The Center For Church Communication just published a report on church marketing.  You can download the 8 page document here.

I found the report very surprising.  Yet  it challenged me in our efforts to get our arms around a real marketing plan for The Church At Polaris.

Here are some of their findings:

76% of churches are not documenting or tracking the results of their marketing.

88% of churches rely on staff or volunteers to handle their marketing.

80% of churches spend less than $10,000 a year on marketing and promotion. ( Sidebar - a healthy marketing budget is 3 to 5% of the annual income.  That means a church with an annual budget of $300,000 should be spending about $10,000 a year on marketing.  A church with an annual budget of $300,000 typically has 250 - 400 people in it.)

83% of churches said their website was probably the most important piece of marketing that they do.  Yet 44% of church websites are handled by volunteers.  Another 46% by staff.  Only 5% of churches hire an outside company to handle their site.

The final results:  Churches are actually doing more marketing than expected, though they don’t seem to be follow a plan.

“Churches have the greatest story ever told, but no one’s listening.  We think there’s a communication problem.  That remarkable story is lost thanks in part to poor research, little or no planning, bad clip art, cheesy photos and ignorable ads.

We believe there is a better way.  It’s not simply flashy designs or catchy slogans, but effective and authentic communication.  If we can’t communicate, how can we fulfill the great commission?”

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 10th, 2005 at 11:11 am and is filed under Marketing & Design, The Church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.