At 9:43am last Sunday morning I had just wrapped up eating breakfast with Brandi at the McDonald’s on our corner. A well known leader was going to be manning the podium at a church near our house. I haven’t visited in several years, so between bites of Southern Style Chicken Biscuit I grabbed my iPhone and Googled the church’s name to hunt for service times.

The first line in Google’s search summary read: “Woodview Church*. Space is limited and on a first come basis” [Emphasis theirs]. Really? What a first impression.

As I thought about why just reading one line had made me feel so suspicious about the church I came up with the following marketing principle. The first half is obvious:

A good business, church, or other organization is too valuable to cheapen by paid programming style marketing, which usually backfires.

The second half, the “why”, perhaps not as much:

Despite the best goals, in our advertising saturated age, falsely advertising small messages makes an entity’s larger message which is true appear as if it is just trying to look true. “They exaggerated a small message – who’s to say they aren’t doing the same for their main message” people think, or more often, just intuitively feel.

I’d like to write them and suggest: Don’t use obvious “false popularity marketing” (limited quantities…must act now!…by the way the last time I visited the church it wasn’t full). It doesn’t work. Worse still, it’s counter productive and reduces precious trust. Instead, why not be authentic and communicate the values of your time-tested message? It’s a compelling story. 

I found Woodview Church’s example so striking because if any group should rely on truth and frankness to spread their message, it should be the Christian church. Our unusual gospel narrative – that your heavenly father wants to know you personally and that a man named Jesus lived, died, and rose again – is unique and begs for candor. An organization’s messages are too important to sell like Flowbees or Ginsu knives.

*I changed the name.