Why You Should Use Video In Faith-Based Marketing To Inspire, Motivate & Unite

Most faith-based marketing is designed to either inspire, motivate or unite people around your mission or cause. Often, you're looking to do all three. Whether it's fundraising, volunteering, attending organization functions or simply trying to form a deeper relationship with God, all the data in the world won't ensure a successful campaign if you don't tap into the emotions that drive their decision making. Having the right data helps you figure out who you should talk to, how you should talk to them, how often and through what media. But, if you want to inspire, motivate and unite a group of people, you need that emotional connection. This is true for all non-profit marketing, but it's especially true when dealing with matter of faith. Faith isn't logic based. It's about believing in something bigger than you. It's a feeling deep down in your soul.

So, why am I spending all this time talking about emotions in a post on how video can help your faith-based marketing efforts? Because nothing conveys emotion like video. You can read powerful stories. You can see powerful pictures. You can listen to powerful orations. All of which are effective. But in video, you can do all three. Video is an excellent storytelling medium. If you're talking to real people about how faith effects their lives or how someone needs your help, video lets you see and hear the emotions behind each person's story.

One of the biggest fundraisers each year for the Detroit Capuchin Soup Kitchen is their annual SOCK event. A highlight of the evening is an emotional video they play right before they hold their big "Feed a Family" donation drive. For the last 6 or 7 years, Yaffe has produced the video for them. It's a good way to tell their story, highlight their faith, show the lives that are changed by the work they do and show the need for more support. The video serves to stir up emotions in the middle of a long dinner event, which inspires the people there and motivates them to donate more right there on the spot.

Capuchin Soup Kitchen – SOCK event video

When the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit embarked on the biggest capital fundraising campaign in their history, one of the first things we did was to create two videos to unite the whole Archdiocese behind the cause and motivate them, one parish at a time, to come together to change lives by donating their time, money and prayers to the campaign. A capital campaign can be a cold issue. There's no emotion behind paying bills and keeping buildings running. We used video to bring that emotion to the campaign, to inspire people that what they were doing was God's work. By coming together they would change people's lives.

We created one video to inspire and motivate the church leadership and get them behind the effort. We created a different video for the parishioners to inspire, motivate and unite them behind this sorely needed and worthy effort. The videos were well received and the campaign's goals were met. You can see one of the videos below.

Archdiocese of Detroit – Changing Lives Together Leadership Video

These were both interview type videos to tell the story and convey the emotion behind it, but there are a lot of different techniques. You can do more traditional storytelling, making it a video short story. You can even simply record your message straight into a webcam or your phone camera, as long as you are conveying the emotions that will persuade your viewer to take action. Have some other examples of great faith-based marketing videos? Or even a favorite non-profit video that does a good job of tapping the viewer's emotions? I'd love to see them! Add them to the comment section.

Mike McClure – feeling inspired and motivated