Last week we asked about the usefulness of church web sites. The results didn’t change much from earlier in the week when we had matching responses on either extreme: 12% say they use their church web site every day and 12% ask “What church web site?”
35% say their church’s web site is as current as a 1980 hymnal. Ouch. On the plus side, 40% of churches seem to be doing their job, offering visitors what they need. It leaves the question of whether or not church web sites are providing what people want.
This week we’re asking a slightly different question, broaching the topic of Church Marketing Sucks swag: Would you buy a Church Marketing Sucks T-shirt? With 33 votes in we’ve got 24% saying absolutely, 24% giving an outright no, and 48% sitting in the middle with maybe, depending on the design and price.
Cameron
October 10, 2005
Well, the results of this poll are hardly indicative of churches in america. People reading this blog are probably most likely the people who care about their church’s marketing, and therefore put additional effort into improving the usefulness of website if/when given the opportunity. Overall, though, the results are at least somewhat promising.
Joe
October 10, 2005
Why should the congregation visit the church website? Ours is set up to be purely visitor-focused. I make a firm practice of keeping internally focused material off the site, as much as I can.
Corey
December 31, 2011
Well that sucks. I mean anyone should know that the idea of church member interaction on a central church site is totally beneficial. Our company is developing a complete CMS / Social Network / Media Rich church website platform through which church members can connect in their own internal social network as well as offering the capability for church staff to create and manage their own content and media without having to know HTML or CSS coding. There are also a host of other benefits a platform like this could provide. Events, Calendars, virtual online classes and training, social groups for ministry, prayer, uploading audio sermons and videos, organizing and scheduling, e-comerce, project management, missions… and the list goes on.
Pretty useful to me. :)
kevin
October 11, 2005
Hey Joe, why shouldn’t a congregation visit the church web site? Isn’t that a great way to communicate all sorts of info? I think it’s good to have a very visitor-centric mindset and not put all the elders meeting times on the homepage, but your congregation should still be able to find the info they need on the site.
patrick
October 11, 2005
i would tend to agree with kevin. i know that when i need information on just about anything that the first place i go is to the web. this includes when i need information on what’s going on at my church.
Ron Gehrke II
October 12, 2005
I think a church website should be just like the website for any business. You should put all the information on it that it can handle.
If the website doesn’t answer a question, then the person asking is going to have to call for an answer. That’s an inefficient use of their time and the staff person’s time. Why take time to answer the same question 50 times if you can train your congregation to look for those answers on the website.
The more difficult we make the information to find, the faster people will give up looking for it.
I’m not arguing that personal contact is unimportant and that efficiency is more important; rather, if we can systemize and simplify the menial, it will give us more time to build relationships and perhaps even accomplish the tasks that tend to get neglected because we are so busy with our routine.