Movement Marketing
by Tyler Zach
Is your campus movement connecting with the lost? After all, “turning lost students into Christ-centered laborers” is at the very core of our mission.
Big Idea: We are teaching our students to connect with lost on an individual basis (in different pockets of the campus), but what would it look like for our movement as a whole to do the same?
I’ve been reading the book Church Marketing 101 and to my surprise it is not what I expected. The author states, “Most churches fail at marketing because they do not grasp that it encompasses every aspect of church life. They assume it is about things like passing out flyers, but it is much greater than that… Some assume marketing is sending out direct mail pieces or placing door hangers throughout the neighborhood… In reality, marketing deals on less superficial levels than we think.” He goes on to give his simple definition of marketing: the management of perception.
At the very core of movement marketing is (1) the ability to understand how the lost perceive you today; (2) to have a vision for how you would like them to perceive you (within their own frame of reference); and (3) to make decisive strides and adjustments in your way of doing and communicating things to ensure that the lost ultimately learn to perceive you as you desire.
How does your campus “perceive” your movement? Do the students and administration respect you? Do they care about your survival or growth? Do they talk to you? Do they give you money? If they visit, would they want to come back? These are all great questions to help you evaluate how well your movement as a whole is connecting with the lost.
Sometimes, I think that our movements are trying to get the lost to be relevant to us rather than us trying to be relevant to them. Richard Reising says, “There are over thirty references to Jesus perceiving people’s perception and changing His ministry direction, re-communicating, or deciding to halt communications altogether.” He was relevant to everyone because He saw what they saw and adjusted everything He did to meet them where they were at.
I think that our mindset has unintentionally been to invite the lost into our movement - hoping that they will get used to the way we do things. What if it is more complicated than that? What if there are more steps to the process? What if we haven’t been thinking very deeply about how we come across to the lost?
What would it look like to take a step back for a minute, look through the lens of the lost on campus, see what they see, and take the necessary steps to meet them in the middle?
In the next article, I’ll discuss how we as movement leaders can start to understand others’ perception of us.
*content was gleaned and contextualized from Church Marketing 101
Is your campus movement connecting with the lost? After all, “turning lost students into Christ-centered laborers” is at the very core of our mission.
Big Idea: We are teaching our students to connect with lost on an individual basis (in different pockets of the campus), but what would it look like for our movement as a whole to do the same?
I’ve been reading the book Church Marketing 101 and to my surprise it is not what I expected. The author states, “Most churches fail at marketing because they do not grasp that it encompasses every aspect of church life. They assume it is about things like passing out flyers, but it is much greater than that… Some assume marketing is sending out direct mail pieces or placing door hangers throughout the neighborhood… In reality, marketing deals on less superficial levels than we think.” He goes on to give his simple definition of marketing: the management of perception.At the very core of movement marketing is (1) the ability to understand how the lost perceive you today; (2) to have a vision for how you would like them to perceive you (within their own frame of reference); and (3) to make decisive strides and adjustments in your way of doing and communicating things to ensure that the lost ultimately learn to perceive you as you desire.
How does your campus “perceive” your movement? Do the students and administration respect you? Do they care about your survival or growth? Do they talk to you? Do they give you money? If they visit, would they want to come back? These are all great questions to help you evaluate how well your movement as a whole is connecting with the lost.
Sometimes, I think that our movements are trying to get the lost to be relevant to us rather than us trying to be relevant to them. Richard Reising says, “There are over thirty references to Jesus perceiving people’s perception and changing His ministry direction, re-communicating, or deciding to halt communications altogether.” He was relevant to everyone because He saw what they saw and adjusted everything He did to meet them where they were at.
I think that our mindset has unintentionally been to invite the lost into our movement - hoping that they will get used to the way we do things. What if it is more complicated than that? What if there are more steps to the process? What if we haven’t been thinking very deeply about how we come across to the lost?
What would it look like to take a step back for a minute, look through the lens of the lost on campus, see what they see, and take the necessary steps to meet them in the middle?
In the next article, I’ll discuss how we as movement leaders can start to understand others’ perception of us.
*content was gleaned and contextualized from Church Marketing 101
posted by Tyler Zach at 8:22 AM
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