I Hate Church Signs

What is the most effective means of getting people to know about your church? Obviously the best advertisement for your church is a satisfied customer, when someone from your church takes the time to tell a friend about their church and invites them to come experience your church.

But what else? One of my pet peeves is church signs, the kind that have cutesy little sayings on them that only really make sense to people who have been in the church for twenty plus years. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." "What's missing from this ch__ch? UR." Or, my personal favorite, "Hope wishes. Faith omniscies." I have two theology degrees and a couple of years toward a Ph.D. and I'm not sure I understand that one. All that to say, I'm generally opposed to those kinds of church signs. No, I hate them. They are rarely understandable to unchurched people, sometimes are offensive, and often only further the stereotypes that the unchurched have about us.

Yet, today, I found myself considering the possibility of a church sign. Not the cutesy, slogan, cliched type. Just a sign advertising an upcoming message series and channeling people to our website. Since we are a mobile church, we don't have a "presence" that people see throughout the week. A billboard is available in our town, which got me to thinking about the possibility. Still thinking about it.

But, I'm wondering, what is the most effective marketing tool for churches? As I have asked other guys, it seems that direct mail is still the predominant means of getting people at large to know about our churches. We have done several of these at The Crossroads and plan to continue to use them. But even the most effective direct mail pieces get a return of about 1%. That means, if you send out a 5,000 piece mailer, you can expect about 50 people to visit sometime within the next year. Not bad, but certainly not a terribly efficient marketing tool.

It would seem that effectiveness and use among church planters falls off after that with things like billboards, radio, newspaper, and television. All of which are impersonal means of connecting with people.

I spoke with the sales manager from a major car dealership in the DFW Metroplex this afternoon about marketing. He told me that they have had great success with direct mail, followed by billboards. He also said they have used Facebook advertising with some effectiveness.

The golden nugget in this conversation, however, was that they are now discovering that the most effective means of marketing is currently text messaging. Wow! Here's a totally free marketing tool that uses the personal touch of you people and gets the word out in a rapid manner. I'm thinking we can apply this to Facebook and Twitter as well. The most effective marketing tool is one most of your people have in their hands every Sunday morning, their phone. I know I plan to encourage our people this Sunday morning, as soon as church is over, to send out a text to a friend telling about The Crossroads.