Marketing Your Music Program - Raising Your Self-Esteem     

        -   Will Sherwood, AAGO, ChM

If you do not praise your own house, it will fall in upon your head! - Arabic proverb

As music leaders and managers on church staffs, our attention and focus should be on the quality of our music, its integration into the services & programs, and managing the choirs & volunteers.  However, some emphasis occasionally needs to be placed on what I call marketing our church music programs.  By programs, I mean the full gamut of musical activities we're involved with and responsible for.  This includes everything from the care & feeding of volunteers to developing and executing long-term growth strategies and instrument maintenance timelines.  Our everyday (and every-week) duties often are so pressing to get all the logistics right, that we lose sight of tending the bigger picture.  Whether you have a simple worship service solo each Sunday or several choirs and concert series, this bigger picture can make or break the future of your program and yourself - your program needs to be recognized and appreciated by the staff & congregation; and you need rejuvenation through stepping back and taking inventory of where you've been, your accomplishments, and what direction to set sails for in the next year or so.

I believe self-esteem is key here.  Although personal (as in psychological) self-esteem is closely related, I'm really talking about the self-esteem of the Music Program as an entity.  On one hand, a program (just like people) can be meek and apologetic and quiet;  yet the other extreme would find boastful and always in-your-face self-accolades and reminders that of course music is the most important and only ministry of the church.  As in life (and choral blend!), it's most effective to strive for balances.  If you and your parishioners feel good about the music program and publicize it in a balanced way, then it will grow and increase in quality and satisfaction.

A solid music program should be held up as a central strength
of any religious community. No apologies.

Most of this marketing concept can be summarized in one word: visibility.   Awareness, carefully presented to parishioners, can increase both the real and perceived effectiveness of your programs.  When people are gently reminded about something, they may care for it more and appreciate it more.  Below are some ways to achieve this without annoying fanfare;  hopefully some of these ideas will mesh with your situation and style.

• Advertise things you do already and educate.  For instance, if you have a special hymn, prelude, or solo (or soloist), list it in your newsletter. Inform your congregation about the music, the people, composers, instruments.  Give them something to be aware of during the music – a connection to the service, an aspect about the music or words, etc.  Perhaps write a newsletter article: “The Making (Singing) of an Anthem”  that describes what all goes into the selection, rehearsal, and performance of music each Sunday.
• Create new, but small, events or activities - Without much effort, you could introduce a recurring pattern of events or special music that even though they are easy to do, they have a big impact on the perception of the music program.  For instance,
  • Hymn of the month, or a hymn-sing (maybe as a prelude)
  • Instrumental prelude once a month
  • Feature one (or more) selections from a larger work as the anthem for contiguous Sundays.  Something like this is exciting for the choir and the congregation, but doesn't require the time-intensive rehearsals to have it ready to perform all in one Sunday
  • Feature a “stop of the month”  or a composer of the month – anything different to catch people’s attention and hopefully allow them to connect more with the music
• Regular (monthly or quarterly) newsletter articles relating to music or music programs or choirs; if you're really ambitious, a quarterly or yearly postcard schedule or brochure informing about the program or calendars.  (Maybe even a web page!) 
                                   Sometimes you have to tell  people
                                   what to look for and what to appreciate.
• Involve others by asking for help.   Even though it's often faster to do things ourselves, there may be hidden benefits to asking others to help with various projects. Focus on recruiting people who often comment on or compliment the music and may not have the time for weekly rehearsals or the musical ambition. Volunteers may appreciate more or understand more about the music program or all that you have to go through, and they may learn a detail or two that they might tell others.  In a recent situation at our church, even though the circumstances were unfortunate, we asked for “pipe brigade” volunteers to help dismantle and carry out the 65 ranks of pipes of our water-damaged organ – and the comments were consistent: “I never knew there was so much in a pipe organ – I learned so much!”    Other examples in more normal situations might be:
  • Help with a mailing, an article (program notes), or other PR-related materials
  • Help with the choral library (filing, inventory, cataloguing on computer)

  Not only does it help with the director's work load, it draws others closer to the music program. Who knows, they might even pick up a folio and start to sing!

• Invite suggestions for anthems or adjustments in some way to the music program or service music
• Request help in fundraising, or collecting monies to purchase a specific item like a set of music scores, instrumentalists, or instruments (or maintenance)
• Provide status reports. Usually status report is a dirty word with most people, meaning red tape or chore.  But here, a carefully written, informative, interesting update can serve many purposes. It might be presented to various committees or staff of the church, and include accomplishments, growth, updates of each part of the program, trends, requests, warnings, editorials.  And who knows, if you communicate and educate, the people in power may reward your programs with increased budgets because they trust and understand your needs.
• Use technology to your advantage.  Use email and web pages to keep choir members, parishioners, and the community informed of your events.  Use word processing programs to dress up any and all printed materials, press releases, schedules, letters, posters that concern the music program.   Even if you hate computers, get someone to do it for you and this face lift will go a long way to raising the quality perception of the program.