By: Lush Banners
1. Use Social Media
We are in a digital age and a lot of information is found online these days. Social media is a great start, especially Facebook. You can create an online presence for your church and drive engagement by creating a group message, recording live videos of services and creating events for people to share and invite others. Make sure to provide high quality content that displays your church’s culture. You want to highlight what makes your church unique.
2. Get Your Message Out
Communication is key when it comes to churches and churchgoers. Text and email can be highly effective ways to get your message across directly. You want to make sure to use text only for special announcements like events as you don’t want to spam people. Make sure to collect emails at events and whenever convenient for everyone involved. You can use an email platform like MailChimp, Constant Contact or AWeber to name a few. Automating emails will allow you to focus on simplifying and streamlining your message. You can hire an in-house designer or hire a freelance designer if you don’t have the need or budget to have someone in-house. Either way you go, make sure your emails are well designed and match your church’s brand.
3. The Power of Visualization
While text and email can be effective, a picture is truly worth a thousand words. A video is even better. Creating and sharing moving content is vital for church advertising. Hire a photographer or two if you can and have them capture the spirit of your church’s experience. Create a gallery on your church’s website, and share photos and videos to your church’s social media accounts. Create a YouTube channel for your church and build up your collection of videos. You can even go the extra mile and shoot an advertisement video for online and television placement.
4. Use Printed Promo
Well designed print collateral can go very far in keeping your church on your target market’s mind. Make sure your church members, both old and new visitors leave your service or church event with some sort of print collateral. You can use this as an opportunity to announce upcoming events, share inspiration for the week and pass on other useful information to your congregation.
5. Create a Compelling Church Website
Most people will want to see what your church is about before attending and will want to know as much information as they can find out. A website is a great way to centralize and share information about your church like your ideals, beliefs, location, service times, and announcements. As mentioned before, pictures and videos play a huge role in the quality of your site. Websites like Fiverr and Freelancer help you connect with web and graphic designers, but if prefer working in person, you can hire a freelance designer within your budget to build you a stunning website.
6. Encourage Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of mouth is still one of the most effective ways to convince someone. Encourage your church members to invite their friends and family to church service and hold events that the public might enjoy. Having a mix of both casual and worship events is a great way to get new people accommodated to your church family and a great way to build community within your congregation.
7. Use Signage to Gain Attention
Traditional Signage is a great way to call the attention of many people over time. Depending on your needs there is a great variety of signage types. Again design is important here, so leave it up to a designer. Feather banners are a common and effective way to catch attention from the street and tie into your church’s visual identity together into the world in a more physical way. There are a ton of different types of displays like retractable banners, pole flags, and sidewalk A-frames. A neat idea to set your church apart would be using an LED Backlit display on stage to light up the entire experience.
