Church Marketing Sucks

Easter has come and gone. Some of you are still wiped out from your 17 services this weekend. Others are feeling renewed from a great time of peace and relaxation. But nearly all of you are facing the same issue at your church: Now what? How do you convince people to show up again next Sunday?

In an unexpected landslide, 67% of you think the best way to get people visiting your church again is just to say, “Hi!” on Easter Sunday. A little congeniality goes a long way for return visitors in your congregation.

After that, it’s a virtual tie for the next most popular way to retain Easter visitors. 8% of you went with a cliffhanger sermon so they’ll be begging for more. And 5% of you are planning some rockstar worship that is guaranteed to pry their sleepy bodies from their warm beds.

In a surprisingly poor showing, sex sermons only grabbed 4% of the vote. I’ve seen the open rate on sex series e-mails and the page views on our posts covering sex series, so I have nothing but kudos for those of you turning down easy return visits for a different road.

3% of you are just trying to keep people from dancing too crazy in the aisles or getting all up in visitors’ faces with their prayer languages. You don’t want to scare them off. And another 2% went with the bribery route. Free stuff for coming to church!

Then, of course, there are the 11% of you who were thinking outside of the poll. Here is a smattering of other ideas, straight from the “Other” box:

• Pray for them
• Be truly glad to see them
• Build relationships
• Baptism services next weekend

This week’s poll is simple. Would you prefer an unlimited marketing budget in 2010 or a staff who was willing and on board for a $0 marketing budget?