Marketing lessons from a Southern megachurch
Or, alternatively: What do church preachers and Instagram influencers have in common?
I packed up my numerous identical pairs of shoes and moved to the American South in the fall of 2018. My understanding of the region was limited to rudimentary historical knowledge and a handful of key words/stereotypes: sweet tea, fried food, remarkable hospitality, red states, and greater religiosity compared to the rest of the country.
On my first Friday evening in my new home, I decided to go for a walk downtown. It was sweltering outside, and I wore a short yellow romper with spaghetti straps. I met my neighbors for the first time on the way out — they had just moved in earlier that day. We were all new here, how fun! I planned to check out an outdoor jazz performance. I never made it to said outdoor jazz performance, which was located only two blocks away from my apartment. I was approached by a tall, burly man with copper-colored triangular hair who tried to get my attention. When I did not respond, he used a racial slur and stepped menacingly into my personal space.
I was frightened and immediately slunk off. I walked briskly down the pavement and, as soon as I was out of his immediate vicinity, quickly looked behind my shoulder and ran to a nearby crowded bar with outdoor seating. My heart was pounding and I wondered if I should have done anything differently in that moment — shout for help? Call the police? Tell him to fuck off? I was shaken that this happened while the sun was still out, with other people milling around in clear sight. Not knowing who else to tell, I called my supervisor (went to voicemail), a coworker (who, having only met me four days ago, seemed rather taken aback that we were talking on the phone), and my mentor at work who was based in California. Thankfully, my mentor answered. He suggested that I introduce myself to a group of women and ask if they could walk me home later in the night, hopefully when the triangular-haired man would no longer be lurking around.
This advice was solid: I met two young women who were horrified and aghast when I told them what just happened and they immediately welcomed me. I reported the incident to a bar employee, who notified the authorities. The three of us sat together and they introduced themselves; they both moved to the area not too long ago (a phenomenon that, I would discover in the following months, was incredibly common) and were very friendly. Before I went home, one of them stayed seated with me while the other left the bar to scope the block for signs of the triangular-haired man. The coast was clear, and they walked me the comically short distance back to my apartment.
Before they left, one of my new friends mentioned that she attended a nearby church. I (a) really wanted to meet new people, was (b) curious about how this church was different from the other churches I’ve attended, and (c) wanted something to look forward to, so I asked if I could join her one Sunday sometime soon.
And this is the story of how I wound up at church.
I should preemptively admit that my motives in joining my new friend at church were completely nonspiritual. The relationship between religion and manners has always fascinated me. Most religions have principles about being kind to others, which can exacerbate people’s tendencies to mask the expression of negative feelings and gut reactions in public and/or in-person. These tendencies have been exploited for very malevolent purposes in religious settings. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad, I reasoned, to lean into these tendencies when building a new network of friends in the area. I mean, are you really going to tell me that I can’t join your group lunch at Panera twenty minutes after the Lord touched your heart?
I went to church that first Sunday in the South expecting to meet a couple of other twenty-somethings, and then maybe ask to hang out with some of them later in the week.
What I was not prepared for, however, was to spend my morning in amazement for other reasons. I did not know at the time of asking to tag along that this church happened to be one of the fastest-growing megachurches in the country. I discovered this online before going, and when I showed up, I saw how this megachurch employed stellar marketing strategies. I noticed mainstream business advice applied here in real-time, at this church, and I couldn’t unsee it.
It is hard to analyze the collective religiosity of a group of churchgoers and where they stand on various contentious issues, so we won't get into that. However, membership and attendance numbers are far more straightforward and measurable. In terms of membership and attendance numbers, this megachurch was succeeding and growing. I reached the conclusion that this success and growth was desired, deliberate, and planned; there were numerous announcements of intent to raise specific sums of money to build new campuses elsewhere. Some (but not all) businesses aim to acquire more customers; some (but not all) churches aim to acquire more members. This megachurch fell into the latter. The strategies employed in both cases can be similar.
I continued going to church a number of times after that, and took notes about my observations.
Caveats:
This is the only Southern megachurch I attended, so no comment about megachurches in general, or other religious institutions
These are just things that I saw and experienced
The rapid growth of this megachurch can also be partly explained by the fact that it is located in a rapidly growing region; in other words, some of the megachurch’s membership growth might have happened anyway, regardless of what strategies it did or did not implement
It really shouldn’t be surprising that there are some similarities between businesses and churches. Both are fundamentally organizations offering consumers (purported) value. But as a newcomer to this megachurch who was also new to the wider regional culture, many more things stood out to me. I attended the same church in Hong Kong for over a decade; I’m sure that if someone went to that church for the first time today, they too would notice things that I glossed over a long time ago.
A quick online search showed over twenty other churches within a half-hour drive from this megachurch. So, what did this megachurch do to stand out from the others?
Observations
#1: Branding, understanding your customer, and the customer experience
In an effort to appeal to a wider audience, organizations sometimes compromise on the specificity with which they define themselves and, in simplistic terms, what it is you get with them. Wanting to appeal to a wider audience is in and of itself not a bad thing at all. It can work for or against organizations, depending on their motives.
By the end of my first time at this megachurch, I had a very clear understanding of the demographic it was pursuing and the image that it wanted to project. Everyone I met there was college-educated, working a white-collar job, in their twenties or early thirties, and dressed in what I’ll call “upper-middle-class business casual”: the world where shoes or individual items of clothing don’t always but can run north of $100, the world where everyone’s outfits kind of blend into one another.
I don’t know for a fact which came first: the increasing presence of this demographic as a result of migration, or an articulated strategy to appeal to this demographic. Regardless, I suspect this megachurch understood damn well who their target audience was and they provided a customer experience that consistently catered to the preferences of said target audience.
Examples of how this megachurch catered to their target audience include:
Extensive use of technology
Each week, the sermon was delivered by someone from the “main campus”, another branch that was located an hour away. This was broadcasted onto a huge screen at our campus, as well as onto the huge screens of the other dozen or so campuses. I thought it was very interesting that the sermon was always broadcasted onscreen, but the singing that came before and after was always live, performed onstage by people at this campus. I wondered if this was a manpower-related, “we don't want to hire a dozen more pastors but we would if we could” decision, or whether the church decided that it was the most economically efficient use of resources. I posit that this demographic is fairly indifferent between a sermon that is broadcasted and one that is in-person, but that it is much more receptive to live music compared to a video of the same thing. In the age of streaming or whatever, young people still go to concerts. Live musical performances are romanticized as life experiences by mainstream culture in a way that in-person lectures are simply not.
Excellent video and sound quality; there were no technical hiccups on any of the Sundays that I was there and everything was crystal clear
In the moments between the end of the singing and the beginning of the sermons, the big screen would air several videos that were not dissimilar to ads. These videos were very high-quality and were each about 60 to 120 seconds long, usually featuring a (conventionally attractive) youthful-looking adult who made a simple call to action. More often than not, the call to action was to give during the tithe and offering later that service, so that the megachurch could hit their fundraising goal to build their new campuses. In one of the videos that stood out to me the most, the narrator said, verbatim, “We have a four million-dollar vision” in regards to the project at hand. I was struck by the directness of this. Given the demographical makeup of the audience, I think it was not a coincidence that the megachurch chose to relay their goals through short, compelling videos instead of leaflets or other forms of print media.
How high-quality everything was
When I first walked into the megachurch, I honestly thought that I was in the hallways of a newly-opened contemporary art museum or a large event arena. Everything was extremely clean, new, and sleek; various shades of grey, minimalist designs, bright lights, large glass windows to make the hallways even brighter. The megachurch did a great job of positioning itself as this modern, hip place where modern, hip young people go.
I touched on this in my previous point: the video and sound quality were brilliant.
The music was equally flawless. It was major-stadium-concert-level good. Perfect vocals (at least, to my untrained ear), sophisticated instrumentals, tasteful lighting that dimmed and shone at various points for emphasis.
There was a coffee bar near the entrance with cheery young people behind the counter who served various types of coffees and hot apple cider. During my first visit, I got a cup of coffee with almond milk. As I rummaged for my purse in my bag, my new friend laughed at me.
“It’s free!” she exclaimed.
Free? Coffee? With almond milk? I have been to numerous COFFEE SHOPS that didn’t have almond milk. How much was this church spending per week on coffee? What were this church’s coffee expenditures as a percentage of the offering it received? Touches like these made people feel at home — or maybe not home, but more like as if they were at a high-end boutique hotel where everything was fancy and yet accessible. The best of both worlds.
The church that I am most familiar with (the one in Hong Kong) gives newcomers a welcome pamphlet and a pen with their logo on it. According to my limited experience in visiting other religious institutions, giving newcomers welcome pamphlets and free pens is quite common. Most people don’t typically go to church for the free gifts, but this Southern megachurch still went the extra mile. I received a mug. It was the nicest mug I had ever owned. It was aesthetically pleasing, sturdy, smooth (have you ever handled mugs that felt slightly scratchy or static-y? or am I just crazy? I am just crazy), and it held more liquid than the average coffee mug. Amazing. I continued to use it long after I stopped going to that church and took every opportunity to talk about it with friends (“Look at this!” I would exclaim. “I went to this church and don’t really share their values but their mugs are incredible.”) The cost-per-unit of these high-quality mugs were probably higher than what other churches were spending on each of their newcomer gifts, but this was yet another example of how this megachurch was not skimping on the customer experience.
As mentioned, this megachurch’s branches were referred to as “campuses”. Not “branches”, “locations”, or “our church in ___________”. Given the very youthful audience, I suspect that the decision to use this term might have been intentional.
#2: This is an #ad; let’s pretend it’s not one
What do church preachers and Instagram influencers have in common?
Let’s back up for a minute and think about the typical Instagram influencer’s sponsored post. An influencer will typically tout the product(s) in their picture and/or in their caption. The extent to which a individual testimonial successfully influences followers depends on the following factors:
The degree to which the influencer can convince you that they genuinely loved the product and that it truly made them better/hotter/etc. — bonus points if you are left convinced that they would still endorse the product without any personal gain
The overall impression that followers have of the influencer: is this influencer witty, beautiful, charismatic, stylish, and/or doing cool things?
The first boss I had out of college said, in my first week at work, “Nobody likes to feel like they’re being sold shit.” It’s a fantastic piece of life advice, and it also applies here. Successful Instagram influencers get you interested (either consciously or subconsciously) in what they’re promoting by convincing you that it is not shit.
When it comes to sponsored posts, Instagram influencers and the companies that paid them have relatively straightforward goals:
1) To turn non-customers into customers
2) To turn already-customers into even more loyal customers
With about 19 years (14 years very regular, 5 years irregular) of churchgoing experience under my belt, I am convicted that preachers and their churches have two straightforward core goals when it comes to sermons:
1) To turn non-believers into believers
2) To turn already-believers into even more loyal believers
Likewise, the extent to which the preacher as an individual successfully influences their audience depends on the following factors:
The degree to which the preacher can convince you that they genuinely love their religion and that it truly made them better/happier/etc.
The overall impression that the audience has of the preacher: is this preacher witty, beautiful, friendly, kind, charismatic, seemingly at peace with themselves, and/or doing cool things?
Do you see the similarities?
Instagram influencers and church preachers both:
(a) want you to like them,
(b) want you to want to be like them, and
(c) want you to believe that you can be like them by saying yes to this one thing.
This is their core similarity, summed up in a sentence.
I was blown away by how much this three-pronged approach could be found in the megachurch’s sermons. This megachurch understood, more than any church I’ve ever been to, that if they wanted to have a shot at parts (a), (b), and (c), they had to do a good job of retaining their audience’s attention.
In order to maintain the audience’s attention throughout the sermon, I noticed that the preachers of this megachurch:
Kept it very simple, which reduced confusion and loss of attention (and is evidently a technique this blog has not mastered)
They only focused on three or four bible verses each sermon. This was very different from the church I am most familiar with, where passages of scripture each week are usually anywhere from ten to forty verses long
The key point of each sermon was clearly discernible: one week’s sermon was about speaking your truth, another was about fearlessly inviting others to join this religion
Primarily centered their sermons around personal anecdotes, which
Tapped into universal experiences, such as feeling anxious in life, feeling overcome with emotion, feeling supported, etc.
Were all compelling and sensational
Were impossible to fact-check, and
Usually involved a degree of projected vulnerability, which fostered a sense of closeness between them and their audience
Were all exceptionally charismatic and funny speakers
“Nobody likes to feel like they’re being sold shit.”
#3: The God entrée and a side of belonging
Say you want to buy a new white button-up shirt. There are three clothing stores in your neighborhood. Which one do you go to? How do you make your decision if they are all equidistant from your apartment and you know they each sell white button-up shirts at exactly the same price?
Given the existence of other churches with similar denominations in the area, this Southern megachurch faces (an imperfect edition of) this white button-up shirt conundrum. Most churchgoers that I know of pay similar prices regardless of which church they attend, and by that I mean that the time commitment of attending church is pretty standard: a few hours per week.
So, knowing that you can get your religious fix at roughly the same price at each church, we have to consider what else it is that you can get in addition to God*. It is this additional element that sets churches apart, and I suspect it is a contributing factor in the megachurch’s continuous numerical growth.
(*I know that religious doctrine varies from church to church, and that this also influences people’s decisions to pick one church over another. Duh. It’s kind of like how one white button-up shirt has more buttons than the other, or one has a collar and one doesn’t.)
This Southern megachurch made it clear to me: join us, and — in addition to the whole religion stuff — you will gain a sense of belonging. My new friend took me to the counter for newcomers after my first time, which is where I was given that really high-quality mug. The person at the newcomer counter asked for my contact information, promised a follow-up phone call in a few days, told me about other small groups that met on weekday nights, and, most crucially, saw to it that my new friend introduced me to her other friends at church.
Here’s a pretty stone-cold way to look at it: this process was built to boost customer retention.
The offer for a follow-up phone call made me feel like they cared about me
By making sure that there was a smaller group of people who knew about me, had chatted with me, etc., my likelihood of developing a personal network of friends at this church would be higher. This increased my incentives (or social pressure, depending on how you want to look at it) to come back the following week
Conclusion
After a few Sundays of furtively scribbling notes about my observations, I stopped attending the Southern megachurch for two reasons:
(i) In spite of the free coffee, friendly faces, amazing music, and charismatic preachers, none of that was enough to overcome my lack of actual interest in religion. An argument could be made that maybe this megachurch wasn’t that awesome, after all, if they couldn’t convert a non-customer (me) into a customer.
My counterargument would be this: an Instagram influencer mostly communicates with their followers, and the immediate reach of a church’s weekly services is generally limited to the people physically present at said church. Self-selection occurs in both cases; one chooses to follow an influencer, one chooses to set foot at church. There is an assumed baseline level of openness towards the subject matter that I probably did not meet. Have charismatic preachers managed to convert individuals more skeptical than myself into devout souls? Probably, but the crux of my counterargument is that the megachurch’s efforts to impress, retain, and gain members were laudable and should still be acknowledged as such, regardless of my individual outcome. Fast-growing businesses celebrate their growth in spite of the reality that there will always be non-customers. I see my non-attending status today as a mere data point within an overall trend that is otherwise very promising for them.
(ii) I stumbled into an entirely different friend group that I had much more in common with and eventually built my social life around them, so I had less and less of an incentive to keep going to the megachurch.
To be clear, I am very grateful that this churchgoing new friend appeared in my life; she made me feel safe and welcomed during my first Friday evening here. I will never forget that. She’s great. This is just how the cookie crumbled in terms of building a new circle of friends and finding something that was the best fit for me.
This project filled me with glee. Sometimes, I wish I could unsubscribe from myself.