With church-going in decline, a church marketing plan is more important than ever.
Marketing can help you spread awareness about your church, welcome new congregation members, and raise critical funds for your programs and operations.
There’s a wide variety of ways that you can market your church and you can source more by the church marketing plan pdf, which you would find after this article.
It can seem like the options are endless and there’s no one right answer. The best marketing plan is the one that fits your church’s budget, goals, and needs. Let’s delve in.
Table of Contents
What is a Marketing Plan and Strategy?
A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan. A solid marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan so that goals may be achieved.
While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, without a sound strategic foundation, it is of little use to a business.
What’s the Purpose of a Marketing Plan?
The purpose of a marketing plan is to ensure that marketing activities are relevant and timely to achieve an organization’s objectives. It’s a plan defining a sustainable competitive position and defining the resources necessary to achieve it.
You don’t need a huge team or a lot of money to create a successful marketing plan. Instead, focus on small daily and weekly steps that you can take action on now.
Before we delve into how to market your church for growth, let’s review why consistent church marketing is so important.
Church Marketing Raises Awareness
Marketing is an essential function for any business or organization including your church!
So When coming up with church advertising ideas, focus on the support, purpose, and friendships that people gain when they join your congregation.
Church Marketing Grows Your Congregation
Help your congregation members stay engaged while also attracting new members from your greater community.
Marketing your church leads to a thriving church membership, which allows your church to spread the word further and accomplish your goals.
Church marketing attracts volunteers
If your church relies on volunteers to help with projects, church marketing is essential for you! Your marketing efforts can help recruit volunteers for meaningful projects. Or, your marketing can draw in new congregation members who may engage with volunteerism over time.
Church Marketing Raises Funds
It’s simple math the more successful your marketing, the more your congregation, and your fundraising efforts will grow.
Marketing can help you bring in passionate new members who can grow along with your church.
8 Key Elements of a Successful Church Marketing Plan
To create a successful church marketing plan you need to focus on the following;
- Build a team
- Set goals
- Define your audience
- Set a budget
- Establish a brand identity
- Craft your message
- Identify distribution channels
- Document a fundraising strategy
1. Build a Team
With a team-based approach, no one person has to do it alone and feel responsible for everything. Building a team that can manage your church marketing efforts goes a long way toward ensuring you’ll hit your goals.
Your church marketing team might include church leaders, staff members, volunteers – or a mix of all of the above.
Pro tip: If members of your congregation have skills or jobs in fields like graphic design, web design, copywriting, photography, or business management, ask them for help!
These are perfect skill sets to brainstorm and implement church advertising ideas. You can even form a Marketing Committee to oversee your work.
2. Set Goals
If you’ve worked in a corporate setting, you might be familiar with the idea of setting “SMART” goals. This is an acronym that stands for setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
For example, a vague and non-SMART goal might be “we want to start posting on social media.” Your team can turn this goal into a SMART one.
This might look like this: “We want to post one photo, video, or quote on our Facebook and Instagram accounts each Friday afternoon.”
3. Define Your Audience
For most churches, the most important audience to market to is going to be your existing congregation.
That’s because word of mouth is a powerful tool when marketing your church. unSeminary reports, “The fastest-growing churches in the country consistently encourage their people to invite friends and family to be a part of their church.
It really is that simple.”
Think of it this way: when your friend recommends something to you, how likely are you to take their advice over the advice of someone you may not know as well?
Most of us tend to trust the recommendations of people we love and enjoy spending time with.
4. Set a Budget:
Word of mouth can be (mostly) free. But, it’s still a good idea to have a marketing budget for some ads, print materials, and other marketing expenses.
It can also be worthwhile to hire someone to manage your church’s marketing ideas and efforts. This might be a full-time, part-time, or contracted staff member.
5. Establish a Brand Identity
A “brand identity” defines and articulates your church’s visual aesthetic and personality. Many organizations create a brand standards guide, which is a written document outlining your brand.
This can include your color palette, preferred fonts, logo, mission, and vision statement.
Your church’s brand identity should also include guidelines for how your church will express written and verbal ideas – think about preferred terminology, phrasing, and even words you might wish to avoid in your messaging.
Establishing your brand identity will help ensure that your church’s print and digital materials look cohesive and intentional.
This can help build trust with your congregation and create a sense of community.
6. Craft Your Message
Once your brand identity is in place, it’s time to craft your church’s marketing message. Think about what makes your church unique.
To understand your church’s “selling points,” it can be helpful to interview current congregation members. Ask them questions like, “What first attracted you to our church?” and “What motivates you to keep coming back each week?”
For example, your contemporary service might provide a great opportunity for young professionals to network over coffee and music.
Or, your church’s child care program might be popular with busy parents, so they can relax and enjoy the worship service knowing their little ones are cared for. Or, maybe your congregation has an amazing pastor who helps everyone feel welcome and inspired.
7. Identify Distribution Channels
These days, there are a wide variety of distribution channels available to market your church. From digital ads to print and traditional channels, there’s a lot to choose from!
Think about which marketing channels might work best for your budget and audience. In the section below, you’ll discover even more ideas and how to implement them.
8. Document a Fundraising Strategy
Just as you need a marketing plan for your church promotional ideas, you also need a fundraising plan to keep your church community thriving.
Innovative and effective fundraising strategies help not only raise funds for your church but also spread the word among people.
It’s a great way to engage with your supporters on a regular basis and encourage them to bring in friends and families. This way, fundraising can help fuel your church’s marketing efforts, too.
Successful Church Marketing Strategy
Now that you have a team, a budget, a brand identity, and a message to share, it’s time to start marketing your church! These strategies will support you in working toward 3 key church marketing goals.
First, you’ll want to generate awareness of your church. The idea here is to make sure that people in the greater community know your church exists.
Then, you’re aiming to grow your congregation by encouraging people to show up at church services and events.
Finally, you want to encourage new and long-time church members to financially support your work and mission with donations.
Let’s Review Actionable Steps to Accomplish These Overarching Goals.
Now that you have every team, budget, and everything needed for your church marketing, let’s look and follow the actionable.
1. Create a website
Let’s say someone drives past your church or hears about it from a friend. They’re interested and want to learn more. So, they head to your church website. What will they see?
It’s critically important to make sure that your church has an up-to-date, mobile-friendly website.
For many potential new members, your website is the first thing they see – and it can leave a lasting impression. Consider a user-friendly service like SquareSpace or Wix to create your site.
2. Add a donation form to your website
Once your church website is up and running, you can set up an online donation form. If your church doesn’t have an easy way for people to make an online gift, it’s likely that you’re leaving money on the table.
Consider using a donation platform that allows you to create an on-brand donation form, accept recurring gifts, and allow for gifts in honor or memory of a loved one.
Some services like the Paypal Donation button allow donors to choose which church project their gift will support. This can help you raise money specifically for a community event to boost your marketing efforts.
For example, raise funds for your annual church fall fest or carnival.
3. Develop an “invite culture” for members
As mentioned earlier, word of mouth can be a powerful marketing tool for your church. But, it only works if your church members are willing to invite others to join! Creating an “invite culture” at your church can go a long way.
For example, you could design and print professional-looking “business cards” for your church with an inspirational Bible verse and your church’s contact information and service times.
That way, when people strike up a conversation, you’ll have your church information handy to share.
4. Get Active on Social Media
There’s a Chinese proverb that says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” In that spirit, if your church isn’t already active on social media, now is the time to start!
If you’re on social media already, consider ramping up your efforts. A few ways to do that include:
- Take photos during your services and programs. Then, post the photos on social media and tag church attendees! This is a great way to encourage sharing on people’s individual social media accounts.
- Film and share a short video each Friday, giving a brief preview of what Sunday’s sermon will be about. It would also be helpful to have an online Sunday or weekly service streamed from the social media page. This would help a lot of people who are far and would attract more donations.
- Share behind-the-scenes photos from your church’s happenings. For example, share photos or videos of your worship band practicing their music, or a volunteer preparing cookies and coffee in the kitchen.
- Post interactive games and questions. For example, you could post a Bible verse and see if anyone can identify the verse from memory.
5. Use Google Ad Grants
If your church is a qualifying nonprofit organization, Google Ad Grants will help you access to up to $10,000 per month in search ads shown on Google. The program is aimed to help nonprofits share their causes with the world.
By taking advantage of this smart tool, you can raise awareness about your church, boost your visibility in search results, and even recruit new volunteers and donors.
6. Double Down on Holidays
Many people grew up in the church but only attend services on special holidays. In the Christian community, Christmas Eve and Easter are obvious times when your church attendance is likely to be higher than usual.
Mother’s Day is also a popular day to attend services. During these times of the year, many congregation members will invite friends, neighbors, or out-of-town guests to join them for a service.
To make the most of these special days, make sure your church is prepared. This might include sprucing up your housekeeping efforts and ensuring that your worship service’s printed programs are typo-free and well-designed.
Holidays are also an opportunity to promote your church’s upcoming events and year-round programs, such as summer camps, after-school programs, counseling support, and more.
Church Marketing Plan PDF
However, we have compiled each and every plan for marketing a church and they can be found in the church marketing plan pdf below.
Note the PDF file is actually the content you have just read, this would just help you revisit the marketing plan without coming back to visit this page.
