[terzdesign]

Churches have been the second biggest entity for revenue in my business. Many of my sales from them come because of retreats they go on or youth groups, vbs's, etc. I want to start advertising to more in my area however, but I'm not always sure who to contact in the church. If it's a synagogue then forget about it! Who has the buying power in a typical religious establishment, the lead pastor? Anyone have any selling advice to marketing to churches?

 

[binki]

It depends on the church and it's size but the pastor is a place to start. Sometimes they have a service organization or club and you would want the leader of that club.

 

[samdkelley]

We keep a fresh sheet with colors, sizes and prints with prices in front of the pastors at about 100 churches in our area.. seems to work well with a once or twice a year visit..

 

[jeannekay]

Here it's important to be in contact with the leaders of the different groups. The youth pastor, the children's director, etc. The individual departments usually have their budget to spend as they need, so the lead pastor doesn't have as much say in event t-shirts.

 

[bisondisc]

I would definitely look through the contacts on the church website to find out who the best person to contact is.

 

[samdkelley]

I would definitely look through the contacts on the church website to find out who the best person to contact is.

Good Ideas.. Do any of you put art work together before you approach them as a selling tool? We ended up with 70% of the church business by showing what we could do for them like this.

 

[latitude42]

Must be in the Bible belt... the only churches who have contacted me are looking for FREE shirts for their events... go broke doing too much of that!