the marketplace, marketing is the basic process of communicating a meaningful proposition about a brand that will tap into a basic human need.
Donna A. Heckler brings a wealth of marketing and brand building experience across a variety of industries along with her own deep faith commitment to exploring how marketing and brand building principles can benefit spiritually based enterprises.
This book introduces many fundamental principles that have been time-tested — principles such as the importance of focus, brand clarity, empathy with the customer, simplicity, and consistency. Donna demonstrates through example how these principles help faith-based organizations better connect with their constituencies and help to make a stronger statement of the organization’s principles and values.
The short chapters you will find here weave together, in a very accessible way, contemporary branding concepts with examples of how these concepts have been successfully applied in practice. This book will hold up well over time and serve as a valuable resource over the years.
Brian D. Till
James H. Keyes Dean of Business Administration and Professor of Marketing at Marquette University, coauthor of The Truth About Creating Brands People Love
Author’s Preface
The premise of this book is very simple. I explore how we can take the elements that cause people around the world to become loyal to a brand and use these techniques to help people find God again.
I have spent my career in marketing. My expertise is in creating brands that matter, that are relevant, that are motivating to people. In today’s society, we measure success by gain, and according to that standard I know I succeeded as a marketing professional. Brands I have worked on have sold hundreds of millions — in fact, billions — of dollars globally. You probably know some of those brands: Energizer, Trane, Enterprise, Kimball, Red Cross, the list goes on.
Marketing is very much about human behavior. Why do people do what they do? How can we understand people so that we can guide them to purchase our product, our service, our brand? The end goal is to make people highly loyal to your brand. When they are loyal, they will always use the brand. Moreover, they will suggest your brand to friends and make others loyal to it as well.
As a deeply committed Catholic, I have long wondered what could happen in our Church if we applied the science of marketing to faith, to God. Would the strategies work? Could those in ministry and pastoral positions use the tools that succeed in marketing to build God’s kingdom? Could these strategies help us in our work of saving souls?
I venture to say yes.
About ten years ago, I coauthored a successful book, The Truth About Creating Brands People Love. The book included fifty-one pithy little topics about building brands. In this new book, I take a similar approach. In fact, I pull several of the insights that were most relevant and most effective, and I use them here as part of the framework for how we can talk about marketing God.
For many people of faith, especially those who are pastors or involved in leading ministries, the concept of “marketing God” is troubling at best, or blasphemous at worst. The reality, of course, is that it can be problematic. God is not a product. This book does not speak of marketing God as an end in itself, but as a means to the all-important end of bringing people to God and being loyal to him. I have had the privilege to know and work alongside many men and women who have a deep love of God. Their joy swells from the depth of their souls, and their hearts yearn to share that joy with others. Yet too often they lack the knowledge of how to draw people to faith-based events, let alone to faith. They need tools to get people in the door. That’s where the strategies we use in marketing come in.
That’s why I wrote this book. I hope it provides those sharing the Good News with tools that are relevant in today’s world. I hope that through this book, those of us focused on sharing faith can help more people become loyal to God.
Introduction
God’s Portfolio of Brands
God is big — really big — infinite, in fact. That means we cannot contain God, we cannot hold him in our hand, and we cannot even begin to understand his complexity. Granted, we have guides such as the Bible, the Church, and theologians, but we can never comprehend God. So when we want to “market” our relationship and our insights to draw people to God, what should we do?
Secular brands that we know are usually rooted in tangible items or services that are easy to understand. A battery, for example, fits in the palm of my hand. I know how it works, and I know what it does. It really is quite simple. A Trane air conditioner, while quite a bit bigger, is still pretty easy to grasp. I can see its size and come to understand its complexity. Even when dealing with brands who provide services, not products, I have a sense of what I’m getting. I understand what H&R Block does, for instance: they provide tax preparation services.
Big companies with multiple brands, various products, and a variety of target audiences use what is called a “portfolio strategy” for marketing. When we are considering faith from a marketing perspective, I suggest we look to a portfolio model for insights. In portfolio marketing, the idea is that different products will meet different needs for consumers. One brand does not have to be everything to everyone. In fact, that is a sure recipe for failure. An easy example comes from farming. If you wanted to plant corn seeds one year, you would purchase the brand DeKalb. If you were interested in planting soybeans the next year, you would purchase Asgrow. The same farmer makes the purchases, and he does so from the same company, Bayer’s Crop Science division, but he is able to make his purchases according to his specific needs each year by choosing different brands in Bayer’s portfolio.
We can apply this model when we think about sharing God. When we have a mission or apostolate that shares God, we have to keep in mind that we are part of the whole. There is no one person in our Church who can share everything. Some are very good at sharing and reflecting on Scriptures; others may have a deep understanding of building faith; others may have insights into the role of women in a faith community. People need these understandings at different times in their lives. Your role in your parish, ministry, or apostolate is to be part of this enormous portfolio, all committed to leading people to God when your specialty, gift, or service is needed in their lives.
We cannot answer every little item with our work, or with our messaging. That’s okay. Remember, when we speak of “marketing God,” the one calling all the shots is God. He is the one who sees it all, who understands it all. He knows what the world needs, and you have answered his call, which is why you are here. Our work is to market and communicate our part of God’s brand portfolio as effectively as possible.
Let this book serve as your guide.
Truth 1
The Hardest Part is Done
“All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
— JOHN 1:3–5
The hardest part of marketing is creating demand. It is hard to get people to understand that they want or even need your brand, your product, or your service, so the best marketers are skilled at creating demand.
Honestly,
