Church’s Hyper-Targeted Media Strategy Turns A Negative News Story Into a Positive

For most Churches across the United States, attendance is down and along with it, giving, straining already stretched budgets. The iconic Marble Collegiate Church in the heart of New York city is no exception. However, the church has leaned on its small communications and marketing team to help develop creative ways to engage with its community, within the church walls and beyond. 

Marble’s marketing and PR budget is less than $15,000 a year, and in New York City that means allocating resources wisely. There is no money for a media monitoring database subscription, so it relies heavily on the press relationships it has built on its own over the past few years to help share its messaging. 

In the early evening hours of June 23, 2024, a vandal ripped down the Pride flags hanging on the exterior of the historic Fifth Avenue church and pried off a five-foot-by-four-foot Pride banner that was bolted to the exterior fence. This was especially hurtful to the church’s congregation that has welcomed and affirmed the LGBTQ+ community for more than 30 years. 

Rather than dwell on the act of aggression, the church leadership and marketing team chose to use it to amplify Marble’s welcoming message.

At around noon on June 24, in my capacity as media consultant to Marble and as a church member, I met with Christina Morano Keiser, the church’s Director of Media and Communication, to strategize on how best to share this news with the press. Since Marble’s small communications team has limited bandwidth, especially on a Sunday when we all where many hats, we decided to focus on only two outlets, CBS2 and Spectrum NY1, both of which we have maintained ongoing relationships. 

By 6 p.m., CBS2 Reporter Hannah Kliger was in front of Marble interviewing passersby, and a half hour later, Matthew Morse, Marble’s board chair spoke to her via  Zoom. The quick turnaround resulted in a lead story on the station’s 11:00 news.

Not only did the spot appear on the newscast, but it also simultaneously appeared on the CBS2 website, which maintains more than three million daily views, and on YouTube and  X ( formerly Twitter) for a total potential reach of more than 20 million people.  

News of the vandalism began to travel. By the next day, Joe Kottke, researcher for NBC News, reached out to Marble, and soon a piece appeared on the NBC News website, which has a daily readership of 3.3 million people. NBC amplified the story across its social feeds, including X, Reddit and Facebook, as well as on NBC Out’s  X and Instagram channels, collectively speaking to their more than 20 million followers. 

It continued the next day when Ron Lee, a reporter from Spectrum NY1, interviewed Marble’s Senior Minister, Dr. Michael Bos, about the vandalism for an “Around the Boroughs” feature that ran on June 28 the following week. That spot alone ran every hour for 12 hours, reaching potentially more than 100,000 New York City viewers and making them aware that Marble is an open and affirming church in their community.

In total, coverage of this hate crime reported on by three news organizations resulted in press that potentially reached more than 270 million eyes across all platforms, including pickup from MSN, AOL and Yahoo! News and their affiliated social channels. 

“Of course, we were sad that the church was vandalized during Pride,” Marble’s Morano Keiser says, “but we used the experience to our benefit. Our targeted outreach resulted in multiple positive stories that reinforce Marble’s history as being a wonderfully diverse congregation that welcomes all.”