2009: A Missional Marketing Decision

Last week, we talked about why we stopped a lot of outside marketing at Connexus in 2008 and asked some questions about when marketing might be helpful.

Yesterday we had one of our final 2009 budget meetings.  We had $5000 budgeted to market a parenting series we're doing in February of 2009. The problem is, you can't reach many homes with $5000 when your ministry area has 200,000 unchurched people in it.

So here's what we decided: we'll try to do more for less. We cut the marketing budget by several thousand dollars and decided to focus all of our marketing on putting invitations for friends into the hands of people who already attend Connexus. What we mean is things like cards and invitations our attenders can share with friends and family, or even gift cards for meals out for people who come for the first time. That's less money, but we hope it's more impact.

Here's our thinking:

• $1000 designed to produce resources regular attenders can use to share with their friends might produce greater results than $10,000 or $20,000 randomly distributed in neighbourhoods.
• It will help us stick to our belief that growth happens best when people invest in relationship with friends who don't go to church and invite them to come with them.
• Viral growth is always the best kind of growth. Buzz generated by people who love something is always compelling.  That's how the early church grew.
• People who come in on the invitiation of a friend have a friend to guide them through their spiritual journey.

So in 2009, no external advertising.  Just a few well made resources in the hands of attenders who can share it with friends.

Would love your thoughts, reactions and ideas.

Comments

[Casey Ross]

The right decision!

People are so much more likely to come to Connexus when they are invited by someone they know and trust. The problem is, most people who attend church are not used to inviting their friends to church. It does not come natural to them. If you can give your attenders more confidence when it comes to inviting their friends, you will help them develop the habit. If you can make it easier for them to invite their friends (by doing things other than creating irresistible environments), they will be more likely to think about it and actually do it.

I love the way you're thinking! I'm praying you'll see an obvious increase in the number of attenders who invite their friends. Can't wait to see what God does!

[Kevin M.]

I think this is a GREAT idea! I think you will definitely get more BANG for your buck this way. It also makes it easier for people to invite their friends when they have a quality invite to give out.

[dan scott]

Great use (stewardship to use a churchy-word) of resources. Not to mention less waste, as the majority of marking pieces end up in the trash. This really is focusing on what the church is all about - building/bridging relationships. Word of mouth really is the way to go... I am all about the BUZZ factor!

[Carey Nieuwhof (Connexus Community Church)]

Thanks for the encouraging words Casey, Kevin and Dan. I think the solution might also deal with the temptation I face as a leader to believe the answer to a problem or opportunity lies outside our doors rather than within our doors.

[Doris Schuster]

The invitation cards are a great idea. I was hoping that some type of "invitation tool" would be made available to us to help us invite our friends and neighbours to Connexus. I had great success using the "Dysfunctional Christmas" info card last year. I also used a few of the "door hangers" as personal invitations and they were very much appreciated. Personal word-of-mouth invitations, along with something in the hand to give to the person you are inviting, are very effective. It'll be great to have these "Connexus Invitations" to use soon.

[Nick Blevins]

Great idea. I'd love to hear how it works out. I'm still wondering what the best solution is for brand new church plants though. Simply because, if you only have 10 people on your team, you can't invite enough people to provide the critical mass needed to create the irresistible environment Casey mentioned.

Once a church is established, even if it was just 100 people, that seems like the best way to go. Creating a habit like Casey mentioned is a challenge and I do think that other advertising methods tend to lead attenders to believe they don't need to invite. Although, we've always found the new visitors/attenders are the ones who invite the most. Probably because they have the most unchurched friends.

[Chris from Canada]

Awesome - I love it. We'll be getting invite cards for Christmas Eve to our people starting next Sunday.

Question - if you were going to spend the $5,000 the "usual way" what would that be? Newspaper ads? Doorhangers? Postcards?

What does $5,000 of good church marketing look like in Central Ontario if you're not doing the cards/invitations thing?

[Nick Blevins]

I thought this was an interesting post about church planting & marketing in relation to this discussion:

http://plantingspace.com/2008/11/24/319/