America’s religious institutions are centers for community activity that extend well beyond worship services. Churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques focus on the full range of human experience from birth, childhood, marriage, family, and death. They commonly provide auxiliary programs related to education and health. In addition, they are typically housed in large, permanent facilities that require supplies, equipment, furniture, and maintenance services.

You may think of the neighborhood church as gathering place for religious events, but they frequently have sophisticated audio-visual systems, commercial kitchens, libraries, classrooms, playgrounds, even nursing stations.

MCH’s focus is on institutions, and therefore our church database is kept tight; our compiling process is focused on churches with denominational affiliations, regular meeting places, and scheduled services. These institutions not only have significant needs for products and services, they are also more likely to have sufficient income to make purchases.

It’s common for B2B marketers to segment businesses based on their sales volume, number of employees, or number of years in business. When you think about it, none of these attributes apply well to churches. For example, a church might have only two paid employees, but have annual expenditures of millions of dollars. For direct marketing, it’s far more effective to segment churches by the size of their congregation and the wealth of the area they serve. The vast majority of companies will find that large churches in wealthy areas are far more likely potential buyers than small churches in low-income regions.

For most offers, the primary clergy person is the right target for marketing efforts. The pastor (or priest, rabbi, imam, etc.) usually has final authority on most purchase decisions. Churches have fairly simply organizational structures that allow direct mail marketers to effectively use title slugs. A catalog sent to the music minister, vacation Bible school director, or custodian is almost certain to reach the proper decision maker.

There are timing considerations in the religion market. In Christian churches, the major holidays of Easter and Christmas prompt an influx of giving from the congregation and also spur the purchase of seasonal goods. In addition, most Christian churches of modest size have summertime vacation Bible school programs that serve a large number of children. These programs are often built around craft projects, novelty items, music, and summer activities.

MCH has helped marketers sell to religious institutions for decades. We’re prepared to analyze your offers and make a free recommendation to target churches with a response-driven marketing campaign.

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