Digital Marketing can grow your church in 2025. Remember when we relied on the Yellow Pages for bring people in? People looking for a church would often go to the “Church” section and decide where they would go for a house of worship. Display ads would catch the eye over regular listings. And the bigger you could afford the more you believed it would get people to attend. A simpler time, right?
Well, digital marketing is the new Yellow Pages.
Here are four tips for growing your church with digital marketing. Start preparing now for the new year.
1. Know who are looking for a church. Thanks to online services, we don’t have to rely entirely on people within driving distances. But I would start there.
Plot on a map where all your families live. There will be a core clustering that is your church’s reach area. Get a good demographic understanding of this area. How would you stereotypically describe them? That’s called a persona. Which is the largest or the most growing group you want to focus on? Decide on your personas based on what you have to offer. Or (even better) add needed ministries with your knowledge of the personas in your community.
2. Know what they are looking for. What are the needs, concerns and goals of your persona? What would they be searching for in Google? “Church in my area,” “Church near me,” or “Baptist Church near me” are often the easiest to guess. But what about “Fun kids programs” or “Meet people near me”? Wouldn’t it be great if you could actually know what they were searching for? Well, you can.
You’ll eventually need a Google Ad account, so if you don’t have that, signup now. Then in that free account, there’s a Keyword Research area that will show keywords and phrases that have a lot of searches in your area. And it even rates how easy they would be to rank for them.
3. Know where they would be looking. Where will your persona be searching for a church? Probably on Google and social media channels. But before you start buying ads, visit your church website. Do you have answers or solutions to what they’re looking for? Is your location (that would be searched for) on your homepage and throughout your website? Are you using the keywords or phrases in your content? You need to.
There are several steps for search engine optimization of website content that you need to understand. Google to see the steps (or get a FREE SEO cheatsheet by subscribing to my content on www.beknownforsomething.com/subscribe and choose “podcast” under conferences).
Once your website content is good, then consider Google Ads (words) or Meta Ads (images and words) to start.
4. Know barriers that keep them from attending. For ad content, make sure you say their name (e.g. Parents, Students, etc.) so they know the ad is for them. Speak their pain (need, concern, or goal) and then offer solutions your church has.
Also, consider what’s keeping them from attending and create digital marketing to help them overcome those barriers. This can help grow your church!
EDITOR’S NOTE — Mark MacDonald is a communication pastor, speaker, consultant, bestselling author and church branding strategist for BeKnownforSomething.com, empowering thousands of pastors and churches to become known for something relevant (a communication thread) throughout their ministries, on their church websites and social media. His church branding book, “Be Known for Something,” is available at BeKnownBook.com.
