EXPLORING CHURCH MARKETING IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

A church is a religious organization which offers a message of salvation through Jesus Christ, while marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others. The term church marketing seems to generate some if not a lot of controversy. The question of whether there is a role for marketing in the church arises. According to professional marketers marketing not only can be applied in the church, it is an absolute necessity. This thesis provides a review of the literature written by marketing academics on this topic. The main objective of this thesis is to study the three components of attitudes (i.e. the cognitive, affective and behavioural components) of the clergy towards church marketing in Singapore. Due to the lack of research in this area in Singapore, a qualitative exploratory research design was employed. A multiple case study was done on five churches; on Catholic church and four Protestant churches of different denominations. In general, it was found that there was a lack of understanding of what marketing really is, however there did not appear to be any strong objection by most of the clergy interviewed towards church marketing. The study also found that there exists churches in Singapore that know what marketing is and use it to a large extent. It is hoped that this thesis will lay the platform and encourage further research in the area of church marketing in the future.