The Overwhelming Challenge of Church Marketing and Communications for Normal-Sized Churches

Overwhelming. 

If I were to choose one word I hear most from pastors when talking about church marketing and communications, that would be it: overwhelming.

The choices are overwhelming. 

If you want to pick out a church management system, there are dozens upon dozens of options out there; all of which claim to be the best for your church. They don’t all do the same things and there are definitely many pros and cons to each, so how do you choose the best one for your church? It’s overwhelming.

The pressure is overwhelming. 

It seems like every christian leadership blogger, vlogger, influencer, and podcaster is heaping on the pressure that we now live in post-Christian western culture and we need to be on everything to connect with and share the gospel with anyone. If your church isn’t on the latest and trendiest social platform, then you’re missing opportunities to grow your church and add to the kingdom. This mounting pressure then brings a certain amount of guilt. I’m not on this platform and so therefore, I’m not being faithful to my call as a pastor. It’s overwhelming.

The learning curve is overwhelming.

Let’s be honest, most pastors aren’t trained in marketing and communications. You didn’t go to bible school or seminary to learn advanced communications and marketing skills. You’re not a data systems strategist, you’re not a graphic designer and odds are your church can’t afford to hire someone who is. Then every time you find the right website platform or church app that promises to make your ministry better and easier, another one pops up and you feel like you need to start all over again.

During my time as a church communications consultant, I’ve discovered a few fairly universal truths concerning the relationship between churches and marcom (marketing & communications smushed together).

Three realities that frame the problem

First, lead pastors are a lot like company CEOs and just like CEOs, pastors are the head of an organization and lead a group of people, some staff and some congregants, toward fulfilling a specific mission. The challenge is that the people the pastor leads is a group of diverse individuals who have different gifts, perspectives, expectations, and sometimes agendas. Because of this, the pastor feels an implied responsibility to meet these expectations. 

When it comes to marketing and communications, those expectations range everywhere from what the sermon art should look like all the way to how many people are visiting the website every month. So in most cases, pastors feel both a responsibility and pressure to create an engaging marcom ministry that brings new people into the church and keeps them there, which means your church’s marcom needs to be awesome.

Second, unlike companies, churches are non-profits and therefore probably do not have the budget to hire a full-time marcom director. They may be able to hire a part-time person, but if you’re hiring a part-time person, it’s unlikely that person is an experienced marcom director. they’re more likely to be entry level or they juggle these responsibilities alongside a slew of other unrelated responsibilities.

Third, because demand for quality marcom from the congregation and leadership far outweighs the capacity of the lead pastor (who isn’t trained for it) and the part-time marcom director (who doesn’t have the necessary time or skills for it), the congregation is left feeling frustrated and the pastor and the staff are feeling overwhelmed.

I understand that every church and leader is different and there are exceptions to everything I just said, but generally speaking this is the conversation (and sometimes therapy session) I find myself having with church leaders over, and over, and over again.

There is no silver bullet

The solution to this problem is that there is no solution to this problem. Perhaps I should say, there’s no simple solution to this problem. 

Church communications and marketing is not simple. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something, literally. These days there is no end to the for-profit and ministry-based organizations who claim that their product, their consulting, or their systems are going to make everything simple. 

I have bad news, communications and marketing aren't simple. There is no silver bullet. There is no single platform that will solve all of your marketing problems and allow you to reach everyone in your city. It doesn’t exist. Sure, there are many helpful resources that can make things easier for you. But communications and marketing is a part of something we call systems, and systems by nature involve multiple factors working together in an elaborate dance in order to execute a challenging goal. It’s not simple, but it is important.

So let’s just take a minute and admit to ourselves that for most of us, doing church marcom is going to be challenging, time consuming, and will likely require considerable resources to do well. 

Let’s also admit that you can’t do everything, at least you can’t do everything well. If you lead a normal-sized church, then you will have to pick and choose where to place your time and resources, period.

Now for the good news

You can do this. Despite everything I just said, I believe every church can create and maintain effective church marcoms. The first step is to be honest with yourself and realize that you can’t do what the big churches do, nor do you want to. 

One obvious advantage to being a big church is they have more resources and with them the ability to hire a fantastic marcom team who are killing it each and every week. But people don’t go to your church because they are looking for a big church experience. They’re at your church because they’re looking for something else. So find comfort in the fact that you're a part of a normal-sized church and that your road to creating great church marcom can happen, it’s just going to happen one step at a time. 

How you can begin

I’ve been a church communications and marketing consultant for seven-years and in that time I’ve had the joy and honor of serving many normal-sized churches and some pretty incredible pastors. My business has partnered with women and men who care deeply about their congregations and also desire to see their congregations grow, but not at the expense of losing touch with who they are.

For example, they may want a new logo but they don’t want to look like they’re just trying to be like the big church next door. They want a better website but they also want first-time visitors to get an authentic idea of what Sunday morning is like (hint: there’s no smoke machine). They want an app that helps their congregation engage in the life of the church but they can’t spend countless hours creating it and keeping it up to date.

Over the years I’ve developed a short-term consulting partnership, tailor-made for normal-sized churches that want better church marcoms but need some help identifying what’s wrong and how to fix it. It’s called the church communications assessment. I know, super original name.

During a church communications assessment, I get to know everything about the church’s marketing and communications ministry by learning about the following areas: their team, strategy, branding, platforms, content creation, and implementation. By doing so, the church leaders learn about what it takes to build effective communications and keep them running smoothly every day.

Interested in learning more about a church communications assessment? I’d love to chat with you about it. Tap/click below to learn more or reach out through the links on the assessment page.