Church marketing director: job description, salary, and responsibilities
Table of Contents
- What does a church marketing director actually do?
- How much does a church marketing director make?
- How does the role change with church size?
- What skills and qualifications do churches screen for?
- How do you get hired as a church marketing director?
- Frequently asked questions
- Is this role a fit for you?
Churches tend to create this job only after they hit a wall. There's a bulletin, an app, three social accounts, a website nobody has touched since Easter, and a volunteer who burned out in October. Somebody has to own all of it. That somebody usually ends up with "marketing director" or "communications director" on the office door.
A church marketing director owns how a church communicates with its congregation and its community: brand, website, social media, email, video, signage, and paid advertising. Pay commonly falls between $56,000 and $96,000 depending on church size and region. In practice, much of the job is managing volunteers and refereeing requests from other ministries.
Key takeaways
| Church marketing director | At a glance |
|---|---|
| What does the job cover? | Brand, website, social, email, print, video, and guest communication, plus managing volunteers and freelancers |
| What does it pay? | Median about $68k across marketing roles listed on ChristianJobsList.com with complete salary ranges (n=87, as of October 2026) |
| Who hires for it? | Mostly churches above roughly 250 weekly attenders, plus Christian schools, camps, and ministries |
| What background works? | Agency, nonprofit, or in-house marketing experience plus real church volunteer time |
| Biggest surprise for new hires? | A large share of the work is internal politics and calendar triage, not campaign work |
What does a church marketing director actually do?
A church marketing director translates a church's mission into everything people see before they ever walk through the door, and everything they see once they're inside. The job splits roughly into four buckets.
Owning the brand and the message. One voice across the website, social accounts, sermon series graphics, signage, and the printed handout. That usually means writing or approving a style guide and then defending it when a well-meaning ministry leader wants a different font.
Running the channels. Website updates, weekly email, social calendar, livestream promotion, app push notifications, and the Google Business Profile that decides what shows up when someone searches your church's name at 10pm on a Saturday.
Guest experience and growth. Series launches, Christmas and Easter campaigns, invite cards, local paid ads, and the follow-up sequence for a first-time visitor who filled out a connect card. Attendance from these pushes is the number elder boards typically ask about.
Managing people you don't employ. Volunteers shoot the photos. A freelancer edits the video. The student ministry intern runs one of the Instagram accounts. Directing that group without direct authority is the skill that separates a good church marketing director from a frustrated one.
The part nobody writes into the job description is that you become the traffic cop for internal requests. Every ministry believes its event deserves the stage announcement, the email header, and the top of the homepage. Saying no gracefully, and having a published process for how requests get submitted, is most of the first year.
How much does a church marketing director make?
Across the 87 marketing roles with complete salary ranges posted to ChristianJobsList.com over the past year (as of October 2026), pay typically runs $56k to $96k, with a median around $68k. Those figures come from ranges that churches, ministries, schools, and Christian nonprofits published in their own listings on our board. We don't use surveys or self-reported pay.
Communications roles, which overlap heavily with marketing titles, show a median near $62k across the 30 listings with complete salary ranges, with a $50k to $83k spread. That N is small, so treat it as a directional signal.
For broader context, all 10,547 past-year listings on our board with complete salary ranges carry a median of $62k, so marketing sits modestly above the middle of the faith-based job market.
| Source | What it measures | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| ChristianJobsList.com listings, marketing (n=87) | Complete ranges, October 2026 | Median $68k, typical $56k-$96k |
| ChristianJobsList.com listings, communications (n=30) | Complete ranges, October 2026 | Median $62k, typical $50k-$83k |
| ChristianJobsList.com, all listings with ranges (n=10,547) | Complete ranges, October 2026 | Median $62k |
| ZipRecruiter, church media marketing director | Modeled national estimate, May 2026 | Average $104,448 |
| BLS, marketing managers, all industries | Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 | Median $166,790 |
Aggregator estimates for this title run far above what churches publish in their own postings, probably because those models blend in corporate and agency titles alongside a handful of large multisite churches. When you're setting your own number, the published ranges are the more reliable anchor. You can browse current openings and ranges on the Christian marketing jobs board or check the wider faith-based salary data before an offer conversation.
For negotiating, note that over the past year, 54% of our 20,564 listings listed a salary or hourly rate. If the posting you're looking at doesn't, asking for the band early is normal.
How does the role change with church size?
Church size changes this job more than any other factor, including region. The 2020 Faith Communities Today survey of more than 15,000 congregations found a median US congregation of about 65 weekly attenders, with roughly 70% under 100 and only about 10% above 250. That distribution explains why full-time marketing roles are relatively rare.
Under 100 attenders. There is no marketing director. A volunteer or the church administrator posts to Facebook and updates the website. If money exists, it goes to a contractor for 5 to 10 hours a month.
100 to 250 attenders. A part-time hire appears, often 10 to 20 hours a week, frequently combined with another role like office administration or worship tech. Hourly pay in this band is common, which is why annualized figures for church marketing work vary so widely.
250 to 800 attenders. The first full-time seat. You'll do the strategy and the execution: writing the email, designing the graphic, editing the reel, and sitting in staff meeting defending the calendar.
800 to 2,000 attenders. The job shifts from producing the work to directing it. A designer, a video person, and a social coordinator may report to you, and you own a larger advertising budget.
Multisite and megachurch. The title often shifts to director of marketing and communications or chief communications officer, with campus-level staff and a brand system that has to hold across locations. These are the roles that push toward the top of the published range.
Plan on working in person, since only 5% of our 20,564 listings in the past year are remote. Marketing is remote-friendly in the corporate world, and mostly is not here. Church work is Sunday work, and Sunday happens in a building.
What skills and qualifications do churches screen for?
Church marketing director job descriptions cluster around a fairly consistent set of requirements, and many postings ask for a bachelor's degree in marketing or communications plus around five years of experience. In practice, hiring teams weigh the portfolio and the church fit more heavily than the diploma.
- Hands-on channel work: website CMS (WordPress, Squarespace, or a church-specific platform), email tools like Mailchimp or Flocknote, and social scheduling. You will be in these tools weekly, along with any AI writing assistants the church approves.
- Design and video fluency: Canva at minimum, Adobe Creative Cloud preferred, plus enough video editing to turn a 38-minute sermon into a usable 45-second clip.
- Church management software: Planning Center, Pushpay, or Tithe.ly. Knowing how a connect card becomes a follow-up email sets you apart.
- Paid advertising basics: Meta Ads Manager for local reach, Google Business Profile, and Google Ad Grants (eligibility rules for religious organizations are narrower than most applicants assume, so check before promising it).
- Analytics you can explain to non-marketers. An elder board does not care about impressions. Translate to first-time guests, connect cards, and giving.
- Volunteer leadership: recruiting, training, and keeping a creative team that isn't paid.
Churches also expect alignment with a statement of faith and, in many cases, membership or regular attendance. That requirement is standard across faith-based hiring and typically comes up in the first interview, so read the posting carefully before you invest in an application.
How do you get hired as a church marketing director?
Getting hired as a church marketing director comes down to proving two things at once: that you can run marketing, and that you understand church culture. Candidates who have one without the other lose to candidates who have both.
Four things that move applications forward:
- Bring a portfolio that shows outcomes. A sermon series brand, the launch email, the paid ad set, and what happened to attendance or connect cards. Three complete campaigns beat thirty graphics.
- Show a 90-day plan in the interview. An audit of their website and social, one thing you'd fix in week one, and one thing you'd deliberately leave alone for six months. Almost nobody does this, and search teams remember it.
- Fix something for a local church first. If you're coming from the corporate side, volunteer to rebuild a small church's website or run their Christmas promotion. It's the fastest way to earn the church-fit half of the decision.
- Widen the search beyond churches. Christian schools, camps, universities, and relief organizations hire the same skill set, often at a higher band. Development teams in particular overlap heavily, so it's worth scanning Christian fundraising jobs and operations roles alongside marketing openings.
Ask about budget in the interview. A church that wants a marketing director but has no advertising budget, design software licenses, or plan to replace the volunteer who left is asking you to be a solo producer with a director's title. That mismatch is a common reason these hires end in year two.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a church marketing director and a communications director?
A church marketing director focuses on reaching people outside the church through branding, advertising, and guest acquisition. A communications director leans toward internal and all-church messaging: announcements, email, the calendar, and cross-ministry coordination. At most churches under 1,000 attenders the two titles describe the same job with different labels.
Do you need a marketing degree for church marketing jobs?
No degree is legally required, and many church marketing directors come from design, journalism, or ministry backgrounds. Many postings list a bachelor's in marketing or communications as preferred, along with about five years of experience. A portfolio of campaigns with measurable results usually outweighs the specific degree on your transcript.
Is this a pastoral role?
Usually not, since the position is classified as non-clergy staff and doesn't require ordination or a seminary degree. Some larger churches do add pastoral responsibilities such as teaching, counseling, or leading a small group, and a few title the role "communications pastor." Check the job description, since compensation and expectations differ.
Can the role be done remotely?
Rarely as a full remote role. Only 5% of the 20,564 jobs posted on ChristianJobsList.com in the past year are remote, and marketing roles at churches tend to require Sunday presence for photography, livestream, and guest experience. Hybrid arrangements with two or three office days are more realistic than fully remote work.
How much does a part-time church marketing job pay?
Part-time church marketing roles are usually paid hourly, and the range varies a lot by region and church budget. Published full-time marketing ranges on ChristianJobsList.com run $56k to $96k (n=87), so prorating that band gives a reasonable starting point for a 15 or 20 hour week.
Is this role a fit for you?
The job rewards people who like variety and can hold a standard without a big budget behind them. You'll write, design, edit, plan, and referee. On a good week you'll watch a first-time guest show up because of something you made, and that's a different kind of scoreboard than a lead-gen dashboard.
Go in with clear eyes about pay and resources. The published ranges say this work is valued but not lavishly funded, and 88% of our listings come from nonprofits, where budgets stay tight. If that tradeoff sounds right, start by finding a church whose mission you'd promote for free, then negotiate like a professional.
Discover Christian job opportunities across every industry at ChristianJobsList.com. You can find work in education, healthcare, counseling, finance, marketing, and more at Christian schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and companies that share your faith and values.