Church marketing: Strategies for retaining and attracting members

Webb, Marion Stanton; Joseph, W.B.; Schimmel, Kurt; Moberg, Christopher R.

doi:10.1080/15332969.1998.9985320

Cited by 13 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…Within a church context, these church ministries (e.g., sermons, communion, and Sunday school) may represent differing levels of perceived value for each individual church attendee. These perceived value differences could be based on various characteristics such as an attendee's age, religious experience, and denomination (Webb, ; Webb, Joseph, Schimmel, & Moberg, ). For example, youth and young adults (e.g., 18–24) may value numerous social interactions and contemporary worship with visual arts within a large church.…”

Section: Aims Of This Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From a nonprofit marketing perspective, identifying what is of perceived value to potential church attendees is essential for religious marketers (e.g., churches) when designing new ministries or seeking to market to specific segments within their local community (Webb et al, ). Regardless of an urban or a regional context, through identifying what perceived value people have in attending church, religious marketers can potentially increase attendance by promoting specific ministries to precise segments.…”

Section: Aims Of This Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A church, like any organisation, is required to provide something of value to attract attendees to experience their offerings (Webb, ; Webb et al, ). Zeithaml (, p. 4) definition that perceived value can be viewed as a “consumer's overall assessment of the utility of a product based on perception of what is received and what is given” can be employed within a church context.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Take me to church: What ministries are of perceived value for attendees from a nonprofit marketing perspective?

Tkaczynski

2017

Int J Nonprofit Volunt Sect Mark

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Church can mean different things to different people. Whilst the opportunity to hear preaching within a conventional church building has traditionally represented the key driver of church value, other ministries such as contemporary worship music, fellowship with others, and small group bible studies are relevant for church attendance amongst certain church attendees. In addition, these church ministries of perceived value may vary on the basis of whether a church attendee is involved in a ministry role or not and if the church is located within an urban or a regional context. To identify the perceived value of church ministries as perceived by church attendees, data from 8,000 respondents of the Australian 2011 National Church Life Survey were analysed.Although sermons and communion represented the church items of perceived value for both leaders and nonleaders regardless of their location, respondents varied considerably in what they deemed as most important for their church in the future. This study provides theoretical and practical implications for religious nonprofit organisations (e.g., churches) relating to the perceived value of church experiences and provides future research opportunities. Specifically, through appropriate market segmentation, target marketing, and positioning, these organisers can design and promote specific ministries to precise church attendee segments. Although the opportunity to hear a sermon has consistently attracted church attendance (e.g., Stott, 1990;Ward, Pullman, & Rylance, 1883), people may choose to attend church for alternative reasons such as contemporary worship music (Connell, 2005;Goh, 2008) and to participate in social justice aid programmes (Brown, 2009;Nooney & Woodrum, 2002). It has also been consistently found that attending church and/or church-orientated activities can provide an attendee with mental and health benefits (Abbotts, Williams, Sweeting, & West, 2004;Koenig, Ford, George, Blazer, & Meador, 1993) which has driven attendance, particularly for those that are female, married and have health insurance (Aaron, Levine, & Burstin, 2003). Consequently, churches will actively market several church ministries through various forms of media to influence people to attend church (Foster, 2010;Webb, 2012). | Church attendance in AustraliaDespite Australia having some of the largest growing Christian churches worldwide such as Hillsong and Planetshakers, overall church attendance is declining in Australia (Bellamy & Castle, 2004;McCrindle Research, 2014). The number of Australians attending church at least once a month (regularly) has halved from 36% in 1972 to 15% in 2011 (NCLS Research, 2012 | AIMS OF THIS RESEARCHIt is widely acknowledged within the marketing literature that people are heterogeneous (Dibb, Stern, & Wensley, 2002;Kotler, 1980) Chand, 2015;Sanders, 1967).From a nonprofit marketing perspective, identifying what is of perceived value to potential church attendees is essential for religious marketers (e.g., churches) when designing new ministries o...

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Section: Aims Of This Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aims Of This Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Take me to church: What ministries are of perceived value for attendees from a nonprofit marketing perspective?

Tkaczynski

2017

Int J Nonprofit Volunt Sect Mark

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“…Similarly, although the practice of ‘church marketing’ (broadly understood) can be discerned in the earliest era of the Christian church, it is not until the beginning of the 20th century that ‘church marketing’ can be identified as a specific concept in the academic literature. Over the past two decades, churches have been increasingly utilised as a research context in studies of the non‐profit sector (Santos and Mathews, 2001; Sargeant, 2005; Abreu, 2006) and in studies of services marketing (Webb et al ., 1998; Sherman and Devlin, 2000; Rodrigue, 2002). A review by Stevens et al .…”

Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An empirical investigation on the role of market orientation in church participation

Casidy

Tsarenko

Mavondo

2010

J of Philanthropy and Mktg

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In recent years, the concept of market orientation has become an attractive avenue for research in marketing. Despite an array of applications of market orientation in the context of religious organisations, an empirical examination of the role of market orientation in affecting church participation remains limited. The purpose of this research is to develop and test a model that explains the role of market orientation in a church participation context. Data were collected from a particular church denomination in Australia using a self-administered questionnaire. This yielded a useable sample of 344. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity and reliability of the measures, while structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest that market orientation is significantly related to church participation. Further, competitor orientation was found to be negatively associated with church participation. These findings suggest that it is important for church leaders to: (1) understand the needs of church members (customer orientation), (2) ensure that the various ministries in the church are perceived as delivering significant value by its members (interfunctional coordination), and (3) ensure that the range of ministries offered by the church is not perceived as the strategic tools to compete with other churches (competitor orientation), but rather as the means to serve its members effectively.

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“…Over the past two decades, churches have been increasingly utilised as a research context in studies of the non-profit sector (Abreu, 2006;Santos & Mathews, 2001;Sargeant, 2005;White & Simas, 2008) and services marketing (Rodrigue, 2002;Sherman & Devlin, 2000;M. S. Webb, Joseph, Schimmel, & Moberg, 1998) due to the unique role of church members in church organisations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Market Orientation and Brand Orientation from Customer Perspective: An Empirical Examination in the Non-profit Sector

Casidy¹

2010

IJBM

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between 'market orientation' and 'brand orientation' from the customer perspective. Data was collected from a non-profit organisation in Australia using a self-administered questionnaire. This yielded a useable sample of 344. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity and reliability of the measures, while structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. Findings reveal that 'interfunctional coordination' perform the strongest effects on 'perceived brand orientation' whereas no significant association was found between 'competitor orientation' and 'perceived brand orientation'. The study contributes to the body of literature through an examination of the relationship between 'perceived market orientation' and 'perceived brand orientation' and the development of 'perceived brand orientation' construct to assess the brand orientation level of an organisation from the customer perspective.

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Church marketing: Strategies for retaining and attracting members

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

Take me to church: What ministries are of perceived value for attendees from a nonprofit marketing perspective?

Take me to church: What ministries are of perceived value for attendees from a nonprofit marketing perspective?

An empirical investigation on the role of market orientation in church participation

Market Orientation and Brand Orientation from Customer Perspective: An Empirical Examination in the Non-profit Sector

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