Marketability First

Church Relevance - Issue 4
February 2006
by Kent Shaffer

A gentleman once approached us about designing a new website. His business was quickly dwindling, and he was becoming desperate. He had a limited budget and had finally understood the importance of a well designed website. However, before we could even begin designing his site, he invested in pay-per-click advertising. He had a good product, but his website’s poor design was ruining his credibility. The advertising brought 1,200 prospects but only converted two into customers. Instead of reaping a return on his investment, he lost thousands of dollars.

His mistake is a good reminder that marketability should be our first priority. Advertising is not essential for success, but a great product, service, and user experience are a must. Often great marketability leads to word of mouth. Marketability is what brings people back. Every touch point and experience a visitor has at your church should be a positive one. It must be relevant and appealing. Successful marketability is not found in any cure-all solution. Instead, it is a conglomerate of little, positive details.

Churches want to reach new people, but they must also recognize the importance of marketability. Would you rather have more visitors each week or more visitors returning because they made a connection on their first visit? Because reaching new people is essential to church growth, it can be easy to begin to only focus on how to attract new visitors. However, if a church is lacking marketability, their visitor retention and, ultimately, their church membership will begin to dwindle. The same boom of visitors a pastor thinks will grow his church can actually spread negative word of mouth if the church has poor marketability.

An advertisement may attract a visitor to your church, but your marketability will determine if they will return. Visitors can’t afford to spend two months taste testing your church. They usually give you one chance. It is up to you to make everything count. Let’s look at the four biggest areas of your church’s marketability - people, environment, design, and ministry. As we do, ask yourself if you would attend your church.

PEOPLE

The staff members, volunteers, and members that make up your church are the most influential touch points of your ministry. People need personal connections. In fact, just one friendship can be the influence over someone attending or leaving your church. People need the intimacy of friendship and are willing to bear through boring sermons, impersonal congregations, and dilapidated facilities for the sake of friendship. That says a lot! Establishing personal connections is much more difficult for larger churches. As churches grow, people are more inclined to feel faceless or unimportant. It is difficult for visitors to establish a personal connection in a large crowd. Without a connection, church can be a lonely experience. Work hard to create and maintain personal connections with your congregation and visitors.

Regardless of your church’s size, you need to create positive interactions between people. Personable staff and volunteers are essential, but you should also cultivate a congregation and church culture that loves people. Be sure that your efforts are sincere and not mechanical. People are not always expecting five star service, but they will always appreciate it. Think about how you would want to be treated and go out of your way to treat visitors even better. Create opportunities and small groups for people to establish connections. It does not take a huge budget to create a church that creates personal connections. All it takes is time invested into training staff, volunteers, and church members to think about how they can serve and make a difference in someone else’s life. This principle of personal connections is essential to ministry. Remember Jesus changed your life through a personal connection, and He expects you to change the world through personal connections.

ENVIRONMENT

Have you ever motivated yourself to do some spring cleaning only to be shocked at the layers of dust you never noticed because of your familiarity with your surroundings? When a visitor comes to your church, they notice all of your facility’s blemishes. Rule number one is keep your church aesthetically pleasing. This means well maintained and clean, but it also means creating a great atmosphere. Your facility may seem cozy, sterile, filthy, or tacky. It depends on the environment you have created. Visitors will make assumptions about your church culture based on your environment. Be sure they make positive assumptions.

Rule number two is be practical. If you lack proper directional signage, you have instantly created a negative experience for your visitors. A lack of direction makes people feel vulnerable and insecure which will leave them with their guard up for your sermon and attempts of personal connection. If your parking lot is chaos, you must deal with angry visitors. Look for ways to make your environment more practical and user friendly. Your church’s environment will shape visitors’ perceptions of you and influence their behavior throughout their experience at your church.

DESIGN

Design will shape your visitors’ perceptions about your church, as well as, each individual ministry. Brand your church. If you don’t understand branding, learn it. Think of branding as organizing your church’s message into a consistent and clear communication of what your church is about. Branding is about communicating your core values at every touch point, especially design.

Your designs should be audience appropriate and appealing. Often visitors are only able to evaluate the ministries targeting them based on a brochure or web site. If your program for married couples looks dated or elderly, you can forget about convincing a young married couple to return to your church. Young audiences in particular expect great design. Consider your web site. Many potential visitors may visit your web site to determine if it is worth going to. People will judge a book by its cover so be sure that your design will attract people not repulse them. Design is a staple in consumer culture.

MINISTRY

Lastly, people will be influenced by your ministry. Strive to make each sermon better than the last. Strive to communicate God’s love. Be conscious of creating a ministry that appeals to the unchurched but never lose sight of preaching the gospel in its fullest. Remember that you cannot please everyone. Your worship or preaching will not appeal to everyone. It’s okay. Understand that it is important that churches within your community differentiate so that there is something for everyone. Follow these three things: always be yourself, always better yourself, and continually further the gospel. People are looking for a real connection. They want to see sincerity. They want to feel God’s Love. Be passionate about your calling.

These four areas are directly related. If you are strong in one area, it will alleviate how hard you have to work in another area to make a good impression. Imagine your success if you excelled in all four areas. Strive for that. If you do, you will grow and be blessed. Great marketability will work for you. Give people something to talk about, and they will advertise for you. Once you have created a place where visitors want to return then you can begin your efforts to draw new visitors in.

Design by Bombay Creative.

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