Cheri Pelic Friendship Church

Cheri Pelic volunteers as the communications/marketing coordinator at Friendship Church in Southeast Michigan, drawing from her education and background in Organizational Change Management and Training and Develo... read more

Church Marketing University Review

Background on this Church Marketing University review:  Cheri’s church, Friendship Church in Canton, Michigan, enrolled in Church Marketing University back in October 2017. Here is her perspective from the first 6 months:

#1: Church Marketing University’s strategies help you gain traction.

We felt like we were on a treadmill – a lot of running but no real traction! CMU strategies link all of the pieces of church marketing together to get real traction in your efforts.

Our church is already doing a lot in ministry – you might say ‘all the right things’ — reaching the community with events, solid Bible-based teaching, and making church accessible to people who might not have a pattern of attending church.  However, for all the energy we were expending, we weren’t getting a lot of traction. CMU helps us link all of the parts together to create a comprehensive marketing strategy that includes:

• a multi-media marketing approach that leverages our people and our dollars.
• helping us prioritize strategies so we spend energy on the best things rather than spreading ourselves thin or taking a scattershot approach.

#2:  It’s Like Having an On-Call Mentor.

It’s like having a mentor on call for your church communications and leadership teams. When we can’t think of good ad copy, wonder what the best print or digital promotion strategy would be for an event or activity, or need to understand more about digital or print promotion techniques, we can reach out to CMU.  They’re always happy to offer advice and/or point us to a video that will give us the answers and well-thought-out advice we need.

#3:  They Help Us Stay Up-To-Date with Changing Technology.

Just when we understand things, they change! CMU schools themselves in current church marketing trends and happenings, summarizes and draws conclusions, and then shares those thoughts with us. When FB recently changed their algorithm, CMU quickly learned about the new way of the FB world, created training videos, and showed us how the new philosophy could actually benefit churches rather than hurt them.

#4: They Offer a Fresh Perspective.

So often, when we consult with them on something, we find ourselves saying, “We never thought of that!”

CMU has a unique perspective on things. When our church received a 3-star rating with a glowing review, we were going to ask the reviewer to up the number of stars, but Ryan pointed out that people often look at the low-star reviews of an organization first so they might jump to the 3-star review and then see the glowing words the person submitted with it – we never would have thought of that!

#5: It’s an All-In-One Training/Mentoring Solution, not a “Do-It-For-Me” Service.

When we were first learning about leveraging FB and Google ads, we joined many FB groups to try to learn quickly. We ran into a lot of “Click Bait” that gave just enough information to show us how much we didn’t know and then wanted to sell us the rest through consulting or ‘do-it-for-me’ fees.

This didn’t sit well with us, because our church philosophy is to train our people (volunteers and staff) to be able to do the work ourselves. CMU is the only program we found that offered a comprehensive training / mentoring program for a subscription fee we could afford and easily justify.

Here’s the bottom line of this part of my Church Marketing University review:  You can find a lot of people offering done-for-you solutions, but if you want a service that will actually empower your leadership and volunteers to improve their skills, CMU is the best resource out there.

#6: They Offer a True “Try Before You Buy” Option.

True ‘try it before you buy it’ offer – when they open the Free February (for us it was September), it truly was free, for everything they offer. Not just a taste so you’d wonder if the rest was good, but a look at everything they have so you can assess accurately whether or not it’s for your church. (There’s no doubt in my mind that it IS for your church!)

#7: There’s Always New Content.

There’s a video for that! It’s not a one and done effort for CMU. There’s already a ton of content out there (more than we’ve been able to take in over the last 6 months) and they keep creating more! There’s always fresh ideas and leading-edge thinking and teaching. We’re still trying to figure out how they can create videos faster than we can watch them!

#8: Their Customer Support is Top-Notch.

And if there isn’t a video yet, there will be. On the rare occasion that we’ve had a question that wasn’t already covered in a CMU video, there’s real-time, easy-access support through the CMU FB groups and the CMU folks. They’ve even made a quick video for us for questions that required an example.

#9:  They’re Thoughtful & Generous!

They’re extravagantly generous! We’ve repeatedly said that we really need to be paying CMU more for all of the extra value they give us, beyond the access to the training modules. Recent bonuses include access to a FB ads pack complete with ad copy and strategy.

#10: They’re Gospel-Minded.

They have the same motivation and goals as the local church! CMU has a heart for spreading the Good News through the local church. It’s obvious that they are trying to grow the Kingdom by offering a ton of value for a very reasonable subscription fee. One subscription fee covers everyone in your church!

Learn More:

Want someone else’s perspective?  Check out this list of 10 Things Churches Love About Church Marketing University that we created after hearing feedback from the 1,000+ churches enrolled in our program!

Interested in learning more about Cheri’s church & what they’ve been doing since their first six months of enrollment in Church Marketing University?  Check out this article about their new approach to outreach events based on what they’ve been learning in CMU.