How churches can do market research
It’s crucial for a church to realize they have multiple different audiences. Some people are drawn to your church because they connect with a particular pastor or staff member. Others are members who receive spiritual guidance and community support. Some are interested because they care about a specific ministry, while others care about a different aspect of the church’s mission. Still others may be exploring faith for the first time.
When I was involved in church leadership, I was often surprised to hear how differently people would describe the church’s purpose. I might have thought of our church as a place for spiritual growth and community outreach, while some attendees were most drawn to the music program, the youth group, or the senior’s fellowship. People connect with different aspects of a church, and we only have some control over that.
It’s crucial that your church knows why different groups of people are interested in your community.
Understanding Church Audience Research: Types of Research Involved
Effective church audience research involves two primary types of research: primary and secondary. Each serves a distinct purpose in gathering valuable insights.
Primary Research
This type involves collecting original data directly from your target audience. For churches, that includes surveys, conversations, and small group discussions.
Surveys: These allow churches to gather quantitative data on congregational preferences, community needs, or program feedback.
Conversations: Conduct one-on-one discussions to gain deeper insights into individual opinions, motivations, and spiritual journeys.
Small Group Discussions: Facilitate discussions among small groups (like existing Bible studies or ministry teams) to understand collective attitudes, identify shared values, and explore potential areas for growth.
Primary research is crucial for obtaining firsthand information specific to your church’s goals and challenges.
Secondary Research
Secondary research involves analyzing existing data that has been previously gathered by others. This might include:
Denominational Research: Review reports and studies from your denomination or church network.
Community Demographics: Use data from local government or census reports to understand the demographics of your surrounding area.
Other Church Studies: Analyze reports and case studies from other churches (especially those in your area) to learn about trends and best practices.
Both primary and secondary research are essential for a comprehensive understanding of your church’s audience. While primary research provides specific insights tailored to your church, secondary research offers a broader perspective contextualizing your findings within community and denominational trends.
Here’s the good news: Primary research sounds complicated. It doesn’t have to be. Here’s a basic approach that can be tremendously helpful to your church.
You need to take 3 steps:
Research your audiences (more on that below)
Take that research and organize your varied audiences into “segments.”
Create brief audience profiles for each segment.
If you can do these three things with focus and careful attention, you will see substantial improvements in your communications and outreach, given a bit of time.
Ok, so how do we research our audiences?
Granted, there are specialists that you can hire to do this robustly, using complicated statistics and a lot of tools that are beyond most of us. I’m confident their results are very helpful.
But we can get quite a lot of results for free. Here’s what you do:
First, Talk to your audiences! At first, do this informally. When you get a few seconds to chat with various people connected to your church, ask them why they are engaged with you. This simple question will help you quickly learn.
Second, take that information, and begin tentatively organizing responses into groups. Before doing this, you want to have chatted with as many people as possible, though lightly. Broad, but shallow. You’ve asked almost anyone who will answer, “What is it about [Church Name] that you care about? There are a lot of things happening here…what is it specifically, for you?”
Organize those responses into a few tentative categories. Aim for somewhere between three and eight categories. These are the beginnings of your Segments.
Third, when you have tentative categories, think about the people you’ve placed in these different Segments. Try to think of a handful (4-8, ideally, but take what you can get) who are particularly insightful or clear communicators. You want people who notice their own thoughts and feelings, and can then express those thoughts and feelings.
Fourth, Simply invite those people to a conversation about your church. Tell them it will help your church (members are often looking for ways to contribute). What you’re really doing is creating focus groups. I suggest doing this in person or on Zoom, if possible, to lower the time commitment.
When you meet, for 45 minutes, ask them a few basic questions about “What is it about our church that you care about? Why do you care about that? Does it resonate with something about you, or your own life?” Put some time into thinking about good questions here. Let the participants engage with one another.
That’s it. That’s basic audience research for your church, and it’s often free.
If you follow through on this, you’ll be able to write up 200-word audience profiles. Create 2 or 3 of those for each audience Segment based on the conversations you conducted. These profiles should help you envision the entire broader audience segment. It’s not important that any one profile accurately represents any specific individual. It is important that your 2-3 audience profiles, collectively, help you envision the entire audience segment.
That’s it.
Now, when you’re communicating, or creating content, or planning outreach strategy, use these audience profiles. Write to these audience profiles, for the relevant audience segment.
We love this stuff at Capital Hope Media, and we’d love to help your church communicate more effectively with your various audiences. Schedule a meeting with us, and let’s identify ways we can help improve your results!
