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The Problem Most Church Leaders Face in 2023.
The biggest problem in any church always comes down to one simple thing.
“How do I generate more attendance and donations without overspending?”
In short, how do we market to new people and engaged members and get a good return on investment with our marketing?
In 2023, church leaders and boards are grappling with unique challenges—declining church membership and a rising number of Americans expressing no religious preference–making it more and more difficult to get new attendees through the door and donations, without overspending.
The rising costs of church marketing means it's critically important that our time and money are invested in the efforts, strategies, and tactics that actually produce results.
Today, we'll be covering the following:
Part 1: The 4 reasons it's gotten harder for local churches to increase donations in 2023.
Part 2: The 3 core things your church has to do in order to be attractive to new potential customers.
Part 3: The 5 Step Process we use to create an online engagement and communication engine to grow our churches.
Part 4: How to implement this strategy in your church starting this week.
Let's dive in...
Part 1:
The 4 reasons it's gotten harder for church leaders to grow in 2023.
Like it or not, it's more difficult now to fill pews and collect donations than it used to be. There are a lot of reasons for that but we can organize all of those reasons into the following 4 categories.
The 4 Reasons it's gotten harder to get new customers in the last 5 years.
1. Declining Church Membership (and Budgets)
You've probably noticed it happening in your church and others in the local area over the last few years. Churches across the nation have been witnessing a decline in their membership—a trend that has left many church leaders puzzled.
Additionally, a significant and growing percentage of Americans now identify as having no religious preference according to Gallop. These changes in religious demographics pose a challenge for churches seeking to connect with potential attendees and maintain a vibrant congregation.
As lifestyles shift, the importance of religious affiliation is diminishing for some individuals. Moreover, as younger generations seek spirituality and connection in different ways, traditional church attendance is often overlooked. This calls for innovative approaches to engage these potential attendees where they’re at.
But for many churches, financial resources are limited, and spending large sums on advertising and marketing campaigns is not always feasible. Thus, it becomes crucial to identify cost-effective strategies that yield significant results in attracting new attendees and encouraging donations.
2. Intense Competition for Attention and Decreased Visibility in the Local Marketplace
In the digital age, our potential attendees are inundated with information and stimuli from various sources. Social media platforms, streaming services, and online communities constantly vie for their attention. As a result, standing out in this crowded digital landscape requires strategic and creative marketing efforts.
And far too many times, we see churches get comfortable with their place in the market or they just stop marketing to new attendees or their congregation (due to frustration, lack of time and resources, or just not knowing what to focus on). While this can work for a short period of time for more established churches, that eventually leads to all kinds of problems like unpredictable attendance and donations.
It's incredibly important that we have a marketing plan to constantly expose new potential members to our church so that we can benefit from a steady attendance for sermons and community events.
3. Lack of focus on Engagement, Response, and Follow Up (and having time to juggle it all)
One of the biggest church killers is failing to educate your marketplace about how you’re different. The general public often doesn't understand the difference between you and your competing churches so it's important that we do things to help our church stand out (more on that in the next section).
It's important to always share your faith, motivation, and stories from the congregation in order to exhibit that you're an active and thriving community. And it's also important to encourage Google and Facebook reviews. By combining an increased posting frequency and a steady flow of reviews, you’ll signal to the Big Tech systems that your church stands out and should be shown more when locals search online for your services, hours, location, content, etc.
And when people reach out, smart churches are text-enabling their website for the modern age – so they are convenient to reach, fast to respond – and are able to follow up with SMS reminders and broadcast notifications as the church needs. This works because people are distracted by busy lives and overwhelming email inbox and Facebook news feeds.
These are easily the most effective ways to establish your church as a leader in the marketplace.
4. Not Utilizing the Internet as a Primary Marketing Channel
The cheapest and most effective way to reach your audience is through the internet. And now that 92% of consumers start their search for local service providers and churches on Google, it's important to be visible online when people are looking for you.
Even your word-of-mouth referrals are going to research your church online first to see what you’re like, what you’re up to, and if they want to be a part of your community. You may lose that referral if they don't like what they find online (or can't find you, or find another church that looks more interesting as an alternative).
A mobile-friendly, secure church website combined with social media channels are the best places to reach your potential customer base and educate them about why your church is the best choice…and it helps maximize involvement from your existing and loyal constituents as well.
With all of those things working against us, how do we combat them and become more attractive to the potential church goers in our Local Market?
Part 2:
The three core things your church has to do in order to be attractive to new potential attendees looking for community.
As a local church leader, board member, or pastor, we recognize that fostering meaningful connections within our communities requires a multi-faceted approach.
The 3 core things that churches must focus on to increase attendance, membership, volunteerism, and donations:
1. Increase Your Church Visibility Online and on Mobile Devices
One of the most important things that we can do right now is to make sure that our church is a part of the "conversation" in places where our potential and current attendees are already hanging out.
We have to seek out the places where those folks already exist normally and make our church a part of that (more on how we do that in the next section).
An active and consistent social media presence, as well as a steady stream of 5-star reviews, will signal more visibility for your church in the long run, while also enhancing your appeal.
2. Educate All Of Those New "Eyeballs"
Once we are in front of all of those new people, we need to make sure that we have engaging content in front of them that will exhibit our devotion and community to help them wrap their heads around the spirituality they seek.
We need to educate our market, delivering them "information in advance" and helping them explore ways to get involved and contribute.
They can’t act on what they don’t know about. Your church has to put its needs and activities out there. This causes people to bond with our church before they ever reach out or step in the door. This creates a desire to be a part of what you're doing over other similar churches nearby.
3. Enable Secure Modern Technology for Online Donations and Mobile Communications
In this fast-paced digital era, accommodating the modern lifestyle and preferences of our congregation is essential. Enabling online donations offers a convenient and secure option for our members to give generously, even when they cannot physically attend our services. This not only streamlines the donation process but also ensures a steady flow of financial support for church activities and initiatives.
And in addition to embracing secure online donations, effective communication is also crucial for fostering meaningful connections with our congregation. By enabling two-way texting on our website and church communications, we open up a direct and instant line of communication with our congregation. Potential attendees can inquire about events, service timings, and community initiatives with ease, fostering a sense of accessibility and approachability. Responding promptly to text inquiries demonstrates our commitment to excellent customer service and increases the likelihood of securing new members for our church community.
That all sounds good in theory, but how do we actually increase our visibility, educate all of those "new eyeballs" on the value behind what we do everyday in our church, and embrace secure, and modern technology to increase attendance and donations (without overspending)?
Part 3:
The 5 Step Process we use to grow our church by igniting online engagement and communication.
To be successful we have to make sure that we are getting in front of our audience more easily and more often. We also have to make sure that we're doing it in a way that isn't going to cost us an arm and a leg. We've had a ton of success doing that by following the formula that we explain below.
To ignite church growth and engagement while establishing a robust online presence, we embrace a comprehensive five-step strategy. Each step plays a pivotal role in attracting new attendees and fostering lasting connections with our congregation.
Let's dive into the strategic process:
The 5 Step Process that we use to Attract Attendees and Collect Donations using modern technology.
Step 1. We create an active social media presence so your church looks alive and thriving (and your various profiles never goes dark again).
Our journey towards church growth begins with an active and thriving social media presence. By leveraging social media platforms, we create a virtual community that is both inspirational and engaging.
Through a thoughtful blend of biblical teachings, motivational quotes, and updates on community events, we captivate the attention and interest of potential (and current) attendees.
This is a sample of the actual church social posts used across Facebook, Instagram, and Google Business Profiles for example.
More important now than ever is looking alive and thriving -- and open for worship -- so that people don’t wonder if there is anything going on. If your pinned post or last post is too old -- they're going to wonder if you’re community is still active. The worst thing you can do is start a profile and not stay active. That’s because people know that your website is a static representation of the church – they go to social channels to see what’s happening now.
But it's not just about impressions, likes, and engagement...because Facebook rewards pages with more visibility if they post frequently and consistently. That means our local church will show up more in the newsfeed and have a higher "social search" ranking if we're posting more content. All social networks are like this.
To get that kind of activity going, you need to turn on an engagement engine of content that is formulated with the perfect recipe mix of:
Niche: knowledge, facts, history, education, articles, and tips
Church: events, projects, testimonials, behind the scenes
Recreational & Inspirational: scripture, motivation, questions, celebrations
The most successful content recipes focus on combining content about the church mission and members with the filler recreational and inspiration content.
The fun content people actually like to like -- it's the secret to increasing your posting frequency and consistency. We have this if you need it but it's easy to create yourself with online image editors now that you have the recipe.
So now that we have an active and thriving online community, let’s talk about a few interesting uses of modern technology that you can use to grow your church.
Step 2. We create a sermon feedback survey process to help collect reviews, ideas, and donations.
This is the online survey that we use to collect ideas and feedback after every sermon. In a minute, you’ll see how we turn this into additional visibility online -- and on your church website — and donations. But first let’s cover the survey itself, before going into all the good things this will do for our church when we make it part of our routine process.
So, we will be using this customer survey to collect new feedback.
First, we get to ask questions like:
What did you get out of today's sermon?
What excited you about joining us today?
What ideas do you have to make great use of our donations?
Do you have a prayer request we should broadcast?
What are your thoughts for future events or improvements?
Well, it’s the page that shows up after they submit their feedback. We can route the person to another page of your choice, or our built-in ‘thank you’ page can ask them to do two things:
1) Share a review on Google or Facebook to help grow awareness for the church
2) Contribute a donation using a secure payment link
What’s great about adding a review-collection component as part of your survey process is that Google and Facebook love review signals. A steady stream of these public-facing reviews every month and you’ll be building good visibility signals that will put your church on “the map”.
This feedback, once you have it, is also incredibly interesting to people that are already engaged members or in the early stages of considering joining your service. So how are we going to use this to grow the church?
Step 3. We turn feedback, reviews, and donations into online content to further drive awareness and engagement in our community.
First, we showcase positive feedback and reviews on our church website so the fresh content is always showing up first. This is "social proof" that your church service and people are wonderful!
This works to make a great first impression, which is especially important when you have less than 8 seconds to keep distracted, busy people…interested.
We acheive this by displaying 5-star review images on the website through a pop-up feature that appears on every page.
This is an example of how the pop up shows up in the lower left corner of our website.
It’s always live streaming the latest feedback and reviews from your congregation…and just imagine the encouragement these words will give church leadership, staff, and newcomers.
This is visually appealing and it actually provides many subtle benefits:
It’s not static and stale. You want fresh content that's always new.
It’s always seen. You want dynamic, eye-catching movement.
It’s not a separate page. You want instant attraction – on every web page.
It’s not buried. You don’t want people to miss it, scroll, or search.
It has subtle credibility boosters like review verification, directory icons.
It inspires action. When people click to read, we can customize the call to action button.
What's great is that church leaders get to choose what the call to action button says, and where it goes. Many local businesses and churches configure it to have a mobile "click-to-call" button -- but we could also say "make a donation" or "Share feedback".
Because curious visitors generally click to read more of the entire message, this call to action is generally seen.
Next, our reviews can be turned into visually appealing images that we can share on social media platforms to reach a wider audience. Using this content on social media channels (in a visually appealing way, not just as text) will help the church achieve its growth goals through additional exposure.
You could also customize post designs based on member-generated feedback. For example, you could show gratitude for donations in general or individually. You could even have a drawing, contest, or poll to make it fun. You can even build a “wall of love” page where there’s one page to read everything submitted.
Modern technology allows us to share your latest feedback and reviews as images...on autopilot. This saves a ton of time for anyone managing communications for the church and increases speed to sharing. You can always design alternative posts later in a more custom fashion.
(TIP: Re-using content in new formats and styles is another great strategy to boost your church social posting frequency -- no one sees 100% of your posts -- it's perfectly acceptable to recycle and re-share)
These are examples of review posts that build social visibility online. Every new positive review on Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc -- can be used to feed additional content to your social engagement engine from Step 1.
Are you seeing how we’re igniting engagement across the online space that works day and night to drive awareness for your church? But it's not just about the website and social media...it’s about staying top of mind beyond that, everywhere your audience goes online, and in their pocket.
To recap, here's what we're doing with the feedback we collect online with technology throughout the year:
Live steam the latest reviews to the church website (a great way to engage online visitors)
Optimize a Google Business Profile (every new reviews increases search and maps visibility )
Create images for social posting (every new post increases social search visiblity)
Create an online banner ad set (step 5 explains who see these ads and where they appear )
Step 4. We text-enable our church website for convenient conversations and prompt responses...and broadcast messages that are seen by more people.
First, we add a communication widget to our church website, allowing people to contact us in the way that works best for them - which is often via text.
When we unlock the potential of two-way texting, it allows us to establish direct and instant communication with our congregation.
Through two-way texting, we can address inquiries promptly, offer assistance, and nurture a sense of accessibility and approachability. This personalized approach fosters a stronger connection with our members, making them feel valued and engaged within our church community.
But that's not all. The first to the lead response generally wins, so that’s why we also create and automation to respond to every missed call with a text reply, even if we're driving.
Furthermore, by embracing the power of mobile technology, we can also enable neat automations that will save staff time answering common questions and scheduling recurring broadcast reminders by both text and email.
We also enable traditional methods of contact, such as email and phone, ensuring that customers can reach out however they prefer. And we track it all which allows us as church leaders to monitor the activities that lead to future growth. This data helps set goals, learn how to improve the church, and we can stay on track with growth plans by monitoring month over month and year over year trends.
But that's not all. Speed to response generally wins in business – and in church too. That's why we also create an automated response to every missed call that sends a text reply that someone will be in touch soon.
Speedy response times demonstrate a commitment to excellence, while also increasing the chances of securing new attendees. What a great way to make a fast and friendly first impression.
Overall, the website instant connect widget is designed to turn visitors into conversations that lead to attendance, and then the automations are designed to enable real-time interactions and prompt responses to inquiries (while saving the church staff tons of time).
So, now that we have a strong foundation in place for growing attendance and donations, how might we scale our marketing strategies from here, when we're ready?
Step 5. We build a two-pronged audience from the start, so in the future, you'll have the option to continue to stay top of mind with them, everywhere.
We’ve covered a lot of pieces in your online attraction-engine and many of our strategies for boosting your church’s visibility online...but now we need to extend our reach to every website, mobile app, and phone.
There are two things we do on day one to set a church up to scale (if they want to).
First, with every text communication from your website, we're building your cell phone subscriber list that you can use any time you need to reach people in the future.
This creates new opportunities for engagement with future broadcast messages, like: inspirational messages, event reminders and cancelations, spiritual reflections, and donation requests.
Adding this communication capability to your church helps nurture personal connections and encourages regular attendance.
Second, the review widget has built-in technology that allows us to collect your website visitors into an audience that you can re-market to in the future. These are people in your local area that know you, or might like to know you better, so staying in front of them will benefit the church.
By building this audience, it means that when you’re ready to enable monthly advertising, we can provide the creative and paid media to stay top of mind.
This is an example of where the ads would show up and what they might look like. If you think about your own online shopping habits, you've seen ads like this after leaving the store and go about your browsing business.
By advertising your church's brand on all the top national and local news, sports, and entertainment websites, you drive awareness in the local market.
Plus, it's arguably the most affordable form of paid advertising (especially compared to Google Ads where you'll pay a lot per click). This "Amazon-style" of advertising amplifies everything else you're already doing ... bringing people back to stay committed to your church.
We don’t start these ads until our churches ask. The audience starts out small and grows over time.
What we do is think ahead, to give you the power to turn on the additional cost of an "Amazon-like" paid media campaign -- and because we have very little overhead, we're positive we can execute at a fraction of the cost.
This should give you peace of mind that you are building something that you can scale into with time, and start small with your foundational marketing in place first.
This is how we’re generating new attendees and increasing donations with our churches that follow these 5 steps and run campaigns in their local markets.
Why is this Strategy so Effective?
It’s simple.
By implementing this system, our local churches can stay ahead of the curve and take their engagement and communications into the modern age.
The step-by-step approach also engages and optimizes every aspect of your online presence for maximum impact.
From harnessing the power of digital marketing and feedback, to responding quickly to people, and staying top of mind through paid advertising and social media, our proven process has been honed through years of experience.
And what's so neat is you can increase results just by making these improvements -- and that means you could generate more results from the people you’re already reaching.
Part 4:
How to implement this complete marketing system to ignite your church's growth and overcome the challenges of declining membership by fostering engagement and collecting digital donations.
The key to making big changes in your church marketing is to take action.
1. You can implement all of the above information yourself. I didn’t hold back any pieces of the puzzle and you can source the services and solutions from your network.
2. You can send this action plan to the marketing agency that your church already works with or find one that focuses on churches. Generally those firms have the overhead to offer a beautiful high-end, custom service for you.
3. You can reach out to me, (the author, and founder behind OnlineKix) and we can talk about implementing this system (or parts of it) in your church now -- sign up here.
My step-by-step strategy ensures that every aspect of your church's online presence is optimized for success, from your website and social media profiles, to your communications and outreach, and to your reviews and ongoing advertising.
With my help, your church can ignite online engagement and modern communications to improve attendance and collect donations.
My mission is to put advanced marketing strategies within reach for local churches (without high-advertising costs…made possible with the power of modern technology).
I'm also always here to answer any questions that you might have about this article (for free of course, if you're a church leader).
You can email me here.
I hope you enjoyed the walkthrough.
Send me your success stories after you put it to use! I can't wait to hear about your results.
THE AUTHOR: LAUREN
Marketing Consultant & "Joyful Growth Seeker"
Lauren, a marketing consultant and growth strategist, helps churches and local service businesses, achieve their marketing goals through OnlineKix solutions. Rooted in moral principles and a seeker of joy, she has developed an eye for effective strategies that drive results. When she's not shaping marketing solutions, she nurtures her own ventures and cherishes moments with her family. Let's work together to achieve joyful growth and success for you in your community!