being a part of the youth group.

Have you used any of these strategies? What was the outcome? And do you have any other free marketing ideas that you’d like to share?

1 comment:

Jaimee said...

Not that it particularly matters, but I don't like the term "marketing" as it relates to "church"

I think probably the best strategy out there for successfully being the body of Christ is *actually* loving people... Really loving, encouraging, extending grace. Even if all your plans and programs suck, people know when they're really loved and that's hard to find. It doesn't get much "different" than that.