A friend was buying flowers for a grieving friend.
She was searching online.
I suggested she check out Roses Only.
Her response: “I thought they only sold roses”.
They don’t, but with a name like Roses Only, you’d be forgiven for thinking this.
A good reminder to think before you name, to ensure that your name doesn’t confuse or alienate future customers – or, in the case of Christian ministries, the people we are promoting our ministries to.
Today I was standing on the train platform at Wynyard.
I looked up, and saw an interesting billboard advertisement. YouTube was advertising that it will be streaming the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches live. This was the first I’d heard of this initiative, although I’ve since discovered it’s been reported extensively online.
When I got back to the office, I looked up the website that was promoted on the billboard. The top of the page was fine, and it looks like this:
However, when I scrolled down the page, comments had been enabled and four of the seven profile pictures were explicit – soft-core pornography.
It’s outrageous – a website that is being heavily promoted in public areas (and on the YouTube website) and is accessible to all (and of interest to many, especially younger boys) – is displaying soft-core pornography.
YouTube and the IPL – turn the comments off, or get a competent moderator in to ensure that these comments (and their profile pics) never see the light of day. This is poor form to allow such a high profile site to be managed so poorly.
I’m also very sick of pornographers infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Come Lord Jesus.
In theory, it was a very good idea.
It wasn’t even my idea – it’s the idea of my colleague Hayley (you can find her on Twitter, or check out her website).
This was going to be the plan:
Step 1. Design and print a poster encouraging people to read the Bible. We completed step 1, and developed this poster (click on the image to enlarge):
Step 2. The next step was to put the poster in the a-frame outside the church, next to a table with free copies of ‘The Essential Jesus‘ – the gospel of Luke.
Unfortunately, on returning from the printer after completing step 1, I discovered a ranger from the local council inspecting our a-frame. I was told it was illegal to display this outside the church in our local area (this was news to me, and apparently news to every other business on the street that was also receiving the ‘take-down’ instruction).
This has put a bit of a roadblock in this plan to encourage people in our community to read the Bible!
How are you seeking to achieve this goal in your community?
Avis car hire has a bold mission statement (or tagline). I’m sure you’ve seen it:
Churches have mission statements too.
These are mission statements set big expectations.
What’s the mission statement for your church?
The challenge for us (and for Avis) when we set and then promote these mission statements is to actually live up to them.
Too often, corporate mission statements are dreamt up in board-room meeting of the marketing executive, who forgot to tell the staff that they should actually try harder. (Avis – this hasn’t been my experience with you – you just have a mission that’s easy to use as an example!)
My point is, too often the behaviour doesn’t come close to matching the mission – there is a disconnect between the bold mission of the company, and the people who have face-to-face contact with the customers (i.e. the people who actually need to implement the mission).
And as a result we cause harm to our brand, or more importantly in our case, tarnish the reputation of our God.
We need God’s help to live out these missions. We really need God’s help. But, by God’s grace and with his power at work within us, we can live up to these bold missions.
And when we miraculously do, all the glory goes to God.
Two car companies are unashamedly using envy to motivate Australians to buy their cars. Check out these advertisements for the Mitsubishi Outlander, Ford Territory, and to a lesser extent, the Mistsubishi Triton.
This got me thinking – what emotions do we tap into in church marketing to encourage people to come along to church? We might not have multi-million dollar advertising budgets, but our marketing materials usually try to connect with our neighbours on an emotional level.
Mitsubishi Outlander
Ford Territory
Mitsubishi Triton
At my church this year we are running ‘The Marriage Course’ – it’s a course developed by a couple at Holy Trinity Brompton in the UK, and has been used by churches around the world. I’ve been doing some thinking about how to promote the course, and have enjoyed looking through the marriage-themed artwork on the Church Marketing Lab stream on Flickr. I thought I’d share some of my favourite concepts with you.
This concept promotes the same course that my church will be running (click on the image to enlarge, or view on Flickr here):
This is a clever concept, that is perhaps a bit dated (when did the Lord of the Rings trilogy finish up?!), but I think still has legs (view on Flickr here):
This concept promotes a sermon series, but would also work well in promoting a marriage course (view on Flickr here):
And who wouldn’t want a ‘smokin’ hot marriage’?! (view on Flickr here)
This concept taps into the ‘prevention is better than cure’ idea (view the front and back of this postcard on Flickr)
I also discovered this video that had been created to promote an upcoming sermon series on 1 Corinthians 7:
Marriage Matters [series trailer] from Grace Church on Vimeo.
And finally, this video was created by another church that is using the same marriage course. I like the angle they’ve taken – reminding us that a good marriage takes time and effort, and a short course is worth the investment:
The Marriage Course from Coton Green Church on Vimeo.
Have you seen any good concepts for promoting a marriage course, retreat or sermon series?
