Amy Carroll » Marketing Your Message » Marketing Your Ministry Part 1

Marketing Your Ministry Part 1

Amy here..I have a huge treat for you!  My friend Tracie Miles has written an 8 week series on marketing for speakers.  It’s fabulous!  Tracie is a member of the Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker team who has experienced all the questions about marketing that every speaker has and has test-driven the marketing strategies that she teaches.  She is also the author of Reinventing My Rainbow.

Without further ado…here’s Tracie.

Doesn’t the term “marketing your ministry” sound crass, or too business like?

Isn’t ministry supposed to be about spirituality and walking through the doors that God opens? 

Isn’t marketing typically done to try to make ourselves known, raise our platforms, increase business, or just make more money?

Is trying to market my ministry a prideful or ungodly thing to do? 

The above questions are ones that most new speakers struggle with as they face the challenge of balancing their desire to speak, versus the fear of being prideful and self promoting.  I know this first hand, because I struggled with that balance when I first felt called into speaking about five years ago.

Even though I felt sure of God’s call on my life to be a speaker. I vividly remember wondering how in the world anyone was going to know that I existed. I also remember wondering why in the world anyone would ever consider hiring me as their event speaker!

However, my ambition and desire to do God’s will was stronger than my insecurities, so I took the plunge and embraced the mindset that if God had planted this dream in my heart,  that He would bless my marketing efforts to move forward with it!

So I began to take some baby steps – such as creating my own website through Yahoo, developing a brochure, a business card, and a promotional postcard, and formulating a mailing lists/database which I compiled from addresses on the internet.

We often fear that through intensive marketing, we will be overstepping God’s will, pushing our name, and trying to make our own paths.

Although these are valid and normal concerns for someone whose heart is sold out for Christ, I believe that God encourages us to invest in ourselves, just as He invests in us.  When our investment pays off, He gets all the glory. As long as we keep pride at bay, we can feel confident in pursuing God’s will.

Think about it this way.  It does not glorify God for us to acknowledge the spiritual gifts that He has given us, and even be thankful for them – but then never use them. 

God desires that we use our investments wisely – just like the parable of the five talents in Matthew 25 . Although the word “talents” in the parable is referring to money, you can obviously extend the meaning to other areas as well. If you still have concerns, or even if you don’t, I want to encourage you to take some time to read over that parable in your spare time, and pray about how GOD is calling you to begin investing in YOU.

Now that I have dispelled the myth that you can’t invest in marketing your talents, I want to spend the rest of this marketing series giving you some tips on building your speaking ministry from the ground up.  —Tracie Miles

Make sure to come back next week and invite any of your friends that speak.  Next week Tracie will talk about the Four Ws of marketing.

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6 Comments

  1. This post came as a well-timed reminder, Amy. I had started to well – using your services to set myself up because God has called me to speak and I want to be ready. Yesterday I had an email from a church asking me to speak and then I realized I had not updated my website. I had let the doubts creep in – “No one will ask me to speak.” So, I’m off to make the most of the talents God has given me.

    1. Rachel, I love you AND your message! It’s difficult but important to reach that balance of working hard but also trusting God to do His work. I always think about what Lysa TerKeurst says, “I feel called to do everything I can do, and I trust God to do what only He can do.” Love that truth.

  2. I am SOOOOO excited to have found this page and this post! I have been wrestling with this so fervently lately. I have been self marketing my ‘business’ for the last 5 years and have always hated the self promotion part of being a creative entrepreneur (or ‘starving artist’ lol) , and now as I transition into my ministry dream, I was in tears everyday wondering about the balance of humility vs marketing as my desire to speak and minister to women on a large scale grows in my heart. I felt prideful even having thoughts that maybe I could be a speaker! Tracie, this post was seriously God’s loud and lovely voice answering my heartfelt prayer of the last month. THANK YOU. And Thank youuuuuu Lysa! And now to start praying for the finances to use your Next Step services, I can’t wait!
    Peace & joy,
    Sherri Ohler

  3. Tracie Holder says:

    I am so encouraged to hear how you were feeling at the beginning of your journey… the feelings about how anyone will know you existed and why they would hire you. That’s EXACTLY how I feel! I’m brand new to this journey, like so new I have no idea how to get started! I LOVE this site and all the great help on here. That, paired with God’s perfect timing and plan for me, I know will lead me to a very exciting journey. I can’t wait to see where he leads me and am ready for him to start showing me my path :). I like the ideas of the website, card, etc., but not sure how to function budget wise in a career that doesn’t pay until you are actually working (as if there are many jobs that do), but there’s a lot of prep work to be done, like the marketing, training (conferences, books, etc). I’m praying through that, but any tips would be great!

  4. Lorie Hartshorn says:

    Thank you so much for this series on Marketing your Speaking Ministry. It was so helpful! As I am stepping out in faith and obedience to what God has called me to do – this gives me courage and a step by step guide to follow. Although I knew most of this it is so helpful to have it laid out in such a clear way. Thank you!

  5. Amy, this looks wonderful. I am one of those who has a hard time marketing myself. Right now I depend on word-of -mouth and social networking, which has gotten me several engagements, but I want to know more. The conferences are SO expensive. Thank you for offering this advice for folks like me who want to learn.

    With joy,
    Nan Jones