Church Marketing Segmentation
Earlier this year I wrote a post titled Should a Church Have a Target Market? One key concept in marketing is to identify a target market, to segment it (define it and break it down), position your organization to focus in that direction, and then to evaluate how well you are reaching that target (over time). Though this seems very procedural, I do believe that a church can benefit from the focus of market segmentation and of targeting. This is especially true for smaller churches.
A Church Plant Market Segmentation Case-Study
My wife and I were part of a church planting team (or launch team) four years ago. Our team was small so we had limited human and financial resources. Our team decided right out of the gate that we would not create programs just for the sake of having them. This forced us to segment the demographics in our community and focus our efforts on a specific target market and create two specific ministries to reach them. Our segment was to target young families. Our target demographic was married couples between 25-40 years of age with children under 10 years of age. The two “programs” that we targeted all our resources towards were the Sunday morning children’s ministry and the concurrent adults “connection” service. We encouraged families to bring their children and while the kids were in their program, the adults would stay for our connection service – a contemporary church service designed for people who were not going to church.
Focused Church Marketing
All our church marketing concentrated on this demographic. Our web site visually represented them (young families). Our post cards and mailers represented, appealed, and spoke to them. We did seminars on parenting and on marriage to help them. We did a family fun day (a carnival) to help families play together and at the same time so we could connect with families in our community. For the most part, everything was very focused in this direction. We wanted a youth ministry for teens but didn’t have the people resources. So when people came looking for a ministry for their 13-18 year olds we recommended other churches in the community that had good programs for their kids. We kept focused…we had to!
It’s Hard to Be Everything to Everybody
For smaller churches, it is hard to have a meaningful program, outreach, or ministry for every demographic. We couldn’t be everything to everybody. Most North American churches have this similar situation. I would encourage you to define who you really are. Look at your community and the segments that live there. Target in on the demographic that most represents your community (both within and outside your church walls) and refocus there. The danger of not doing this is that you spread yourself so thin that you don’t do anything with excellence…and in the end, you don’t serve any demographic well. You also risk burning people out because your human resources are spread so thin!
If every small church did this more strategically, they would be more successful and then churches in the same community would seem less like they were competing with each other because they would be focusing their resources on demographics that likely complimented each other more. The benefit of this comes through in your church advertising as well. That way you target to your specific demographic and you don’t try to be all things to all people in the way you communicate. The clarity that results is more effective and you will have greater impact.
What are your thoughts? Have you seen churches that do market segmentation well or poorly?
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