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England church attendance has dropped considerably over the past ten years. This shows that less people across the country are interested in praying in church and attending services. As a church in your local area, you want to encourage people to attend your religious activities. You can spend days handing out flyers and posting posters everywhere, but that is not going to help you achieve the results you want to achieve.
Church digital marketing is now the way to go. This is online marketing that refers to a host of internet-based marketing techniques, helping you reach your audience through a variety of online channels, including organic search results, social media platforms and email marketing.
We have developed this page to provide you with valuable information and advice on church digital marketing, where to start and how to succeed.
The Importance of Digital Marketing for Churches
If you think about it, your church is a business. This means you need to be visible on the internet so that people can find you and come to your church. You should have an easy to use website with high quality graphics and quality content.
A good church digital marketing campaign will provide your community with a better understanding of your church, impacting new members and encouraging them to join your congregation.
Core Elements of Church Digital Marketing
Church digital marketing doesn't embrace only one technique. It involves a number of different techniques that work together to help you encourage new members to join your church.
Social Media Management
Sixty one percent of the world's population uses social media. The top social media platforms include:
- Facebook with 2.9 billion active users each month
- YouTube has 2.2 billion monthly active users
- Instagram comes in third with 2 billion active monthly users
- TikTok has grown to 1 billion monthly active users
Social media management is an important part of any successful church digital marketing campaign that focuses on content ideas and engagement strategies.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to reach your existing church members, keeping them updated on the latest news happening at the church, along with event information. A newsletter is an excellent way to share information and keep your members engaged. Newsletters should be sent out at least once a week to once a month. Consistency is key to ensure your members read the newsletter and stay updated with your church. Studies suggest sending a newsletter during the week with subscribers more likely to open the email when it arrives at mid-afternoon on a week day.
Live Streaming
Live streaming has grown in popularity and is a great way to continue sharing the word with members that are not attending church services. Maybe some of your members are unwell, have undergone surgery or they are elderly and prefer to worship in their own homes. Live streaming is a great way to share your church services in real time, so they can join in the service and benefit.
Live steaming offers numerous benefits for your church, including:
- Increasing accessibility to members that cannot attend your church service
- Reaching a global member base
- Increase engagement, enabling members to participate in real time through social media or a live chat feature
- Build familiarity and trust as you connect with people that are exploring their faith and may feel uncomfortable to attend your service in person
- Being relevant. Younger generations expect to be able to watch a live stream rather than attend a church service. When you broadcast this on the internet, you reach a younger audience.
Online Community Engagement
As a church, it is very important that you are involved in your community. Your community wants to be able to engage with you without having to attend the church. This can be done through online forums, where they can share on the forum and get answers and discuss topics with other members of the church. Creating local groups is another excellent option, along with online events, such as services, messages and motivational stories.
Developing a Church Digital Marketing Plan
In order to develop a church digital marketing plan, there are a number of steps you will want to take to ensure it offers the best results.
1. Create a functional, relevant and visually appealing website
2. Build your email marketing list by encouraging members to sign up for a newsletter
3. Sign up for your free social media pages on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and more and keep them updated
4. Update your website with the relevant information with links to your social media pages, encouraging members to sign up for your monthly or weekly newsletter and sharing links to your online forums and local groups
5. Monitor your digital marketing plan to ensure that your strategy is working. Make adjustments where needed.
Tools and Resources
There are a number of excellent tools and resources you can use to track and monitor your digital marketing efforts. These tools help you track the progress of your marketing and identify any weakness, while driving more traffic to your church website.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a popular digital marketing tool that provides you with valuable insights into your marketing efforts and website traffic. It helps you track your goals and understand your members behaviour. It provides you with data on how people find and use your website.
Metrics Watch
Metrics Watch is the perfect choice for the creation of digital marketing resorts. It is so easy to set up and takes data from a wide number of marketing channels, including Google, Facebook, Mailchimp and more. This enables you to create customised and comprehensive marketing reports. It offers a simple drag and drop builder, automatically sends you daily, weekly or monthly reports without PDF attachments and comes with a fourteen day free trial.
Church digital marketing has become essential to the success of your church in today's digital world. More people rely on the internet to find, engage with and gain insight into different churches in their area. By embracing digital marketing, you are able to ensure your church's message is heard, helping you share the faith with more members and encourage new members to join your congregation.
Take advantage of our free quote and schedule a consultation with one of our church digital marketing experts here at Genie Crawl.
FAQs about Church Digital Marketing
These are the most common church digital marketing questions we receive at Genie Crawl on a regular basis.
How Much Does Church Digital Marketing Cost?
At Genie Crawl, we do not tie you into a long term and expensive contract. We provide you with the church digital marketing services you need at a competitive price. The cost of digital marketing is determined by the requirements of your particular project. We can provide you with a free, no obligation quote, enabling you to see what this service will cost.
How Do I Know Which Social Media Platforms I Should Focus On?
There are a few things you need to take into consideration when choosing the best social media platforms to reach your members. The first is demographics. Different platforms have different users. It is very important that your social media marketing is aligned to your members. It is also important to take note where other churches are active and what platforms they are seeing results. This can give you a good idea on the best platforms to work with.
You do need to take into consideration how much time you can allocate to your social media management. As a religious leader, you are probably already very busy, so you are not going to have the time to manage every single social media platform. Prioritise those that you feel will provide you with the best results.
What is the Best Way to Develop and Implement My Church Digital Marketing Campaign?
It is important that you focus on certain steps throughout the development and implementation of any digital marketing campaign to ensure you reach your members. This includes knowing what your goals are, carrying out thorough market research, knowing your members, choosing the right marketing channels and creating a content plan. Then you need to launch and track your campaign, analysing it and optimising it in the long run.
