Church Marketing Budgets

By David Tonen • September 10th, 2009

When it comes to marketing, most churches I know do not budget any money for this purpose in their yearly budgets.  This thinking has to change at the leadership level.  Until churches begin to allocate some funds – and it doesn’t have to be an exorbanent amount, churches will always be behind in integrating and utilizing tools that can help them communicate internally and externally with greater excellence.

Show me a business (big or small) that does not allocate some funds for marketing?  And, those that don’t they cease to grow, move forward, and over time they usually go out of business!  Now, extrapolate that to “the church”.  Could there be a correlation between zero allocation of funds to marketing and the closure of many churches?

I think so.

Now, I realize that a church is not a business.  However, it is an organization that must have and does have business functions.  It must (in my opinion) have some marketing.  Web sites, e-mails, fliers, posters, invitations, cards, whatever – but at some level there has to be an expenditure on communication and promotion.  Without it the organization stagnates…and risks everything that Jesus commanded it to do.

What do you think?

Comments(3) Canada, Church Marketing, Marketing, Ministry
  • http://somethingisawtoday.wordpress.com jr. forasteros

    My thought:

    This is a uniquely market-capitalist view of the Church (not a value judgment, just a statement). But the Church survived (and often thrived) for hundreds of years before market capitalism existed as an ideology/culture/whatever.

    So in your view, is ‘marketing’ the Church 1. shorthand for something else that’s going on even outside of market-capitalist cultures? or 2. an unavoidable necessary (evil?) for doing Church in a market-capitalist culture?

    If it’s the latter, maybe we can be more creative. Or maybe we just need to redeem the market place?

    my $.02. Your thoughts?

  • http://navigateyourmarketing.com/ David

    Thanks for your thought jr.

    I don’t know if it is “uniquely” market-capitalist…but I absolutely do agree with you that “the church” has thrived for thousands of years without what today I might refer to as marketing. Marketing in its simplest definition is “telling your story”. I think that churches and Christians have the best story on the planet to tell. And using creative ways of telling that story and sharing the message of Jesus have helped the church thrive over the decades.

    I think that today our world is changing at a pace more rapid than any other time in history. We have technology today that is so integrated into our society that it drastically has changed the way we communicate. Hence, the church needs to embrace these communication and “story-telling” tools and learn to use them effectively so that we can continue to help the church thrive.

    To be clear though, the church does not rise or fall on marketing. Marketing and its tools are simply just that – tools. The church rises on Jesus. If we are passionate about telling his story we should use every tool at our disposal to share his message of love, hope, peace, and life-change.

    Does that help? I hope so. Let me know what you think.

  • http://somethingisawtoday.wordpress.com jr. forasteros

    Is marking really just ‘telling your story’? I’ll cede to you as the marketing expert (at least compared to me – I have no training in marketing), but it seems to me as though – at least in the business world – ‘marketing’ is about generating interest and ultimately profit by telling our stories.

    If this is the case, I would argue that you are – by redefining marketing for use by the Church – redeeming the language of the marketplace. I wonder if we can do this (redemption of language) even more intentionally?

    I am behind you 110% in that we should use every tool we have to tell Jesus’ story – and our stories that are shaped by his story.

    Thanks for your thoughts.

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