Church Marketing Plan by Bryan Foster

The Church Marketing Plan is absolutely essential for a successful church in this digital age!

For this to occur you first need a good appreciation of:

• what a plan is
• what strategy options there are
• how to develop and implement strategies
• how to evaluate and learn from your experiences and expenses. 

It is necessary to have guidelines to show:

• what you need to know and what is available
• why it is suggested you do something - whether it is building essential relationships, using the traditional and contemporary media, or using various other marketing resources
• how to do all this, often takes the stress and anxiety out of developing a successful marketing plan.

Sample Church Marketing Plan

Each Church Marketing Plan should be based on 7 Key Strategies:

1. Define what you have to offer
2. Define your target group
3. Budget
4. Personnel and Talents
5. Develop Marketing Aims and Objectives
6. Marketing Strategies
7. Evaluation

Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), 2010 - Unique Resource

The over 329 A4 pages are easily downloaded from this site. The 80+ pages on Internet Applications for those marketing the church, along with over 60 internet screenshots + over 130 weblinks, help make this not only easily readable but also a pleasure to view in colour, enjoyable and motivating.

The 10+ 'Contents' pages are detailed down to the smallest subsection of each section within each chapter. There are nearly 5 pages of 'Index' words in 9 point font. See above for downloads of each of these.

Topics cover the essential areas from both the contemporary and traditional forms of marketing as these apply to churches and parishes. From the time honoured 'word of mouth' through to the internet and the vast array of its offerings, all add up to lessening the angst and the challenge which is church marketing in the digital age.

A successful instruction manual will include step-by-step instructions throughout. It will explain in detail the what, why and most importantly the how. It will be divided into simple to read, simple to follow and simple to implement strategies.

The e-book contains no waffling here. Get straight down to what you will need to know straight away from an author with considerable experience marketing within the Church.

This e-book is a further development of the first edition Church Parish Marketing: Easy to Use Guide to Market the Church Parish Deanery (2009) by Bryan Foster.

This manual is based on 20 years of marketing within the Church by the author Bryan Foster. This experience includes senior school and church roles, such as: school principal and marketing manager, deanery and parish pastoral council chair and parents and friends association chair. Further details may be found at the CPM website.

The 'Church Marketing Plan' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed) and School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed) 2011, with copyright being retained by SMAPL.

Responding to a Difficult Media Question During an Interview

The difficult, challenging question posed by an interviewer will often occur at a media interview - it needs to be responded to during the interview or shortly afterwards.

The last resort is the, "No comment," response. If time is needed to gain an accurate response, then advise the interviewer that you will find the answer and get back in as reasonable time as possible.

In the church setting this can be quite a challenge, particularly when church personnel are not experienced to receive such requests or skilled with the necessary response techniques. There is also the inherent fear of damaging the school's hard earned reputation if the response is incorrect or not given in a credible way.

Below is a suggested response for the church marketing personnel. This includes:

• Being prepared for the interview and anticipating negative questions
• Interview techniques to assist.

Be Prepared - A Response Method

• Anticipate the sort of negative questions which might arise and prepare good responses.
• Have your key 3-4 positive points you would like to make.

It may also be necessary to make arrangements with the interviewee prior to the interview, and before the journalist arrives, that the Church Marketing Manager would interject respectfully if the interviewee was getting particularly stressed or confused during the interview. This is particularly necessary if the person being interviewed is a child / student. There is always a duty of care to assist the child firstly and respond to the interviewer only secondly.

Key techniques during the interview when asked a difficult question requiring a response are usually:

1. Acknowledge the weakness (apologize if needed)

2. Agree that plans are afoot to improve the situation

3. Continually revert back to the 3-4 key positive points you want to make

It is often best to do this in a light-hearted manner and preferably in a fun way.

The Serious or Controversial Issue - Interview

Dealing with a serious or controversial issue involves having staff well trained with important interview techniques. These techniques are usually coordinated by the church's authorities who have qualified staff to train urch personnel.

The techniques above would often form the basis for such difficult interviews. These interviews often result from alleged controversial or illegal incidents, involving staff or parishioners.

These days the difficult media question is a stock question of the journalist's profession. There is nothing better for a church's reputation when these questions are responded to well and those being informed through the interview see a professional approach being shown and implemented. Be informed, prepared and skilled with the various interview techniques.

The 'Responding to a Difficult Media Question During an Interview' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed) 2010, with copyright being retained by SMAPL.

Marketing e-Books by Bryan Foster now on Amazon.com and Soon as Google Editions

The marketing e-books by Bryan Foster have been uploaded to Amazon.com and when Google Editions is activated this year will be uploaded there also.

There is the option to download in virtually any format for whatever device you want to read the e-books on... whether PC, Mac, ipad, ipod, Blackberry etc,. All you need is the free reading app supplied by Amazon.com applicable to your device. You also have the option to use an Amazon Kindle reading device when purchasing e-books.

"Your purchase will be sent automatically to your iPhone, PC, Mac, iPad, or BlackBerry device." (Amazon.com)

These marketing e-books may be applied across numerous marketing situations in so many fields. The key areas for marketing the Church and schools are, however, the target niche for these books.

Amazon.com Bryan Foster is where you will find Bryan's 5 marketing e-books.

The author has 20 years experience marketing within the Church. He has held senior positions in both Church and schools at the local area, including deanery and parish pastoral council chair and school principal. This experience has proved to be extremely valuable for compiling these easy to read and use e-books written in summarized point format.

Bryan's latest e-books published this year and available on Amazon are:

• Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed)
• School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed)
• School and Church Marketing Blog Posts: My First 100+

These e-books are also available on both of Bryan Foster's websites:  CPM Church Parish Marketing and SMA School Marketing .

Both these websites also have a raft of complimentary strategies and examples. There are over 150 blog posts and numerous Hints and Tips on everything from general marketing principles to specific church and school strategies and examples, along with general 'life' themed blog posts.

The Church Manual in normal pdf format is 329 A4 pages, while the School Manual in pdf format has 369 A4 pages.

The 'Marketing e-Books by Bryan Foster now on Amazon.com and Soon as Google Editions' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, with copyright remaining with SMAPL.

Websites Needed for Successful Church Marketing Plan

Websites - The church / parish website and website management software are needed for a successful church marketing plan. It is often where parish information is initially found.

The website is often one of the first places that potential families and parishioners get an overall feel and basic appreciation of the potential for their involvement in parish life.


Creating a Website - Background

Investigation in this area is critical.

The church will need expertise to create and then continually update a good website.

The initial construction of the website may come from staff, IT skilled parishioners, school IT staff or from outside consultants.

The continual updating would best be done within the parish. In-servicing staff for making these updates would be money well spent.

An option, I have found very beneficial, follows.


Management Software

Another option is to have the website embedded in to management software which allows for management of the site. This takes the site beyond the static and into the realm of continual fluid development – Web 2.0.

The expense of this option is not considerable and with negotiation within the field a reasonable monthly cost would be expected. I would suggest speaking with trusted others in deciding on the businesses offering this support. (See ‘Website Management Software Sample’ in 'Internet Applications...' chapter for a specific example.)

This software allows for various detailed reports of website usage. It could include:

• the whereabouts in the world of visitors to your site
• number of webpages they visited
• the content viewed from webpages and applications they visited
• where they entered and exited the website
• who is exploring your site, through IP (Internet Protocol) addresses
• the browsers they used to link to your website
• any commercial activities you may have as part of your website, etc.

This allows for the non-IT expert to update the website regularly, from uploading photos, literature items, to adding webpages, blogs, galleries of photos and videos, etc.

There are numerous other capacities depending on the management software.

More detail showing the necessity of Websites for Churches and Website Management Software to a successful church marketing plan may be found in the e-book: Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed) 2010 by Bryan Foster.

Church Parish Marketing e-Handbook

The Church Parish Marketing e-Handbook: Easy to Use Guide to Market Your Church Parish Deanery by Bryan Foster was written, published and added to its website this year:

http://www.churchparishmarketing.com/

It is a most informative easy-to-read and easy-to-use 200 A4 sized pages guide to assist with marketing your church, parish or deanery.

It is also easily downloaded at the church marketing website.

The interactive website allows for professional church marketing blogging, along with various Hints and Tips etc.

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