Church Marketing Sucks

There has been a lot of discussion about how to pitch change to a pastor or church leadership who is unwilling. This can be especially difficult in a small church (50-300 congregants). Churches don’t take on new things because of lack of money, limited volunteers and staff, and sometimes a lack of understanding of what benefits the change could bring.

Here are a few tips for how you can successfully implement change in small churches:

Write Out a Pitch
This way the leadership can take their time to consider it. It also does two things:

1. It shows that you are serious about what you are proposing. Leadership of churches can get a lot of “I wants” from the congregation with a lot less follow through. Show them that you are actually invested.
2. You can add more information about why the changes you want to happen should happen and show examples.

Don’t Show Them Expensive Examples
Small churches have little to no budget, and each ministry is often underfunded. Showing them something they can never afford is discouraging. They won’t see the “what-if”—they’ll see “what we can never do.”

Start Small
Instead of trying to change a small black and white bulletin into a colorful glossy booklet, start small. Start by re-doing the bulletin but keeping it in black and white. As the reluctant leadership starts seeing your idea take form and seeing how positively people react, they will start seeing the big picture.

Remember It’s Personal
It can be frustrating convincing people a change is needed. In established small churches, the leadership may be people who came up with the current logo or brand 25 years ago. Acting like it is bad or isn’t good enough can hurt some feelings. Instead of talking about what the old way didn’t do, try to keep the focus on what the new changes will do.