Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Let me let you in on a little secret. If your church is doing the same marketing methods that you were doing 10 years ago, some of them are not working as well anymore. And in fact, some of them we believe just need to die. And in this conversation, we're gonna talk about some of those methods that your church needs to just let go. Let's do this. You are listening to the Reach Right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow. Well, hey guys, I'm Thomas.
Speaker 2 00:00:30 And I'm Ian.
Speaker 0 00:00:31 And today we're talking about five church marketing strategies that need to die. They need to come to an end. Uh, Ian, you and I have been doing this for a long time now. We've been, uh, I I think we've seen many iterations of what works best for church marketing. Yeah. Uh, and you and I have been helping churches do marketing since 2006, 2007 time. And it's a lifetime when it comes to marketing <laugh>. It is. So it's almost like we were from the Mad Men Days of Marketing, it seems like for churches, the early days of
Speaker 2 00:01:02 Church marketing Mad Men. Yes. Yeah. So
Speaker 0 00:01:04 That's what we were, so it was nothing like the show, uh, don't get me wrong. I don't
Speaker 2 00:01:08 That <laugh> a Christian version. Little
Speaker 0 00:01:10 Crazier. No, I'd say, but no, it's, uh, anyway, but I think it's something that should be a good conversation for us today to talk about some of those things. Yeah. All of these are areas that I think that, uh, at least some of them were things that we used to see be the primary ways that churches did marketing. Yeah. Even in our time doing this and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, that's totally changed to this point here. So I think it should be a good conversation. What do you think?
Speaker 2 00:01:34 Yeah, I think it will. And, and, uh, it may be, um, a no-brainer to cut some of these marketing strategies we're gonna talk about to some, but it may come as a shock to others.
Speaker 0 00:01:44 Yeah, no, I think so too. So I'll kick it off. Um, this is, this one was the king when you and I started, uh, doing marketing for churches, helping churches with websites, those kinds of things. Yeah. But the king of church marketing then was the direct mail. And that's the first one we'll tackle today is direct mail. Um, its time has come and gone. Yeah. Uh, when I talk about direct mail, uh, I'm talking about typically postcards that churches will send, uh, to people that are in a specific zip code Right. Or an area of a zip code. Uh, right. And in those times, and still to this day, churches would get a discount as a nonprofit. They could get a discount on their postage side of things. Yeah. Uh, they'd still pay full price for printing. And it was just, uh, it was a big mass mailer.
Speaker 0 00:02:29 And, uh, every church plant that ever started, they would do a mass mailer to their community and, uh, put some stuff in, uh, people's hands. And there were all kinds of, uh, thoughts behind this here. But, and it didn't work. It worked really well for a time, it was a great way to get the word out there about your church. Yeah. But, um, I think the reason for this one, and the primary reason why it's time to kiss this one goodbye is because there are so many better methods of marketing today. Uh, yeah. To get the word out there about your church. So, um, some of the specific challenges with direct mail and why it, it doesn't make sense anymore is number one, it's just expensive. Uh, yeah. It's, you're paying, uh, you know, if, even if you're using the discounted postage rate as a nonprofit, you're also printing and doing all this stuff, it's gonna cost you about 50 cents at a minimum per postcard, uh, to get it into people's hands, delivered to their doors.
Speaker 0 00:03:16 So Right. That's expensive when you compare it with other channels, like you call that an impression in the marketing world. So it's one chance for an eye, for it's one set of eyeballs that can see it. Right. Um, whereas with things like, uh, Google Ads or Facebook marketing or any of those, right. You're paying less than a penny per impression in most cases. Yeah. Uh, so much less expensive to get that. I think there's some challenges with the targeting side of things with direct mail, um, you can't really get, um, you can only target specific zip codes. There are some products out there where you can do like a new movers direct mail. So every time someone new moves, you'll give them a direct mailer and you can get a little bit of targeting. But my goodness, when it comes to search ads or, uh, social media advertising, you can get so laser focused on an exact demographic that you can get the exact right message to them.
Speaker 0 00:04:07 And then I think the biggest one is just, it, it annoys people. Right. I mean, I don't know. Direct mail is something that I, uh, I have a PO box and I also have a, uh, a home, um, a home mailbox where we get mail, but like my first step every time I get mail is the trash can and just putting things directly into there just to avoid clutter in our house. So, I don't know, it's an annoying thing. What do you think about direct mail? Does it have a, does it have a place still?
Speaker 2 00:04:33 Uh, I don't know. Probably not. No. Uh, I, you know, I thought for a second there, when would it maybe make sense? But, you know, I think that just we're, in this day and age, not only is, you know, the majority of everything digital when it comes to marketing, which, but, uh, yeah. I, I, I was just thinking of myself and how we treat our mail, you know? Yeah. It's, uh, basically it's just we quickly grab everything that we know is pretty much not a bill or something that's of value directly. Right. Uh, you know, targeting us, and we just, you know, throw it in the, throw it in the recycler or the trash. And, and I think, yeah, it's just people are, they're tired of the clutter these days. They just don't, uh, they, they don't focus on the mail the way they they used to. So, yeah. And, and not just, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:05:17 So I'm with you on that. I, and I, it's not to say that there's no value to it. I think that there is still, right, you know, that it brings awareness, right. There's something to be said for awareness of your church and, you know, being out there. I just think in the end, I guess one other thing I could say is that there's not, it's really hard to measure direct mail performance. Right? And that's one of the things is that people have these astronomical response rates. They pretend actually happen with direct mail. Like I've heard some companies out there that sell direct mail to churches, uh, and they would claim a 3% response rate. And they would say that, like on average, this is, I, I, they may have some study or one church that had these kinds of results, I just don't buy it.
Speaker 0 00:05:58 But they would say that 3% of all the direct mail, they would turn out for a service or they would come to a service. And so that means if you sent out a hundred pieces of direct mail, you paid $50, let's say for it, you would get three people or three families, I guess in this case, right. That would show up on that. And that's just out of this world. Yeah. I, that's, it probably is closer to a, a, a quarter of a percent, or maybe Right. A 10th of a percent is more realistic. And you're just so much better off spending your money on doing things like social media because you can do a much better job measuring the results and tweaking it and getting better results in the future because of it. So I think it's a no-brainer.
Speaker 2 00:06:35 Yep. No, that's good. The next one, I guess I'll transition to here is, uh, uh, ignoring email, you know, and, and, uh, yeah. Uh, we talk about this quite a bit, uh, that, um, you know, email is often kind of undervalued these days. I mean, you know, when, and now that texting is a thing, of course. And, um, you know, sometimes I'll hear people tell me, Hey, instead of emailing me, will you text, you know, text me And I can on some things, but, uh, but, you know, but we're talking about this specifically for churches. I mean, email is still growing. Uh, yep. So it's, uh, it's, it's insane. Um, there's some statistics we can, uh, we can rattle off here and then talk more a little bit about it. But according to Statista, there were 4 billion email users worldwide in 2021. And, and it's projected to grow by 4.6 billion, uh, to that, to that, uh, not buy, but to 4.6 billion by 2025. Um, and so it's, uh, you know, we rely upon it greatly with what we do here at, at Reach. Right. And then, um, and, and I know that my church uses it effectively as well, and, uh, so it's not, shouldn't be ignored.
Speaker 0 00:07:49 Yeah. I think that, um, one of the paradigm shifts that I think maybe churches need to consider is that, uh, an email, like getting someone's email is a, is maybe an equivalent, or in some cases even a better first step. Uh, or maybe it is the first step, uh, and someone would make to becoming a part of your church or even visiting your church. So a lot of churches have stepped up and started doing the plan, your visit or, uh, let us know your coming page on their site where they can get people's contact information, specifically their email before they ever show up. And what that lets you do is to kind of pull forward a lot of the communication, the follow up, and it just really ups people's likelihood of coming on a day when they plan to come, as well as making your church the place that they think of as their home.
Speaker 0 00:08:38 Yeah. So I think there's a lot to be said for churches in kind of a church marketing strategy that is really underutilized, and that's why we say it needs to die, that if you're ignoring this Right. This needs to die out. Is that Exactly. Getting people's email is the step, like, just like with any business now, like our first step here at Reach right. Is people usually will give us their email address, uh, yeah. And we start, we'll start sending them a few emails and encouraging them to take a look at some of our products, but we also want to give them all kinds of different Yeah. Uh, encouragement and, uh, different videos that we've created to help make them better at what they're doing in church marketing, even if they don't work with us. So the, yeah. A church can do the same kind of a strategy where you'll start to, yeah, you'll invite them to come out to a church service, but you'll do things like, Hey, is there anything I can pray for you about?
Speaker 0 00:09:23 I'd like to personally pray for you if you send someone an email that asks them that question, it's one step toward in their discipleship process in most cases. Absolutely. So, absolutely. I think its, it's a really good strategy that, um, churches need to stop ignoring. And there is kind of this tendency, I think, where we think that email is, I don't know where this comes from, but just this idea yet that email's dead. We don't like email. I think maybe that's it, right? Is that email is such a less cool way to communicate. Yeah. Um, you know, we'd rather, uh, you know, social media feels much more cutting edge and Right. A better way to get messages out there. But the fact is that people have email accounts. Um, you have to look at your email, at least in our American society because, um, you know, if you have kids that are in sports, you get email messages about them. And if you have kids in school, you get email messages about it. And if you have, uh, logins to things and want to log in, you need an email. So you're looking at your email account. It's just something that, well, it may not feel cool. It is still probably the most effective way to communicate with people, uh, and people will read it. Um, not always. Yeah. But I think it's something that is really underutilized for churches.
Speaker 2 00:10:29 Yeah. Agreed.
Speaker 0 00:10:31 All right, next one. Uh, newspapers. Um, this was another one of those ones that was king back when I started in ministry in the early two thousands. Uh, back when you and I were, uh, just helping churches do church marketing in the beginning, churches often use newspapers specifically for events. I felt like churches were very likely to do that. They would, uh, for Easter Sunday or maybe a big summer event or vacation Bible school or Christmas season, they would take out an ad in the local paper and, uh, you know, get their information in there and there would be some return on that. Here's the problem. Nobody gets the paper anymore. I think that it's something that if you're targeting, uh, if you're targeting seniors, there may be a case for it still. Yeah. Uh, because, um, I dunno, I, have you ever got the paper in, was there a time in your life where you guys subscribed to a newspaper?
Speaker 2 00:11:22 Uh, as an adult? No, not as an adult. My parents mom did.
Speaker 0 00:11:25 When you a kid,
Speaker 2 00:11:26 I assume my mom did. Yes. Yes. So do you know
Speaker 0 00:11:29 If she does still?
Speaker 2 00:11:31 I don't, my goodness, I haven't asked my mother that I probably should. I I doubt it. Uh, I doubt it. Um, no, she has an iPhone, so Yeah. <laugh>. So my, she's
Speaker 0 00:11:41 On stopped a few years ago. Uh, yeah, I I think they did probably five years ago or so at this point. Yeah. Um, so it's not, it, it's something that e even that is coming to an end, because this is just
Speaker 2 00:11:51 How any, I don't see anyone in diners reading newspapers anymore either, so
Speaker 0 00:11:54 That's true. I mean, w we actually did subscribe to a newspaper early in our adulthood, I guess my wife and I, we got married young. I was, uh, I was 23 when we got married, so we were, this was in the early two thousands. And yeah, my wife always liked to read the paper and then we reduced it to Sundays only cuz it kind of felt like a fun thing to do after church is to open up some of the bigger section on Sundays. And then That's funny. Now she still has me go out on Thanksgiving and buy a paper with all the ads in it on Thanksgiving. And I don't know why it's all that stuff is online as well, but, uh, here's the bottom line is that nobody reads papers anymore. And it may feel like it makes sense to do it because it always did work. Yeah. Uh, but it is one of those things that probably needs to die. And now you're probably going to say, Hey, well, um, you know, we, we've done the newspaper and it's always worked well for us. Maybe someone out there is thinking that, uh, right. I just think back to that same thing we said about direct mail is that you'll be better off promoting your events by creating an event on Facebook and promoting that and targeting your audience specifically
Speaker 2 00:12:56 Online. Yeah. You'll see a better return.
Speaker 0 00:12:58 The cost for that will be much lower to do those kinds of things there. So, and I suppose there could be some situations in very small communities when there's a very widely read local paper where it might still make sense, but by and large, it's not a place you should, should be putting any money at this point. So time for that to die. Right.
Speaker 2 00:13:16 That's it. I agree. I I was gonna mention the last thing you said. Maybe in a smaller rural town there's still some results, but I still think even in a small rural town, just, you know, switching your investment to digital, you'll see a much better return. So. Yep. But, um, this next one I'm actually excited about. This one is a big one these days and that's, uh, don't overlook online reviews. Mm. So don't neglect. And another way to say it is digital word of mouth. Um, in today's world, I mean, it's so funny, I this resonated as, you know, I just got back from vacation. It's, uh, um, you know, we, we went to the beach and we were of course excited about seafood and we looked at reviews, online reviews for different seafood restaurants in the area. Um, and, uh, and that determined, you know, really in a big way, which, which, uh, restaurants we checked out and, and, uh, we're in that age where people are looking online reviews for that products.
Speaker 2 00:14:13 I mean, you know, on Amazon, I, you know, you're looking at reviews there on online period about any product out there and, uh, this, this, I think sometimes, uh, to a ministry leader, it could be like, well, what, how does that relate to a church? Yeah. I could see that relating to business. But I think yes, this greatly impacts, you know, your reputation as a church online. And so, you know, encouraging your members and folks to, if they had a positive experience and enjoyed it, to, to leave a review is great, um, these days because it's gonna be seen and people will look at reviews for a church. And, uh, and so that's, that's really important. As a matter of fact, all in, in our example of when we went to the beach, uh, my wife actually le left a negative review on a, uh, <laugh> a restaurants, um, uh, so you review because, uh, yeah. The food was bad and it was overpriced. And, uh, and, and immediately I will commend this restaurant, they, they responded immediately and wanted a separate email about the explanation. So at least kudos to the restaurant for being, uh, on top of the review. Yeah. But same thing applies for, for churches. Um, you know, it's, it's something we encourage for sure.
Speaker 0 00:15:29 We did a whole episode, it must have been six months ago or so, where we talked about, uh, how to handle negative reviews because you're going to get those and that's something you need to be aware of. And so, um, that restaurant did the right thing by Yeah. Uh, asking for a separate email about it cuz your, your
Speaker 2 00:15:47 First, and then they responded on to the review as well. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:15:49 That's good. But your first course of action is to not have a back and forth on the review site where someone continues to pile on. Yes. You should take it off and do whatever you can That's right. On that way. So, uh, it, we'll put a, a link over to that. Um, if you wanna take a look at some of our advice on how to handle negative, negative reviews, but here's my way of thinking about it is that, uh, we need to realize that, and I totally get it, is that it seems so weird that my church should seek reviews online. Like Yeah. Like, why I don't want people to review my church. You don't review. Like this is a, a spiritual experience and I, I don't really, you know, I I very well expect that if I'm preaching the gospel properly that some people won't like it <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:16:30 Right. It'll feel like a bad experience. Yeah. And it might sting a little bit if I say what God's calling me to say. I think the way we think about this though has to change. And if you're, maybe that's been your thinking and you've been ignoring online reviews because that just doesn't pertain to churches. Well, the fact is that people that are looking for churches, it does pertain to them. They are looking at this, and that will be one of the first things that they see when they type in churches in our area and your church pops up. Yeah. And then your reviews and the number of stars you have will be right there. And, you know, you're never gonna be perfect in this area, but, right. I think change your mindset and think about it more as an online testimony than I like that an online review.
Speaker 0 00:17:12 Think of it as the way, because every church loves testimonies and we know testimonies are powerful and we have them in our services. But yeah, this is just a way for you to get a testimony in front of more people. And when you think about it that way, and maybe even you ask people in your church to give you reviews online, but you say, Hey, can you give us a testimonial online about your experience at our church? I think that really is powerful there. So yeah. Um, make it your goal this week to get a few extra reviews out there for your church. I think you will, you will almost immediately see results and benefit from this because the more reviews you have online, the more likely Google is to show you in your local search results. Uh, so you'll immediately start to see some, some change if you get a few testimonials on there. So, uh, really big opportunity for churches.
Speaker 2 00:17:59 Yeah. I'm glad that you commented that the, the last thing you said there as far as it helps you with SEO too and to be more visible online, and that's a very good thing to reach more visitors too. So
Speaker 0 00:18:08 Yeah. That's it. All right. Last one is skipping out on social media. Um, this one it might seem like, well, who's doing this? Right. And I, I still encounter churches all the time that are, are not actually investing in this area. Yeah. There may be investing in the wrong social channels. Uh, I see that quite a bit too. Uh, kind of a spoiler. The big opportunity right now is short form vertical video, the things on TikTok and Instagram reels and all those, that's a huge opportunity. Don't bypass that. But I, I wanna emphasize one word in this here, and it's the social component of social media. I think that for a lot of churches, the, the biggest mistake that I see is that we're skipping the social interaction part and we're just using it as a promotional tool for what's happening at our church. It's just basically an advertising billboard where every time we have an event or something happening, we put up a, a notice about it and maybe it's nice and has graphics and those things, but there's nothing social about it.
Speaker 0 00:19:08 It's just a place where you put up your announcements. Yeah. And so social media works when we are social on it, when there's commentary that goes back and forth when we ask people to engage with us. And I think that's one of the things that is a big opportunity for churches, is actually encouraging more dialogue and engagement. We don't, let me just put this out here. You don't have to make everything on your social channels spiritual. Right. It doesn't necessarily have to be some deep spiritual truth that you're sharing every single time you put anything. Right. You could ask people about what their favorite flavor of ice cream is. Ice
Speaker 2 00:19:41 Cream.
Speaker 0 00:19:41 Yeah. And that is Okay. Superhero to start conversations knowing that there'll be other opportunities for you to share the gospel with people or share some of those deep spiritual truths there. Think about it like a sermon, I guess. It's like you don't have to make every, everything that comes outta your mouth in a sermon, the exact, like a gospel presentation. Right. A good sermon is gonna have other stories in there. Stories, yeah. And telling you about a time that I had this. And then when it gets people's attention and they're listening to that part of the story or the illustration just like Jesus did, then you turn it and say, it's just like that with the kingdom of God. It's the same way. Yeah. Think of social media that way, and we talk about ice cream and candy bars and, uh, which sports team is your favorite? Yeah. And then at just the right time, you pivot to talking about, and here's something else that I know about is what Jesus says about this issue, or Right. Here's what it's like in the kingdom of God. So I think that's a big way that churches skip out on social media. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:20:36 And I think what you just said too, when it's not just some deep spiritual truth and it's not just all about the gospel every post, um, it also just shows that you're relatable and real and authentic. You know, that you can talk, you know, there's nothing wrong with talking about, uh, favorite ice cream and it just get, it just makes you more creative. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so, and I think that is a, maybe a lot of churches don't utilize social media enough because they, they struggle, you know, thinking of creative ways to post and, you know, creative content to share. So it's something we love. I know personally I love consulting with churches and giving them creative ideas of things to mix up and change with their, uh, on their social media channels. So, um, yeah, it's definitely very important.
Speaker 0 00:21:24 Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. I hope that's been helpful. Um, these, these are five things. There's several other things and we have lots of other content that we've created about what you should be doing, uh, for church marketing right now. Um, and so, uh, please do take a look. If this has been helpful for you, it would mean a lot to us if you, you would hit that subscribe button, um, like, uh, if you're listening to this on audio, subscribe to the podcast as well. Uh, give us a comment. We'd love to hear what you think. Is there something that you think needs to die in the church marketing world? Yeah. Uh, let us know down in the comments below and we'd be, uh, we'd be happy. And one of the things we do on this podcast often is we'll take comments that people, uh, leave or questions you may ask and turn it into an episode. So if you have any questions for us about any of these things we talked about today, let us know about those two. And that's it for this week. We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 2 00:22:12 Yep. Absolutely.
