Not thinking about marketing, even though marketing happens.
I know that there are some that think that church marketing waters down the message or that it focuses on relying on man instead of the holy spirit but the truth is you are already marketing your church. The question isn’t if you are involved in marketing, the question is are you doing it well. Doing it well is by not being guilty of the other answer:

Promoting your church instead of generating a response.
People really don’t need to care about your church…they need to care about God. Are your promotions and marketing speaking to how great you are, how great the next even is or does it show people how and where they can experience growth? Speak to needs, not features. That’s why I say marketing is communication…while it should result in increased church attendance, it also must generate a conversation about life with God.

I’ve just picked up one of his most recent books, small is the new big. Even before page 1 Seth challenges:

“How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?”

Wow. That resonates with me in how we look at church marketing and communication. How dare we settle for clip art, generic templates, substandard design when God has made it so easy to be remarkable?

Seth continues

“I dare you to be comfortable settling for what you’ve got. You don’t have to settle for being good enough, for getting by.”

How often do we get by in how we communicate? Event is coming up, we have to send something out…do we send something that is excellent or do we just send something out to check that off the list? Don’t send something out that is less than excellent, not only is it a complete waste of time and money as it simply isn’t effective but God deserves better than that.

HOWEVER. When you are focusing on two segments of married couples, young newly marrieds and married with children…why would you make us be there at 8:00am on a Saturday morning.

Pastors, ministry leaders lend me your ear. Know your audience and cater to them. To have excellence in church marketing it is key in not only in knowing who you are speaking to, but to speak there language. This goes beyond design and copywriting and goes into execution of the programs and ministries.

Originality. Google does it differently and with excellence. They set the pace…Yahoo follows.

How about with your church marketing? Are you setting the pace or are you rehashing old concepts, copying the hottest TV show? Or is there originality in the way you communicate? As we’ll talk about you’re marketing whether you call it marketing or not. The question is how are you doing it? Be original and it will raise your value.

Commitment is essential to excellence within the church. Lack of commitment is why postcards are sent out that say nothing and have no impact. Lack of commitment is why blogs like Church Marketing Sucks exists. Not because they aren’t committed to the ministry, but because they aren’t committed to communication. Why didn’t people show up to your last great outreach, because you weren’t committed to communicating with relevance, impact and originality.

I hope that together we can change that. I look forward to the journey, and hope you’ll join me for the ride!