Customer Reviews

Church Marketing 101: Preparing Your Church for Greater Growth

5 star:		(13)
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3 star:		(1)
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Everyday in the United States people are bombarded with a communication avalanche. It has been estimated by communication experts that the average American experiences 1,500-3,500 attempts to get his/her attention per day. With all that competition, what hope do we who want to communicate to church members and unchurched people about our church events and ministry opportunities have of getting people to hear us? How do we keep the message we know is so important from getting drowned by the information tsunami? The only solution is to learn to become more strategic in the ways your church communicates with your community. Marketing is a discipline that can help you communicate better.

Church Marketing 101 is a good resource to help you learn how to apply marketing know-how in your context. Richard Reising does a great job in making marketing concepts accessible to ministry leaders. He makes as clear an explanation of the concept of branding as I have seen anywhere. And he does it without too much technical jargon. Reising's heart for ministry also shows through in this book. This is a very readable, practical church marketing book.

I gained so much from Mr. Reising's book Church Marketing 101.

Reising's profound love for the Lord and his desire that Christians rightly influence the unchurched and the unsaved is compelling.

He teaches the body of Christ how to follow Colossians 4:5-6 by making the most of every opportunity with conversations full of grace, seasoned with salt, and able to answer all inquiries.

One key insight from his book stands out: that Jesus, Paul, King Solomon, and others managed the perception of contacts because while God looks on the heart, most men judge by sight. Read to find out the particulars of how churches can have a greater influence on visitors.

I'm recommending this book to the elders and leaders of my home congregation. Thank you, Richard, for sharing your expertise.

This book hits on many of the challenges facing particularly main-line churches today and forces churches to ask themselves if they are connecting to their members and the community. I appreciate his easy to read style and explanations for lay people regarding the definition of branding. Very helpful!

Marketing is the "management of perception", and it is something that every church does, whether or not they do it explicitly, according to Richard Reising in this book. Managing perception is about effectively presenting reality, not manipulating the truth, and as a result the biggest marketing issues for most churches are not producing advertising materials, but the manner in which the church welcomes visitors, practises community, and serves others in the local community.

According to the author, "All inviters put their reputations on the line every time they invite someone to church. You can rest assured that your church members will not invite someone if they do not expect a positive outcome... If your church is having to beg, push, cajole, offer incentives, or even just remind people in your membership to invite others, it is a telltale sign that, for whatever reason, they do not believe the ministry that takes place will make a successful connection with the people they would invite." So the church needs to deal with obstacles to hospitality, comfort, compatibility, consistency, relevance, understanding and sensitivity.

The book is not an "ideas" book for "ways to promote your church". It is something more fundamental and strategic than that. It explains how marketing affects every area of your church, and it explains why you are not ready to start promoting and advertising until you have dealt with the obstacles which will inevitably limit the success of any advertising campaign. A very useful book for church strategists.

I have bought a ton of church marketing books... most are a waste of time and money. This sucker rocks. Here's what you do: buy it and read it with a highlighter. Then read it again with a notebook and pen. Then gather your senior staff and start making changes.

Every book has bad stuff (even Ludlum!) so here, in the interest of full disclosure, is what I thought sucked a bit: The author tells us too often that we need to hire an outside third-party expert (uh, like maybe his firm) so we can really be objective. The book establishes this guy as an expert, he knows his stuff, we don't need to be sold on his agency too... save that for the website.

This is one book you really can say WOW about.

I am heading a marketing team for our church's Appreciative Inquiry process. Our team jumped in to the task with both feet, but were starting primarily from a corporate standpoint, and without this book's ability to refocus our efforts, we would have missed the most important question. "What face is our church showing the community now, and how can we change that?" ChurchMarketing 101 asked a number of hard questions, and is making us look at our church with new eyes which will enable us to move forward in a much more effective manner. It is a must read not only for the marketing team, but for our ministers and board as well. I highly recommend it for any church that wants to do a better job carrying the message.

Good book, great insights, will really make you think about yor church at whatever size or level you find yourself. I found it a little bit frustrating that the author does not include some "self-help" tools and "do-it-yourself" steps to surveying and ananlyzing the local church marketplace, however. This leaves the reader in the unfortunate position of feeling the need to hire a professional to get the results they want, something not everyone should do or can afford to do. -Pastor Gary Mauro

For those interested in pin-pointing some of the modern trends in successful church venues. This book is insightful. Short of hiring a PR person for the church or ministry, this book is a great directional tool in putting your best foot/face forward for success in working with people/the church as well as the unchurched visitors in the 21st century.
Basically saying first impressions are everything and talks about ways to accomplish this. Not so much image as best face and in my opinion not any cheesier than "Write(ing) the vision on the wall that all may see and fun with it." It is scriptural. Visual fortification is scriptural and effective. Great resourse.

For anyone that are not familiar with markeing concepts, this is the book. It takes you in a markeitng journey to explain how to make your church grow.

It is good teory, there are great advices and will help to stablish a "good" marketing culture in your church. A must have for those with poor markeitng knowledge.

As a portuguese speaking country, I am using it to teach those concepts to our church council, because not everybody will be able to read it.

Church Marketing 101 is one of the best resources to help you understand how to use marketing in the right ways according to individual needs. Richard's vision through this book, leaves you full of useful information that anyone can put in practice. He gives a realistic approach to understanding branding, and shows you the path to obtain it. Both strategic and an encouraging read.