Unity Church Marketing

Remember that old saying how the “rich get richer”? Well, the same goes for churches as well. Have you noticed that small churches remain small while larger churches keep growing and growing? One of the many reasons that occurs is that many small churches do not utilize the power of self-promotion.

Budget and self promotion don’t have to be equal!

If you are a small church, you are more likely to have a small if not non existent marketing budget. Simply put, without self-promotion not many people will get to know and come to love your church because they will never have heard of it.

But guess what? In this day and age, you can have a skimpy marketing budget and still effectively self promote your church.

Build it and they will come…maybe not so much

Many churches put some time into creating a website or blog and then say to themselves…”Well, I have done my job. Let the traffic begin so our church can grow.” Unfortunately, it rarely if ever happens like that.

Remember when you first built or moved into your current sanctuary? You probably did something to let others know about you. To be clear, it isn’t a one time deal. People come and go. Without constant top of mind awareness, people will pass you by everyday and not know you are there. Self promotion of your church and the activities/services you provide is vital to your growth.

Content is king, but headlines will bring people to you

Powerful headlines on your blog will help you to attract potential readers. Think of headlines like you would a speaker. A great blog headline will get people to your site…once. Just once. But if you have great content that is of perceived value, people will not only return, but tell others about you. Slowly, but surely, that will turn into visitors.

If you make a killer headline that attracts lots of visitors, and your content is not strong enough, not many of those visitors will convert into subscribers and visitors. Ultimately, visitors turn into members.

Promoting is like voting in Chicago…

Never forget that content needs frequent updating. No one likes to come to a site or blog and the latest update is months old. It is just not the culture we live in at this point in time.

Remember, you are promoting! So just like voting in Chicago, do it early and often. The search engines resonate better with websites and blogs that constantly have new content. And new content that you provide is a form of self promotion.

Write a good headline but deliver the quality content. For a reader, nothing is more frustrating than clicking on a killer headline where the article doesn’t actually say anything.

Are there other things I should be doing?

Anything that you can do that can interest people in your church, blog or website is a good thing. I am amazed at how many churches don’t use their signage to invite people to come see the, their website or blog.

Other tools such as Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media will have a positive impact as well.

What should my church be promoting?

· Upcoming events that your church will be involved with

· Different ministries (How will they know you offer kids church if you don’t tell them is just one example)

· Special occasions that you want to invite the public to attend

· Other organizations that use your facility

· Sunday message series

· In your blog/website, tell about the above as well as what is happening at your church. Activities that have happened and that are upcoming

They don’t have to all be earth shattering. But guess what? Not everyone is looking for earth shattering either! People have different interests. And they will resonate to different messages/activities with varying amounts of enthusiasm.

Your job is to make sure they know about you. Get in front of your audience regularly!