Why Churches Should Not Market
Churches put a lot of time and thought into marketing themselves. The church marketing community has grown so large and vast the are even sites that parody what churches do. Some churches have marketing people on staff. And, every year millions and millions of dollars are invested in church marketing.
Yet, I submit that churches should do no marketing. Am I crazy?
What is Marketing?
The first thing we need to ask ourselves is, what is marketing? According to Googles Dictionary marketing is:
is the organization of the sale of a product, for example, deciding on its price, the areas it should be supplied to, and how it should be advertised.
If we take a look at Marketing on Wikipedia we see:
Marketing is the process associated with promotion for sale goods or services.
Is the church trying to sell a good or service to the world? Is that the mission of the church? The short answer is no. The mission of the church, as laid out in Matthew 28: 19-20 is to:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Is there sales in there anywhere? I don't see it.
Is the Marketing Effective?
97% of church growth in the United States is Christians going from one church to another. The Christian population is falling in the US at the same time.
The 97% number does shed a light on this, though. Who is the marketing working on? When we look deeper at the number the church marketing is working on people who already call themselves Christians. Rather than making disciples churches seem to be pulling them from other churches. This is not the mission of the church!
A Worse Problem
I think a worse problem has come out of the marketing age in churches. Churches are called to communicate with others both as a group and individually. In the marketing age the church communication responsibilities has been put onto the staff and leadership to put out the right marketing materials to hit people. So, churches put loads of money into road site signs, slogans, campaigns, and other hogwash to try and drive people in a direction.
As the 97% number shows us that what they are doing isn't working.
While they are putting all this time into marketing they are aren't putting time into teaching (as Matthew calls out to be done) or communicating very well. Yeah, church communications kinda sucks and the simplest way to gauge that is to ask the people in the pews and out in the world to repeat back to us what they hear we are saying. A lot of what I hear back is downright scary which means we are communicating poorly.
But, Isn't Communications and Teaching Actually Marketing?
Communications and Teaching are not Marketing. That's why we have 3 different words here.
Google's Dictionary sheds a nice example of what it is to communicate:
If you communicate with someone, you share or exchange information with them, for example by speaking, writing, or using equipment.
Further looking into what it is to teach we find:
If you teach someone something, you give them instructions so that they know about it or how to do it.
Maybe if we took some time to learn how to communicate in the vernacular of the day and teach well the church might not be in the pickle its in.
Comments
#1 Great thoughts, Matt.
Great thoughts, Matt. Mega-churches seem to be marketing themselves to Christians from other churches. "Come here, we have programs that your little church doesn't!"
#2 Not Intentionally
I don't think this is intentional in most Mega Churches. Some, like Willow Creek have publicly said that what they were doing with a good intent was not working towards that intent and are looking to figure out how to change.
Think of it this way, marketing saturates the world we are in. But, the marketing that's out there is geared towards selling products at the low hanging fruit of people who would want them. That's how companies make money.
Who are the low hanging fruit for growing your church? Other Christians.
The marketing tactics are doing exactly what they are supposed to. But, that's not what we want to do.
I think Mega Churches want to say, "Come here, we have programs that you want or need". But, since they are speaking Christianese the people who understand that and want that are other Christians.
While I give them the benefit of the doubt on intentions I think the actions are flawed. It gets worse when the smaller churches see their growth success and try to do the same things. The real mission gets lost in the flawed details.
#3 It is not about Selling
Some amount of marketing works. Over 70% of the people that attend our church have either never attended a church before or not since they were children. Over 80% of our 'membership' was saved and baptized at our church. Over 60% of all those members say they first came because of a road sign (not marquee) or a billboard. The second highest cause was a personal invite. The total number of people who made a public declaration of their decision was 690 last year.
It is obvious from many sources that a personal connection, real investment in peoples' lives, and repeated invites is a great way to show Christ and lead them to Him. But at least in our case, in our area, some advertising works also. As with everything, you must strike a healthy balance to be the most effective. This applies to all areas of life, including the Church.
I do agree that most churches will benefit more by first starting to communicate more effectively, teach in a way that people can understand, and get their people to do the same in their personal relationships.
#4 Dig Deeper
Let me dissect a few things here. The numbers you have here are quite telling. But, I think the questions being answered are the wrong ones. They are targeted at marketing questions.
For example, lets look at the questions:
Over 60% of all those members say they first came because of a road sign (not marquee) or a billboard.
The sign was the reason they came to your church and not a church in general. The goal of the church at large is to make disciples, not members of a local organization. How is a sign telling people that your church is there marketing. It's communicating a communities meeting location.
If there was a marquee or billboard trying to impress an idea that may be marketing. I think of church signs that are just locations signs the same way I do as street signs. They are identifying factors.
But, I digress, this doesn't point out why people came to a church in general. If they saw the sign but didn't have a tug on their heart to attend they would not have come. There was a different (unmeasured?) factor that caused them to consider going to a church.
Also, the 60% that came in because of the sign does not tell you about how many saw it, what the people who did not come in though, or another else going on.
The question that is not discussed here is what marketing tactics were used that hit people to come in? The stats look neat but they don't say that marketing had any part.
Your church might have a great teacher or communicator that people are flocking to. That's not marketing. Basically, there isn't enough info here to connect results or anything else to marketing.
#5 Marketing is not in the Bible
So true. I'd never heard that 97% statistic before. Pretty eye opening.
The apostle Paul didn't do any marketing at all. He just started the occasional riot.
There is one account of sales in the Bible though. Simon the Sorcerer tried to purchase spiritual power from the apostles with money. We probably don't want to emulate that guy though, considering Peter's response:
But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity."
(Act 8:20-23)
#6 Please climb the ladder, you don't have to stand in the dark!
I agree that the ideas and motivations and implications of what you are saying. Whatever it is, the church stinks at looking outside it's own out-of-touch culture and realizing they lack the ability to impact the world around it.
I'd point you to the definition adopted by the American Marketing Association Board of Directors stated here: http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/DefinitionofMarketing.aspx
"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large"
In Mathew 28: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."
I see activity, processes and communication (God does the delivering and exchanging) of something of value to society at large.
We have the goal of spreading a way of life and training other people in it. The mistake in churches is that we follow business best-practices and methods to for something that isn't at all like a business. I heard an example once that made this clear to me. Some churches have examined shopping malls and taken queues from their design in their own building projects. The problem is the primary objective of the shopping mall is to confuse the visitor and feed them back into the stores to spend more time looking at things and therefore more time buying things. To build a church with these objectives is harmful, but we do the same thing with marketing. We need to sit down and start with the objective, look at the world around us and attach the two in a plan that spreads the news around. Some of that is marketing in my mind, but this really just comes down to definition and is a distraction from your point. Either it should exist or is bankrupt and we need to find a new foundation for it whatever it is.
In the end, our stinky marketing whether that's the right term or not, is indicative of a deeper, uglier and far more harmful problem. It's not that we fail to engage those outside our doors; rather, it is that we don't care to change so that we can follow the commandment to engage them. To quote your tweet while I was writing this, "People just have not been seeing all the signs pointing to the ladder out of the whole they are in." I'm simply saying that's because they aren't looking so the problem that needs to be solved is deeper in.
#7 Problem With Definitions
That definition is great and it highlights another problem. One the church should be familiar with.
A group of marketers came together and came up with their own definition that differs from the one that society at large uses. One that sounds nicer. It's great to use in a debate, right? Sound like any other group we know and love?
This definition is bogus for a lot of reasons. For example, marketing does not create offerings that have value to people. Marketing pimps the things engineers, developers, designers, and others create. This definition is trying to go beyond what they do to make them sound cooler than they are.
You do highlight one big problem. That the church takes it's keys from the business world which has a very different agenda. This is creating problems for the church on a lot of levels because of the difference in objectives.
#8 Re: Problems With Definitions
Well said about the church taking its' keys from the business world! One of the major problems I've experienced with this approach is that, having been a part of some large/mega churches who hire and ordain men who may be good business men, they simply have NO business being called Pastor. When a well known mega church Pastor makes a statement such as "A Pastor is a manager" then in makes sense that a manager can be a pastor. Here in lies the problem, because it takes the calling and giftings of a Pastor (Eph. 4:11) and allows the corporate world to define such rolls without the accountability and reverence that should accompany such responsibilities.
#9 Marketing - a rose by any other name ...
"A group of marketers came together and came up with their own definition that differs from the one that society at large uses. One that sounds nicer. It's great to use in a debate, right? Sound like any other group we know and love?"
Matt, I've got to call you out on this. That is an ad hominem attack.
You don't provide any reasons why the definition is wrong other than "a group of marketers" came up with it, and it is different (but not incompatible with) the Google dictionary.
In the Wikipedia article, you quote the first sentence but not the second, which goes on like this about marketing:
It is considered a "social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others."
In fact, continuing through the Wikipedia article, it looks more and more like the definition many of the other posters are using. (Although I also note that the article is flagged as needing more citations and possible cleanup.)
Marketing is a lot more than "billboards", and the marketing methods the megachurches use are not the only forms of marketing there are. And it's not unusual for "society at large" to have a different definition of a term than the one a professional uses. Ever have someone tell you their "computer was broke" because they couldn't access their email? There's a large segment of the population that defines "computer" as "what I use to get my email".
Matt, it looks to me like you are confusing particular forms of marketing (or advertising) with marketing in general and tarring every professional marketer with the same brush. That's a problem. A good marketing person is an expert at a particular form of communication. The Church desperately needs faith-centered *effective* marketing people, who follow the Magisterium.
#10 Why do they equal
We might be getting caught up on words here but I don't know.
We need people who can communicate Christ well. That's about communication. We need leaders to rally people. That's about leadership. We need people to organize people to serve others. That's about organization. Notice, I have not said marketing in here anywhere.
What I see the marketing in the church do is try to figure out what people need. So, we get childcare programs, rock concerts for worship, and more. But, this is only attracting members of other churches to jump churches. When we try to figure out what people need we get in the way of Christ more often than not.
Christ told us what people need and what to communicate. He even taught us how to communicate it. We just don't do that. How many people know Christs teachings well enough to share them? Sadly, when this is studied they find it's not very many people.
Maybe if we stopped trying to market God or the church, took the time to dig into his scriptures, and tried to live missionally we'd actually be able to live the mission rather than market stuff for our churches.
#11 Thanks for the post
Matt I appreciate you taking the time to think about and write about this topic.
David has a good point about striking a balance. I find a parallel to the "God Does Not Post To YouTube" video (http://www.youtube.com/user/scriptures4life#p/c/1647AA62C88F619F/1/DL52f...). (*see bottom for note*)
I took some marketing when I did my business degree. Marketing means, basically:
1. Finding a need or niche not being well met by others
2. Creating or improving a product that will truly meet that need
3. Communicating that the solution is now available to those who you sought in step 1 (the niche).
A common misunderstanding of marketing is that it's simply about putting on an infomercial and pushing crap to the masses. That's simply scamming, not marketing, in the purer sense.
If we look at that model, then the church could learn something. Again, let's look how Jesus "marketed:"
1. Jesus knew and understood his audience - i.e. the woman at the well.
2. Jesus was certain that he had a "product" they really needed - i.e. living water (himself, relationship, healing, wholeness, holiness)
3. Jesus communicated the solution to the right audience at the right time in history, etc. He introduced what he (still) offers in the context of the troubled history of Israel and moreover mankind. He communicates his "product" via disciples and discipleship. Via relationship.
Mass marketing (such as tele-evangelism and flash-flood salvation spectacles in Africa) doesn't seem to fit Jesus' style. Although some are surely saved by these methods through God's mercy, Jesus was definitely into deeply knowing people, and cutting them to the core with healing truth (like a surgeon.) In the early days of the church (Pentecost), people were mass-converted, and that's ok. We don't have statistics for how many stayed on after the big event. But observation tells us that if they were not discipled afterwards, then they most likely fell off the bandwagon after the raising of the dead and the speaking in tongues quieted down.
Basically, people love spectacles, miracles, shows, and flashy things. It allures them for a short while. But what keeps people in a church family is tight, meaningful, loving relationships. Add to that critical and inspired consumption of God's food (the Word) and you have a sustaining family. Nobody wants to jump ship when they know in their heart that they truly are part of a family. You can choose your church, but you can't really escape being adopted into a family once you truly are grafted in.
In conclusion, I'm saying - Jesus told us to make disciples (students) of all nations, and He would build His Kingdom. He told us to love our neighbours and our enemies. He showed us not to accept lukewarm teaching or languishing existence. Our "marketing" processes should be driven towards:
1. Understanding the World's needs (not just the 'wants' they say they have, nor simply the things they are too lazy to do themselves)
2. Sacrificing ourselves to produce a product _____ (love) that truly helps Them (and helps them know God)
3. Communicating that we offer this _Love_ to our personal niche. Each of us has a sphere where God has put us, where we know those people's needs and hurts. It is in that sphere that we can have the greatest chance to show people the love of God.
Perhaps we just need to look at "the low lying fruit" in a different way. Perhaps the best way to do the Commission is right around us as we speak.
(*A note on the "God Does Not Post To YouTube" video: I am certainly not advocating going Amish! My take on the videos is just that, for me (an über geek, technology lover), it reminded me to focus on real relationships. It told me that I should try to avoid technology consuming my real life and those real chances to relate to the people around me. I still love technology and I think God's servants have posted lots of cool stuff to YouTube ;)
-Danny
More about me at http://sites.google.com/site/dvanderbyl/dan-s-nexus
#12 Please see..
Thanks for the comment. Please see my response above titled "Problem With Definitions"
If there is a kind of good marketing churches would need to find it by abandoning the marketing practices of the businesses.
#13 Re: Thanks for the post
I hear what you are saying, however, to say that Jesus was marketing is a misnomer. We can't take a modern business practice and map it over what Jesus did and say He was marketing. That is part of the growing problem many believers have with modern (read contemporary) churches. Church has been defined as a business, hence, we apply modern business practices to bolster our "marketing" and to generate new/more consumers of our "products". Which gives the impression that this is what Jesus intended from the beginning. I once heard a professor say (referring to counseling) that psycology books should only be applied with the bible opened next to them and where they differed, the bible would be the authority. I believe that the same practice should be made with any business principles, recognizing that the modern business practices, albeit helpful, are not the original intent of Jesus or the biblical authors.
#14 Because churches are a
Because churches are a business. They have product. They have revenue.
#15 Not Quite
This comment is a great example of someone repeating back to the church what it is they hear.
The church is not a business but, many people seem to think it is.
#16 I don't think this is educated.
Marketing isn't about cheap selling techniques. Can that be an aspect of marketing, yes...but it's not employed by any church worth talking about.
I would say it's about promoting.
It's about getting the word out in a way that connects with people. "The Father gave me WHAT to say and HOW to say it." It's the HOW part that marketing addresses.
I would say it's about telling the story.
It's not about being slick or tricky, it's about communicating in a way that people can digest and in a way that sticks with them. Christ was the best example, he taught in a way that people could grab and understand.
Today the church is all about words...and it's not working very well. We need to tap into more than just auditory, but also visual as well.
Posts like this paint with a wide brush and seem to speak out of a lack of true understanding of what's being done...and judges very quickly.
#17 Cheap Tricks and Failures
Well, this post was quickly written but the issue of Marketing has been well thought out. Here are some examples:
All 3 of these are things I've seen or been asked to help be apart of. I could create quite a long list with time. These are all bad attempts at marketing.
Today the church is all about words and that is part of the problem. 90% of communication is non-verbal. We're supposed to listen twice as much as we talk. That means we should do very little talking and our actions should communicate more than anything else. What do our actions communicate?
When you say it's about communicating in a way people can digest I completely agree. That's not marketing. That's communication! But, what is a way people can digest? Very few people are able to do that well.
#18 Church "marketing"
A topic worth discussing on a regular basis, I think.
Going on the assumption that we are talking about the body of Christ in the earth, those who have been transformed by the Gospel and desire to take this message to others and all that goes with it, then it is safe to say that there are people out there who need and want what the Church has.
If marketing means knowing your message, your potential audience, having skill using the many forms of communication you have at your disposal, and formulating and executing plans that deliver the message effectively, then by all means churches should engage in "marketing". I guess I would call that "sanctified" marketing.
However, if marketing means more like skillful manipulation of people to create large turnouts, raise funds, sell the pastor's latest book, or generate excitement about the newest program as soon as last year's program is over, then we're getting a little iffy. The temptation is great, though, to rely upon the unsanctified tactics of the world to get results, and that's where the problem lies.
So I think if I was in the marketing department of a church, I'd be asking myself "If Jesus was running this department, what things would He do?" And equally important, "What would He not do?"
#19 What do we need to figure out?
You brought up a huge point when you said, "formulating and executing plans that deliver the message effectively". What do we need to formulate?
The bible talks about what we should be doing and how to reach people. For example, the bible talks about living a certain way, loving people, and sharing Christ with them.
Fast forward 2,000 years from Christ. Churches try to figure out how to reach people. They talk about childcare, politics, music, and fun activities.
Maybe the problem starts when we try to formulate how to reach people rather than following Christ's instructions.
If someone is going to know the message they need to know scripture and how it applies. At my church that is a very small group. I don't mean applies to life in the technical sense but the experience and understanding sense. Then, knowing the audience means knowing people who don't know Christ and the world they live in. When I combine those two the number of people I know who can do this drops to a very small number.
Note, a few years ago Barna posted a study that most pastors are out of touch with the world around them. Most of them don't understand their audience.
This makes me wonder where the change needs to begin.
#20 I swear I just found this...
...online cartoon entitled "church marketing".
And I wasn't googling 'church marketing' or anything else, really!
http://www.cartoonchurch.com/content/cc/church-marketing/
If nothing else, other people think about this subject too, even in England.
#21 Matt, I think the issue
Matt, I think the issue ultimately comes down to definitions. If you think marketing "pimps the things engineers, developers, designers, and others create" then of course churches shouldn't market. But if you define marketing as effectively communicating who you are and what you do, then I think churches should market.
Marketing experts today will tell you the most effective form of marketing is word of mouth marketing. And that is also the best way to communicate the gospel - one-on-one with people you have personal contact with.
But is it bad to want to communicate the gospel with people you don't know? People you don't have personal contact with?
If God is nudging someone in your town to come back to Him and the church and they Google "churches in [your town]" is it bad for a church that wants to help those looking for a church to optimize their site or purchase PPC advertising?
Is it bad for a church that cares about the people in their community to put up a sign or billboard that communicates they and God love them no matter who they are or what they've done?
I don't see how it can be bad to want to communicate the gospel beyond the people those in the church have direct contact with as long as the church continues to make it clear that the churches marketing efforts don't absolve anyone from their personal responsibility to serve, love, and share the gospel with those around them.
#22 Caring Communities and Marketing?
What is the best form of Marketing? It is better than any other form of advertising by far? The simple answer is word of mouth. Word of mouth is what Jesus called us to do. Yet, how many members in congregations are even equipped or desired to communicate Christ in their words and actions.
More often the staff at a local church (worship center) tries to advertise to tell the community they are there. It's not the members of the congregation reaching people but the staff and a handful of other leaders trying to share the church with masses.
I'm all for churches having great websites. But, those websites should not be used for marketing. They should be used for communication and/or as a virtual sign post for the church. Who does fancy slogans and images highlight something attract? Other Christians. Who are we targeting? The world. See the gap.
A big part of this is that we are called to go out into the world, share the Gospel in the language of the people, and to love them. More often than not we serve ourselves, we stay in our comfortable bubbles, and we tell people what we think they should believe in a language people only half understand.
Effectively communicating who you are and what you do is effective communication. Very few churches do this. Marketing is something different. That's why it has a different name and definition than communication.
How often do people debate and discuss communication techniques? I rarely see it. People in the church often debate marketing techniques that communicate poorly but get their name highlighted.
How many people are out there personally serving others, loving them, and sharing the gospel with them through their words and actions? When we step back and take a good luck the answer is not that many. More people in typical churches serve other members of the church rather than going out and serving people in need in the world. Our actions communicate that we are self serving.