Here’s a post from http://MediaOutreach.com that I contribute to at faithHighway:

So if you follow this blog at all, you most likely have a passion to reach the unchurched, whether in person, through your website, marketing or social media. We at faithHighway are huge fans of the folks over at the Center for Church Communication, as they constantly pump out invaluable marketing and branding information for churches through www.ChurchMarketingSucks.com and other channels.

Under a new board of directors, CFCC is pulling out big bloggers, thought-leaders and marketing gurus like Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Phil Cooke, Drew Goodmanson, Scott McClellan, Kem Meyer and Kent Shaffer to push church marketing to a new standard. Their new fearless leader is none other than the technology expert from Digital Sanctuary, Cynthia Ware.

One interesting development I found on the Church Marketing Sucks blog this week was a set of poll results for 2010 Trends. I feel saddened by its results.

The majority of voters feel that “churches stick their head deeper in the sand” in regard to church marketing.

As hard as it is to hear, the more I think about it, the more I wonder about the truth of it. What is it about 2010 that will truly skyrocket the church into the realm of superior marketing?

These are my hopes for the future of church marketing, namely the near future.

1. Churches embrace video at whichever level of sophistication they can. Whether investing in a $150 Flip video camera, or look on Craigslist for a professional grade camera, our culture speaks video too fluently to ignore. Many cameras these days come with basic editing software that can even empower the technically-challenged.
2. Churches will clamp onto social networks even more, strategically starting conversations in the community that would have never occurred with the unchurched otherwise. If people can meet their spouses on Facebook like my college roommate did (from across the US), how much greater are the chances of building friendships within the community?
3. Churches will utilize their websites to rally communities together and help the homeless and provide for orphans. Using our events area on the website to promote community wide events as well as our own will demand that the Church be viewed as an integral part of the community. Free marketing for them means they will turn to you more and more, opening more doors than ever before.
4. Mobile church sites will be viewed more as a necessity than a superfluous item – especially those churches looking to reach the 20 and 30 somethings. I mean, smart phone users increased 45 million last year! And do any of us expect that number to decrease next year? Unlikely, right?
5. Help make clear to unbelievers, whether through billboards, mail outs, websites or church signs, that there is more emphasis on what a church is FOR rather than what it is against.
6. That “business as usual” will be thrown out the window. If we only continue to market in the same ways to the same people, how will we know if we’re missing out on something amazing?! What if the greatest marketing tool for your audience was face-to-face and you missed out on it because it didn’t work for the church 10 years ago and the team wrote it off?

I think that the greatest way to ensure that 2010 isn’t a year of sand diving is to set out a very strategic marketing strategy. And if you simply kept the one you wrote two years ago, that maybe you consider getting some fresh ideas from those around you.

Think outside the box. AND outside the staff. Turn to your congregation and young people to team up and creatively engage your community like never before.

I think 2010 is already looking like a head-out-of-the-sand kind of year. What do you think? We’d love to hear what your church marketing plans are…

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