Why Your Faith Has Everything to do With Your Marketing
I’m frustrated marketing has become such a dirty word in faith-based circles. It’s a sentiment that has challenged me since Fervor’s inception. There’s an undercurrent of disdain for advertising, a fear that excellent marketing runs counter to our faith. But I’m convicted of the very opposite. Your faith has everything to do with marketing.
Marketing, like money1, can be used for good purposes or for not-so-honest purposes. It’s the heart of the people using this powerful tool that matters most. Marketing can be used for good purposes when it’s used to help bring our callings to life, to serve others, to do great work to God’s glory.
I watch some of my brothers’ and sisters’ businesses and I sit frustrated. I see great organizations that can benefit from great design, great messaging, better web presences, better social media engagement and on and on and on. I sit frustrated that, somehow, we’ve relegated the practice of great marketing to the secular world only. Somewhere along the line, we’ve come to believe that excellent marketing is okay for the secular world but it’s shunned in faith-based circles. That’s not what God intended. Pretty sure that He wrote it down in Proverbs and Psalms, among others.2
If we’ve been given a calling, and an organization in which to do it, then why aren’t we proud to spread the word with excellence? In the same way that you would take pride to paint a house perfectly because it has been given to you to steward, why wouldn’t you do the same for your business’s digital “house,” so to speak?
If you’re running a business, and your faith is rooted in Biblical principles, then you have a responsibility to run that business in the best way you can in all aspects. That includes marketing.
It is neither inauthentic nor un-Christian to be proud of what God has given you. Business and organizations run by people of faith have a moral imperative to strive for excellence in their marketing because that’s what we are called to. People of faith have a responsibility to make sure their businesses are as good their secular counterparts in marketing. The more comfortable we can become with being used, in whatever form He has us, in whatever place he has us, the better the business will be, the better the world will be.
Let’s be clear: we’re not talking about marketing your business on the basis of faith alone. I’m not advocating for you to stick a Christian fish on your door. (Please don’t do that.) We’re talking about just being great at marketing your business. We’re called to strive for the best we can, not use our beliefs as a cop-out to stay mediocre. Your faith is no excuse to leave your marketing to chance.
Fulfilling our calling includes spreading the word about it, and doing so with excellence. Business owners, you have a duty to have an excellent product and to market it accordingly. And as a person of faith, that duty is coupled with a call to stewardship.3
As good stewards of our organizations, we’re called to strive for the best. If you agree to get your marketing strategy on track, then it’s time to start today. Yes, the hardest part is getting started. And I implore you to begin. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and let’s take steps towards a stronger approach to marketing.
And, if I can, I have a personal favor to ask. If you’re a person of faith running an organization and you’ve ever thought to yourself that marketing is evil, or advertising isn’t suited for the Christian family, then let me be the first to invite you for a cup of coffee, and join us over on the Fervor Facebook page to continue the conversation. I’d like to talk about why I believe that’s not true.
1 1 Timothy 6:17-19
2 Psalm 90:17; Proverbs 12:11; Proverbs 12:24; Proverbs 13:4; Proverbs 14:23; Proverbs 16:3
3 Genesis 1:28