Marketing in the Church, of the Church, and for the Church

As a marketer and a Christian the issue of how one markets a local church is of great interest. I have encouraged my local church to use various methods to market themselves to the community. My primary recommendation has been to ask the community what they would like their local church to look like, what their needs are that might be met by the local church, and then go into the community and prove our love for them by showing them we really care.

Today my partner pointed me to a web site which considers this issue on many levels, and does so in a way that is accessible to everyone and very fun to explore. There are also many links at the site which bring in other points of view that are valuable.

Here is a sample:

No Need to Impress

"That's why it's so wonderful to have a home church. We get to mess up in front of them. Have fun with them. Experiment with them. Try things that work, and others that don't. It's nice to have a community of people where you don't really need to impress anybody. They become your 'soundboard' and a little bit of a testing ground where you can explore things together." -Eric Owyoung, vocalist for the worship band Something Like Silas, which despite releasing a national album is sticking with its San Diego church home (Source: Christian Music Today).

Church is supposed to be a place of acceptance and love where there's no need to impress. Perfection should be checked at the door. Which makes clamoring for excellence in church marketing a sticky proposition.

One of the links offers this:

Simply put, every copywriting
strategy can be found FIRST in the Bible. This may
appear to be a strong statement but I challenge the
reader to prove otherwise. As I did the research for my
latest ebook "77 Ways to Skyrocket Your Website's
Conversion", I kept saying to myself "but that's in the
Bible � that's in the Bible."

I would like to take a look at 5 adcopy principles and
show you that they are as old as the Scriptures. This
article is not meant to 'convert' you so read with an
open mind ... ready? Let's go!

1. Stress benefits not features.

It's the Garden of Eden. The serpent approaches the
woman Eve to get her to take of the forbidden fruit.
Does he rave about the color, taste and texture of the
fruit? No, he sells Eve on benefits. "Your eyes will be
opened, you will be like God ..." (Genesis 3:4). Now
that's a benefit, not a feature at all. And did Eve
fall for it? She surely did.