The Best Digital Marketing Services for Your Church
Social technology isn’t going anywhere and that’s why adopting digital channels is paramount to your church’s growth and success. While many leaders struggle to find the place for digital within their church marketing, congregants are quick to adopt digital mediums. They’re also likely already looking for your church on platforms you’ve yet to explore.
A complete digital strategy for a church can have a lasting impact on the connections you build with your congregants and the sustainability of your church as a whole. Recent time also shows that having a digital connection with your congregants can provide a means of contacting and connecting with them when you otherwise couldn’t.
Why Is Digital Church Marketing Worthwhile?
Many churches realized the power of digital connections for the first time last year when the pandemic closed down churches and led to sparse physical gatherings. For churches with no digital presence at the time, the shutdown was downright scary. They found themselves asking: How do we reach our community? How does our community reach and support us?
Of course, if your church is still realizing the benefits of digital, that lesson just helps to put things into better perspective. There may never be another shutdown like that again, but having a digital presence allows your church to keep the lines of communication open when crises happen at the individual level.
Something your church may not have previously considered is: How do your congregants stay connected when they travel? How about if they were to suffer an illness, disability, or otherwise be unable to physically come to church? A strong, lively digital presence bridges the gap between your church and your community.
The fact is, digital is extremely valuable for churches, but you can’t simply start throwing resources at online platforms and wait to see what sticks. Getting your church online requires a strategy that’s going to require the understanding and incorporation of many digital marketing methods.
The 4 Best Digital Marketing Services for Your Church
Your church may find it tough to think of anything you do in the sense of “marketing” or other business terms. However, if you remove the profit-driven motives traditional businesses associate with marketing, you’ll be able to realize its power.
While you’re at it, instead of stretching your volunteers and leaders too thin as they try to wrap their heads around all the different platforms, consider investing in the right digital marketing tools and services. Here’s a look at five that will prove well worth it.
1. Website & Giving Portal
If your church’s physical location is the home base for worship, your church’s website is its online home base. This is the ultimate reference people will use when they want to learn more about who you are, what you’re up to, and how they can get involved. Investing in a clean and modern church website that represents your church’s culture is the foundation for great digital marketing.
Meanwhile, your website should also enable digital giving, which is the gateway to financial sustainability for your church. With the right giving software, like DonorWerx, you can make giving to your mission easier than ever before.
2. Live Services
Many free and subscription live streaming services have popped up in recent years, and they’re only growing more popular — especially amongst churches. If someone can’t attend in person, that doesn’t mean they should be deprived of weekly worship service. By live streaming your services on Facebook, on your website, or elsewhere, you can get the word out to your community and open the doors to a world of new followers.
Live streaming services range from free, like those built into YouTube and other platforms, to paid tools. You might choose to find a tool that can put the live stream right on your website or one that offers live chat and other interactive features.
3. Social Media
Most everyone is active on social media, but is your church? Many people spend hours browsing social media channels every day and they have no goal in mind other than to connect with the people and topics that they love. As a pillar in the community, your church should certainly be active on these channels.
You can share all sorts of content, from videos to photos to funding requests, and more. Great social media profiles will encourage new people to come visit your church in person and learn more about your culture and mission. Consider social media to be one of the most powerful digital marketing platforms out there.
4. Text Communications
Texting is convenient and has rapidly become our go-to way to communicate with one another. Brands adopted text communications long ago, often sending coupons and deal alerts to subscribers’ numbers to encourage shopping. As a church, you can also use SMS marketing by engaging your congregants with important announcements and invitations.
SMS can be used for outreach and you can set up “drip campaigns” where you schedule a text each week. You shouldn’t overdo it, but the right approach can lead to more donations, volunteers, and more engaged followers overall. Never overlook this powerful tool in digital church marketing.
Use Digital in Your Church Marketing to Spread Your Mission
Are you having a tough time adopting the concept of marketing for your church? You’re not alone. Many church leaders struggle with this conversation of marketing the mission. The terminology often makes it tough, because you don’t want to think of your church as a business or see your congregants as customers. The fact is, your church needs to move past the mindset that marketing is limited to businesses or profit motives.
Once your ministry sees church marketing as an opportunity to spread the good news and faith-driven lifestyles, you’ll start to see digital platforms in a whole new light. By adopting these platforms and using them to the best of your ability, your church will be able to make a major, lasting impact on your community at large. You’ll engage your current congregants for the “other 167 hours” when they aren’t attending services and you’ll even be able to attract new followers.
Here at DonorWerx, we coach church leaders every day in the process of adopting digital marketing and mediums. Interested in learning more? Reach out to our team.
