Promote Your Church

Have you been looking for better ways to spread your vision? Have you tried everything you know but it just doesn't seem like enough? Do you still have people tell you they didn't know something even though you have tried your hardest to spread the word? Well, we can help!

We have put together a comprehensive list so you can make sure you are doing everything possible. Make sure you download the FREE checklist above to track your progress and complete your promotion audit.

The Apostle Paul told everyone he could about what God had done in his life. You should too! But how do you do that effectively? Well it all starts by determining your brand.

Determine Your Brand

Whether you realize it or not, your church is a brand. And like all brands, it is much more than just a name, logo, and color palette; it is the way in which you are perceived. It is an expression of culture and mission. So what is your brand? How do you express your culture? That's what we will be discussing in this post.

The first step is not designing a logo or coming up with a slogan. Actually it is answering some basic questions. Who are you? What do you represent? Who are you appealing to and what emotions do you want to evoke? Once you know the answers to these questions you can begin to build your brand. A good designer knows how to use colors, images, and words to get your message and vision across to your target audience. After all, your goal as a church is to make sure you are getting your message across consistently with everything you do. So let's start with the basics.

Step 1 – The Basics

Property

When is the last time you walked your property? How does it look? Is it inviting? This is ground zero. What people see on the outside, they will believe is on the inside. Do "4 corners and 4 walls". Walk the corners of your lot and check everything. Is the yard mowed and edged? Are there weeds in the cracks? How well are handicap spaces marked? What about staff parking? Is the trash on the ground? Then walk the walls of your building. Is the paint clean or could it use a refreshing? Do all the lights work? Are the signs fresh and current? Are the entrances marked? Are the glass doors and windows clean? This should be done weekly as a lot can happen in a week.

Go the extra mile. Reserve a few spaces for expectant mothers and mothers of new borns, as well as first time visitors, (and even a fun "It's my birthday!" spot if you want to raise morale) and mark them with easy to see weather proof aluminum signs. Don’t think “clean” is good enough. And don’t be afraid to have church work days. People love to feel like they are a part of something. The bigger, the better (just don’t wear out the few that want to do everything!)

You may already know that people respond to images over text. This is why a logo is so important. It allows you to reach people quickly at a glance and sets you apart from others.

Logo

Your logo should be a reflection of your brand. Sure it's easy to get a logo from one of the many free logo makers out there, but to effectively represent your brand you need a logo that has been designed to represent you accurately. If you are a small country church you don't want a logo designed for a large inner city church and vice versa.

One of the most common mistakes is designing a logo for you, instead of those whom you seek to reach. This is why knowing your audience is so important. Who are you trying to reach? If you answered “everyone” then you don’t know really know your calling. You church is a local place. The goal is to reach those around you, not those 600 miles away. Are you a country church in rural Featherville, Idaho or a modern church in Pensacola, Florida? Each has their own target audience. Make sure you know who your audience actually is. If you have any questions or need help, we have designers on staff that would love to help you.

Color Palette

Have you ever heard of the Golden Arches? What came to mind when you read that? McDonalds, of course! But why? Because they have done an excellent job of branding. The particular shades of yellow and red are very memorable and you may have even had the smell of fries fill your nostrils. Colors affect the way we perceive things. The colors you choose should represent you well. This can be a bit tricky for the untrained. Take the color red, for example; one shade of red can cause you to feel energized, another angry, and yet another remorseful. Understanding the role color plays in psychology and careful consideration is key.

Branding Style Guide

Once you have a logo and a color palette, using them consistently is very important. This is where a style guide comes in. A style guide outlines exactly how the logo and color palette are to be used in all forms of graphic media. It makes sure everything you do screams your brand, from the way your logo is displayed, to how the color palette is applied to the typeface and fonts used. A style guide keeps everything consistent, so what someone sees in one place is the same thing they see everywhere, even if created by different people in different places. This helps to make you more memorable. After all, what you want is to leave a lasting impression that will change their life.

Step 2 – The Basics

So now let's talk about what I call the basics. These are things every church needs to make things easy on people.

Signs

The first things you need are church signs. A sign lets people know where to come. This is your guidepost. A sign marks not only your location, but your brand promise, what you offer, and your online-offline connection. This is a silent representative of your church that never sleeps and is always working (kind of like a pastor!)

The second type of sign is a way finding sign. These signs tell you where to drive, where to park, where to enter, where to walk, etc. There is nothing more frustrating than being somewhere new and not knowing where to go. It is easy to be comfortable with your surroundings and forget just how easy it is for someone new to not know where to go on your property. Are your bathrooms marked? What about the nursery? Sure it’s just around the corner but do they know that?

The third type is a temporary sign. These are things like banners and window graphics. These let people know about your ministries, your upcoming events, and current themes.

Business Cards

You need business cards to pass out. Why? These business cards provide a portable way to market your church and get your key contact information into others possession all in a matter of seconds. These can also be a great way to open conversations and to invite others to church.

Letterhead and Stationery

Custom letterhead gives you the professionalism you need in official situations. For example, some banks only accept letters from your governing body if they are presented on official letterhead. It is used to conduct official business with government, businesses, and other establishments. Custom letterhead and stationary give you the established look your church needs to come across as a legitimate organization.

Step 3 – The IT Basics

Now, we go on to the basics for your internet presence. Here are a few things to get you started online.

Google My Business

The last time you wanted to know more about a place, what did you do? That's right, you did a web search. Google has a neat little tool to help you with this called Google My Business. From here you can claim ownership of your business information. This includes everything from your address, to phone number, hours, and even photos. This information is often missing or even worse, wrong. Google uses this information across all of its platforms such as search, maps, images and more. Google your business or address, and make sure you claim your business so you can edit these. Google wants things to be accurate and will help you any way they can.

Social Media

Next let's head to the world’s most popular social media site, Facebook. Everybody you know is on Facebook, and for good reason. With over 2.5 Billion (yes, with a "B") users and no cost, this is the easiest way to reach a large target audience. But let's talk about some common Facebook mistakes.

The first is making a page that is the wrong type of page. Sure you may be able to make another personal page easily because you already set yours up, but this will cost you. First you miss out on analytics. Business pages come with the ability to track when users were most active, who liked your content, and what content got the most interaction. This can be extremely useful in determining when and what to post to achieve your desired outcome.

Second, if you are a business page, you can set up groups that you control under that page. Groups are a great way to build community and encourage people to support your church. It allows people to interact even without a building and in these times we all know how important that is. I strongly encourage you to set up both a business page and a group in your page.

While on the subject of social media, I feel this is a good time to mention the social media treadmill. The advantages of using Facebook have been pointed out above but what about the disadvantages? Facebook (and other social media) is not indexed by social media. This means that your content is not searchable by search engines. Also, Facebook works on algorithms that monitor what you are interested in and only display what they feel is relevant. This means people may never even see the post even if they follow you. That combined with the fact that social media only displays content in a feed for a short period, means to stay visible you must keep producing content in high volumes on a regular basis. This is what I call the social media treadmill. Due to this, I suggest picking the two platforms your people use the most and focusing on only those two. After all it does no good to be busy if you aren’t being productive. Also, I suggest you delegate this to someone whose only job is social media. (See why a style guide is so important?)

Step 4 – Internal

Now we can work on things for your church. Let's take a walk through a first time visit. Visitors found your church (thanks to your correct information on Google maps and your sign out front) and have just walked in. Now what?

Name Badges

Name badges are a great way to introduce your deacons, greeters, ushers, or any other staff. These can be customized with your logo and come in many forms.

Visitor Cards

Once the visitors are greeted, you will want a way to get their information in order to follow up with them later. Here is where custom visitor cards come in to play. This allows you to get the information you want directly and easily from them. (Tip: Give them a church pen and let them keep it!)

Branded Swag

But what about those in your church who are faithful and want to show their love? You want a way for them to display their pride in their church. After all, the best promotion you can get is people who love your church and believe in your calling. Give them what they need to brag about their church! People who love something will even pay you to promote it! What? Don’t believe me? Ever bought a band T-shirt or a car decal? Why? Because you liked what they did so much you wanted to be a part of it. That's part of your church culture. Car decals, license plates, T-shirts, jackets, hats, patches, and buttons, anything that promotes what you do can be given away or even sold! This is a great way to promote your church! This goes for your different groups too! Youth, Seniors, Men or Women’s ministry participants will all love having their own gear!

Step 5 – Outreach

We know we are not called to stay in our four walls, so how do we get the word out? The best way always has been and always will be word of mouth. But what if you don't know them? What if you want to leave a reminder?

Invitation Cards

This is where invitation cards come in handy. With all the information neatly placed on a little card, you can use it to easily give to someone or leave in their absence. What if you knock on a door and no one answers? Just pop a card in the mailbox, right? WRONG! It is illegal to place anything in a mailbox. Your church can be fined up to $10,000 per mailbox. So now what? Find a place to cram the invitation card and hope they see it? No, you can use a door hanger! Not only do they have to see it because it is on the door handle they have to grab to get inside, but with a water resistant coating, they will last no matter the weather!

Magnets

Want to make a lasting impression? Use a magnet! Because of their usefulness, holding papers to the fridge, filing cabinets, etc., magnets are seldom thrown away, unlike cards, 80% of which are thrown away the same day they are received. Magnets on average are seen 8 times a day at home or 12 times a day at work. This means your message will be seen around 3,000 times per year!

Every Door Direct Mail

Flyers, newsletters, and custom envelopes combined with a mailing list, or our EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) program are a great way to get your message out to everyone who lives in your target area. This can be done without ever leaving your building.

Inreach

Or you can have an inreach! Sometimes the best way to reach someone is to have them come to you! Cookouts, carnivals, community block parties, etc. are a great way to reach out to people who otherwise wouldn’t step foot in your doors. With Custom banners, flags, backdrops and even event tents, you can get your message out where ever you set up!

Step 6 – Advanced

Got all of that down? Here are some more things you can do.

Visitor Packages

Want to show your love to people? I’m reminded of the adage “He who wants friends must first show himself friendly.” Obviously there is no replacement for the way you treat people but giving away items such visitor bags with branded pens, stationary, coffee cups and even candy (I mean, who doesn't like free stuff and chocolate and mints?) will go a long way to engrain you into a visitors mind. (This is NOT a replacement for a friendly word and a smile but rather adds to it!)

Special Events

Holding a special event? You should! People love to come together with a purpose! Especially annual events and things to help people! Get the word out with event banners, flags, and window graphics and give out free swag (branded) t-shirts, hats, decals, pens, etc. Use a custom printed tent to provide shade and get your name out (Pictures on your Facebook and Google page are great here) and provide a place to take pictures in front of a custom branded backdrop.

Step 7 – Advanced IT

This part can get overwhelming quickly. I suggest you decide on what you want to do, figure out what you are capable of doing yourself and anything that falls outside of your abilities, find someone who knows how to do it and use them. So we set up Facebook earlier and it may be easy to say, "Let’s use this for live streaming!"

Live Streaming

That's not a bad idea but let’s make it better. Facebook makes live streaming easy using a phone; combining a camera, microphone, viewfinder, software, networking, and broadcast platform all in one place (for FREE!). But it has some drawbacks. First of all, your stream is not indexed by search engines. This means someone looking for something you posted may never find it if searching in a web browser. This is what makes YouTube or any other platform such as sermon.net so appealing. All of their content is indexed making it easy to find in a web search. Also, as with YouTube, you can actually create revenue once you reach a certain number of subscribers.

Website

Let’s talk about a website. Websites are like a place online for your church. Websites can be built and hosted for minimal costs but this requires both a knowledgeable webmaster and a good host. There are several misconceptions about websites.

First, since a website is simply an extension of your physical building onto the internet, we have to remember your site is for your people first and foremost. Sure the whole world can see it, they can see your church too, but just like your physical building, they have to show up first. The ones looking for your site are going to be your people and those that have enough interest to seek you out. This means your site will mainly be used by your people, NOT the rest of the world. Just because you put up a site doesn't mean people will flock to it. In reality, with the billions of websites that exist, without proper setup like SEO, Open Graph Tags, Schema Tags, and properly coded content, you may never show up in search results.

Second, good websites cost. Every website requires hosting, purchasing a domain, someone to build it, multiple versions to display correctly on different browsers and platforms, and content creation. And a great website requires testing, tracking, indexing, Search Engine Optimization, alt tagging for people who browse with impaired abilities, UI and UX optimization, etc. Sure, you can build a website yourself on a site builder that allows you to update content yourself, but this comes with a downside. Most no-code site builders don't respond well to both mobile and desktop applications and may only work correctly with one browser type. All of this comes at a cost. Some churches with a small following are content (and money) ahead sticking with Facebook and the free services they offer.

But some churches are ready to step their game up. They understand the advantages a professional website brings and are willing and able to pay for it. If your church is one of those, here are some tips for you.

SEO

SEO! Search engine optimization. If you don't know what this is, I suggest doing some research as it is too complex to cover in depth here. Without being optimized for search engines, your site may never show up on search results. Doing it improperly may actually get you banned from search engines.

Blog

Host a blog on your site. This gives you credibility. After all you have something to say, put it here and reach those who may have missed the last service. This is a great place for devotionals, your latest sermon and notes, or just general thoughts and encouragements. It also provides you with much needed back links for that all important SEO!

Links

Post links to your social media. This lets people leave reviews without hunting for you on social media. Links to other websites like resources and common references allow your site to rank higher in credibility. Links are also a great way to drive traffic. By linking to sources that you have in common, other sites are more likely to link back to you.

Podcast

Podcasts offer a great way to connect through out the week and lift up and encourage. You can use them for deep studies for those who want more, or just offer something light hearted that is honest, pure, lovely and of good report! No matter who you use to host your podcasts, you should add a connection to your website. Streaming your podcast to your website only makes sense. Use your site as a hub for all things pertaining to your church!

New Content

Keep it fresh. People like new content. Keep your site updated. Use lots of pictures! People love people. A picture is worth a thousand words. Most search engines index your site at least monthly so make sure you update your content at least as often. (Tip: you can control the frequency Google crawls your site with Google Analytics and A proper Robots.txt file) Also make sure you have an accurate sitemap for both your site visitors and Google.

Online Giving

Set up online giving. When you set up a place to donate, not only is it easier for your people to give (even if they miss service) but anyone who finds your page can give to your ministry. Many churches actually report an increase in giving after they set up online giving. This is probably due to the ease of giving. But beware that like any processing house, you may have to pay a fee for this service and this varies wildly from company to company so do yourself a favor and shop around.

Skyscraper Content

Build skyscraper content. This is a way to make sure you set the bar. Find a topic you are interested in writing about and search out what is already out there. Then, make your post with 3 times more content, and 3 times better! This ensures your site is the authority on a subject. This builds trust and also lets people use your site as reference, driving more traffic to your site.

Promo Videos

Do promo videos! A simple video can go a long way! These can be used on your social media, website, and even ads. These can be as simple or as complex as you would like. People like images over text and video over images.

Mobile App

Build a custom mobile app for your church. This lets you add things like online pay, push notifications, a secure upload and chat area for members, and more.

Step 8 – Advertisements

What about advertising? Sure you can make ads for social media, Google ads, and even radio. But you can also advertise in ways that keep paying for themselves.

Vehicles

If you have a church van, this is a perfect opportunity for a rolling billboard. Not only does it get seen, but it is seen where you are already at! At Marked Print, we have solutions from removable magnets to vinyl decals to full vehicle wraps, which allow you to advertise everywhere you go.

Yard Signs

You can use yard signs to advertise anywhere you are allowed to post them. Use them on church property, the side of the highway, or your member’s yards. These are a great way to get the word out or show support for your church!

Mass Invitations

If you have a special event and want to do mass mailings our EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) is a great way to get the word out to an entire community and has proven extremely effective. This is a great option for things like dinners, singings, plays, community gatherings or any other event your community may be interested in that your church sponsors. You can even focus mail route by things like average household age, number of youth, or income level. This is a great way to target your specific audience whether it is a neigborhood, youth, or whoever you seek to reach.

Billboards

Billboards are a great way to get your message to the world. These are best used for identity campaigns, and special events at your church. A well timed and properly placed ad could do wonders for reaching people. Thanks to new digital boards, your options have really expanded from traditional print boards. With the ability to update quickly as needed and the cheaper costs of producing designs, billboards have become a very cost effective way to reach the masses.

I would highly suggest using them to announce online services, your location, and special events such as Christmas plays, Easter services, special singings, dinners and more. One of the most successful ad campaigns consisted simply of billboards with the name "Jesus". That led to a surge of internet searches from people wanting to know more. If you want to reach more people than you ever have, I suggest checking out your options for billboards as their cost per reach is much lower than you would think!

You Can Do It! We Can Help!

As you see, there is so much you can do to promote your church. If there is anything you need help with on this list or you just want a professional to do it for you, give us a shout and we'll be glad to help you out! Make sure to download your FREE church promotion checklist at the top of this page so you can promote your church!