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October 2008 | |
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VISUAL PREACHING Church Marketing: 7 Keys to Successful PromotionBy Larry Witzel The nation was in decline as the new king ascended to the throne. Enemies had raided the land, and the treasury had been emptied to placate them. The worship of Yahweh had been abandoned, the great temple shut tight. It was a dark time for the country. But within days of his coronation, the 25-year-old king reopened the temple, and determined to offer his citizens the opportunity for a powerful spiritual encounter with the Living God of Heaven. After the temple was fully purified, he and the other leaders decided to celebrate the Passover, as in days gone by. But King Hezekiah did more than just create an environment for his fellow worshipers to encounter God. He did more than just plan a great event, following the scriptural instructions. He did more than just dream of vast crowds experiencing the Presence of God. Hezekiah promoted the Passover: “Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the LORD, the God of Israel” (2 Chronicles 30:1). This month we continue our series on church marketing. Because secular marketing encompasses the activities leading up to an economic transaction, it is a system of thinking that is in many ways directly contrary to Kingdom values. Yet many secular marketing practices can be appropriately adapted for use in a church setting. So our goal is not to cram Kingdom activities into a secular marketing framework, but to find those secular marketing practices grounded in biblical principles and redeem those for use by the church. Here is our definition of church marketing: Church marketing is intentional, Spirit-led action influencing people toward becoming mature disciples of Christ. In this article, we continue to focus on that small word packed with meaning: action. This includes specific ministry activities, which we discussed last time, as well as the promotion of those activities. Every ministry activity should be creating an experience and environment where individuals have an opportunity to take a step closer to God. Promotion of those activities attracts people to the event, and prepares them for the experience by setting expectations. Obviously, planning a great event is useless if no one participates. Even more than in the days of Hezekiah, promotion is crucial for success. Hezekiah sent a well-crafted message, which was received by people who rarely got news of anything. Today, we are bombarded with thousands of messages every day, more often than not spreading the distracting lies of the god of money. It simply takes more effort to penetrate this virtual blockade of truth. Successful Promotion With that in mind, here are 7 keys to successfully promoting a specific ministry activity: 1. Make sure your event is meeting the intended need. As we discussed last month, every ministry activity should be intended to help people meet Jesus, or to influence them to grow closer to Jesus in some area of discipleship. If what you’re planning won’t do that effectively, then maybe it’s not worth promoting. God led Hezekiah to promote a Passover celebration, which ignited a passionate revival in the worship of God. The promoted activity really did meet the need. 2. Speak to your target audience. Hezekiah sent his message to Israel as well as Judah, knowing that many in the northern nation would mock both the message and the messenger. Yet he didn’t soften the message or play it down. He spoke directly to the needs of these people, who had so recently been defeated: “People of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that he may return to you who are left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.… If you return to the LORD, then your brothers and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to this land, for the LORD your God is gracious and compassionate” (2 Chronicles 30:6). Hezekiah invited beaten, broken people to join him for an international gathering of faith, speaking words of encouragement that both invited them to participate and set expectations for what they would experience. 3. Overstate the benefits. People are more motivated to participate in an activity if they see how they will be personally blessed. Hezekiah’s appeal was simple: return to the LORD, and your families will be shown compassion and will be reunited with you. It was a bold claim—and people responded. There is a fine line between sounding like an infomercial filled with unreasonable promises, and following the Spirit’s leading in casting a God-sized vision that couldn’t possibly be accomplished by humans. The difference is the Spirit. So pray about the claims you’re about to make. Then boldly overstate the benefits. 4. Ask for an immediate response. Hezekiah gave people just two- to three-weeks notice, an incredibly short time in an era where traveling to Jerusalem meant walking for days. People had to make an immediate decision. Today’s pace of life is much faster, and schedules are packed. So ask people to pre-register, or sign up for a space, or make some other tangible commitment. By asking people to take immediate action, prior to the event, they make a small commitment to participate, add it to their calendar, and significantly increase the likelihood of participation. And by giving people multiple ways to respond—by phone, on the web, or by fax or mail—you decrease the friction for each individual to take that next step. 5. Use multiple communication channels. Hezekiah sent a message by courier to each part of the country, which was effective in his day. Things are a little different now with our plethora of media. We know today that different people respond better to different media. How many of your core members actually read the announcements in the bulletin? Most probably don’t, but some do every week. Some people tune out the announcements from the podium, but others need that to get their attention. Email, phone calls, website, and snail mail are all important ways to reach members of your congregation, and by communicating through all those media, you’re sure to get the message through. In reaching members of your local community, personal invitation is by far the most effective. But a complete campaign—including postcards or handbills, newspaper advertising, posters, door hangers, and even billboards, radio, and TV advertising—increases the credibility of that personal invitation, increasing your response. 6. Use a consistent identity. In a visual world, using an anchor image and consistent design to “brand” the experience makes the aggregate campaign more effective, especially when coming through different communication channels. 7. Overcommunicate. There are a lot of reasons people won’t respond to your message the first time: information overload, distraction by other matters, a misplaced flyer, or perhaps they simply haven’t made a decision to participate yet. Repetition is key. Your message is competing with many other things that scream for the time and attention of your intended audience. If the ministry activity is important to your church, then you need to overcommunicate. When you as the leader are sick of hearing about it, then you’re getting close to effectiveness. The bottom line: it doesn’t matter how great the potential benefit of your planned ministry activity. If people don’t hear about it and commit to participate, it’s nothing more than a wasted opportunity. On the other hand, if you plan the right Spirit-led experience, and promote it effectively, you just might encounter that same response Hezekiah did, when his people wanted more: “For the seven days they…praised the LORD, the God of their fathers. The whole assembly then agreed to celebrate the festival seven more days; so for another seven days they celebrated joyfully” (2 Chronicles 30:22, 23). Larry Witzel is Vice President for Product Development at SermonView. A former pastor, Larry has 15 years of marketing and public relations experience, and for the last 8 years has used his gifts to help church leaders communicate more effectively. Larry earned his MBA in marketing from the University of Washington, and lives with his wife and daughter in Vancouver, Wash. Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. |
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