A Beginner's Guide to Marketing Your Church

Your church is awesome! It provides resources and services to your local community. You have wonderful worship services and faith formation programs that connect people of all ages to God. You’re working hard to make a difference but, how are you effectively sharing everything you have to offer with your greater community? How are you attracting new members? How do people know about all of the ministries that you have? You are pros at spreading the message of Jesus at Mass, but how does your neighborhood know that your members are out there putting in the work? Sounds like it’s time to build a church marketing plan!

Branding

First things first — If your church doesn’t have an up-to-date brand design that you can use across all of your marketing materials, it’s time to make this happen. Remember, branding is not just your parish’s logo. Branding encompasses the colors you will use, the fonts, and the overall style of your marketing materials. You will use this brand on letterhead and envelopes, websites, social media, certificates, posters, livestreams, invitations, everywhere! Get started with a brand refresh or a totally new look with our in-house design team.

Website

Make sure your website is easy to navigate, up to date, and optimized for mobile devices! Your homepage is often the very first place potential visitors investigate before deciding to walk through your front doors, so having a professional looking website that reflects your welcoming community is one of the most important tricks of the trade when it comes to successfully marketing your church. What photos you decide to include , how well it’s designed, and these further tips and tricks can get you ahead of the game. If you don’t feel confident when it comes to updating your parish’s website, our team can help! 

Social Media

Having your social media profiles dialed-in can make a big difference when marketing your parish! Don’t forget to share your calendar of events on Facebook via the Facebook event feature and publish them publicly. Doing this will allow Facebook to suggest your events to people browsing the app for things to do during the week and also provides a landing page for events that parishioners can easily share on their own social media profiles! In fact, creating sharable content across any of the social media platforms encourages parishioners to share your content which, in turn, provides free marketing for your church. Double down your efforts and use our beautifully designed Catholic graphics in our WeCreate library to enhance your posts or simply copy and paste the content we pre-curate for parishes into your social media feeds using WeCreate's social media content calendar.

Printed Bulletins

Your bulletin is the perfect place to advertise your events and ministries to those already in attendance at Mass, but did you know that the bulletin can also be a great way to partner with local businesses and organizations? These partnerships can help your marketing efforts. As businesses advertise in your bulletin , parishioners will use their services. The more parishioners tell local businesses that they saw them in their church bulletin, the more likely the business is to be open to partnering with you to accomplish local community goals, execute great events, and whatever else you can dream up. Having good relationships with local businesses and organizations can go a long way to helping you market your parish! 

Press/Media Releases

Creating a press release for major events, changes, or celebrating milestones in your parish is another important way to make sure you are properly marketing your church. Press releases allow for news from your church to reach the greater community — often people who wouldn’t normally hear about your parish. 

Special Event Marketing

Every major event at your church should be marketed through the following avenues: 

• Your church website
• Bulletin
• Social media platforms
• Neighborhood mailers
• In print via posters or flyers that are easy to pass out after Mass 
• Via your spoken Mass announcements

When creating advertisements for each of the different avenues, be sure to always use your church’s logo and branding, any identifying information needed for people to easily locate your parish, where and when the event is being held, and how they can acquire more information. 

Lastly, Be Present!

Hands down one of the best ways to market your parish community is to attend, sponsor, and participate in community events. Is there a farmer’s market that happens every Saturday in your city? Consider renting a booth with information about your parish’s ministries or selling parishioner’s homemade crafts to raise money for a youth retreat. If there is a local theater group looking for sponsorship, consider sponsoring a play. Do local club sports need benefactors every season? Sponsor the team and then organize parishioners to attend games and root for them to win! Does your neighborhood throw a community festival every summer? Set up a relief station offering free refreshments for attendees! Being present and supportive in your local community may be the absolute best way to market your parish. This concept is so true, in fact, that we recently compiled 65 unique ways to connect with your neighborhood.  

The time to get started is now! Happy marketing! 

Updated on 03-13-2024