Using marketing as a means to ‘sell’ salvation

Abstract

The adoption of marketing communication strategies is becoming more prevalent in the routing services of some contemporary churches. This paper explores the concept of selling from the perspective of commercial selling to personal selling as many churches have become much more aggressive about the use of marketing communication strategy. However, this study is positioned to draw a contradistinction between motivational speaking and biblical preaching, and ask the question whether the former can be used as a means to ‘sell’ salvation similar to selling a product or service to the consumer. The theoretical framework for this study is integrated marketing theory which was narrowed down to two of its components, direct marketing/selling and personal selling situated alongside rhetorical tools such as Logos, Ethos and Pathos. A qualitative methodology was used to gather the data with fifteen churches in Durban as sample, were selected for the study. The result indicates that although, marketing communication can be used by the church, the effectiveness of the message depends largely on the power of the Holy Spirit as against the power of marketing communication by profit marketers.