2009
Re:Think – Marketing the church
I’ve always been very wary on overtly marketing the church. Often it comes across crassy or cheesy or too corporate. How do you “market” something that can be messy, hard, and frustrating, yet joyous, wonderful, and significant at the same time? Can you demographically target the church and say faithful to what the Bible calls the church to be? Does your ad featuring the dad and child offend the childless couple or the single adult? Does the mention of “relevant, rockin music” offend those with more classical or traditional sensibilities? These are all things that I think through as I look towards planting a church in Ann Arbor.
I was reminded of all this again this morning when a co-worker, who is the head of our Interactive Marketing group, asked me what the name of my church is. He and I have talked about Re:Train and a little about church so it wasn’t totally out of the blue. He saw the signs for Grace Ann Arbor around Ann Arbor and they piqued his interest. He complimented the “strategy” of being intentional in our marketing.
My response was thanks for noticing and also expressed my sometimes unease with churches that too narrowly target, that take the “homogeneous unit principle” to a whole other level. After a little more discussion, Erin, with whom I share a wall, came up with a very interesting idea of marketing a church fairly specifically in particular demographic areas but having multiple “campaigns”. In this idea,
- signs targeting college students show up near campus
- signs targeting young professionals show up near apartment and condo complexes
- signs targeting young families show up in newer housing developments
- signs targeting older families show up in more established housing developments, etc
Because, in this approach, the larger message is that the church is for all people, it feels much closer to the large, broad family that the church is called to be.
Erin also made the great point that, even when your marketing targets a group, in the church you need to be intentional about the fact that all are welcome, that we desire for all to be involved, and that the church, Christ’s bride, is here for me and people like me not because we are young families, between the ages of 25 and 34 with 1 child, but because we are all sinners, saved by the free gift of God’s grace.
