Church Marketing for Outreach – Internet Marketing Impact

August 20, 2009 · Filed Under Marketing and Advertising, SEO, Web Development

I will unabashedly state that I am a fan of church marketing, especially Internet marketing for churches and religious organizations. Why? Because I believe it is where you can make meaningful initial contact with people who could benefit from what the church has to offer.

Marketing the church can help to bring people to faith in Christ.

Religious organizations have historically lagged far behind in advertising tactics embraced successfully by business. I ought to know, as I pastored 4 churches over a period of 15 ½ years, and our methods to reach out into the community were antiquated at best. Many times the “church” didn’t have a strong desire to even reach out beyond the building walls.

Being an effective Internet marketing consultant with a large portfolio of successful clients has served to fuel my passion for this type of marketing as a way to expose people to the mission and programs of the church. The right question might be, “Why not?” instead of why.

The church has been leveraging media for a couple of centuries now. On of the most significant uses was the printing press in order to “mass produce” the Bible. We have worked diligently to take advantage of radio and television as a form of media. The time to leverage Internet marketing is here and available right now! Will we be wise to figure out how it can be used to assist us in fulfilling the Great Commission and building the Kingdom of God?

People are looking for “everything under the sun” in search engines like Google and Bing. Believe it or not, whether directly or indirectly, they are also looking for the meaning of life. If you don’t believe me, do a search on a simple phrase like “spiritual truth.”

It is my hope and prayer that staff and volunteers both will recognize that these tools can assist them in fulfilling not only their mission, but also His mission.

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3 Responses to “Church Marketing for Outreach – Internet Marketing Impact”

relationship health on August 20th, 2009 11:03 pm

Nice posting. Thanks for this valuable information. I will encourage more this kind of work.
John Panico on September 3rd, 2009 11:35 pm

You mentioned that “Many times the “church” didn’t have a strong desire to even reach out beyond the building walls”. This is an outdated objective if the goal would be to get more to follow the ideals of the church. The very same reason there exists such a thing as church marketing.
Michael on September 4th, 2009 8:05 am

John – I agree. That was my observation some twenty-years ago. Much has changed in that time period, and for that I am grateful. Like you, I am trying to persuade as many as possible to tap into the possibilities that Internet marketing affords. The reference was to a form of dysfunction that I ran into at times in congregations while I was a pastor.