Church Marketing Sucks

One of the great things about Christmas is that people who don’t normally go to church are inclined to go during Christmas if they are asked or given the opportunity to go. So we need to leverage this and to promote our Christmas series and events so those who are hurting and broken have the opportunity to receive the love our of Savior.

So let’s talk about six ways you can get the word out to these people:

1. Mail

Send good ol’ mail to both your regular attenders and your community.

Church Mailing List
I know several churches are going away from this, but I still believe a large, nicely designed mail piece (something like 6.5” x 9”) increases brand awareness and validity of the professionalism of your church. Send this to everyone on your mailing list. Encourage them to invite their friends.

You still have time to get some postcards printed. GotPrint has a good rush service available.

Direct Mail
USPS has rolled our their Every Door Direct Mail service, which lets you simply enter your address, ZIP code, or city and state for your target areas. They’ve got a great tool to help you narrow down your audience, which will also help you know costs.

Lumpy Mail
Consider sending lumpy mail. People open lumpy mail. Don’t you always open that piece of mail even when you know it’s junk mail because you know there is something different inside? This could simply be throwing in a small candy cane or something that is branded with your Christmas teaching series name.

Ideas of items that you could put into an envelope to make it lumpy:

• Balloons
• Invite Cards
• Lifesavers
• Pen
• Christmas Bow

2. Peer To Peer

A majority of people say they attend church because of someone they know. Put a tool in the hands of your attenders to help them invite their family, friends, neighbors and coworkers.

Invite Card
Design a small print piece that you pass out for a couple of weeks before your Christmas teaching series or event starts.

Ideas:

• Business Card Size Invite Card
• 3” Round Invite Card

Home Delivery
Put together a Christmas package that your key leaders can hand deliver to families in the church inviting them to your Christmas teaching series or events. This sound like a lot, but if you have a church of 200, get 20 people to delivery them to 10 families. This would probably take them an afternoon. If you are larger just scale those numbers. A church of 2,000 would need to get 200 leaders to deliver to 10 families. Any of your leaders should be able to do this, from ministry leaders, children’s workers, small group leaders, pastors, hospitality volunteers, etc.

Ideas of items for the Christmas packages (include invite cards and promo material with them):

• Christmas cookies
• Christmas candy
• Popcorn

3. Micro-Site

Design a micro-site for your series or event. Develop some good SEO for the site that pinpoints your target audience. Think through keywords your audience may be searching for during the holidays, and make sure those are built into your site.

Keywords that they may be searching for:

• Depression during the holidays
• Help with in-laws at Christmas
• Christmas budget
• Kid Christmas events

Be sure the site includes a welcome video, ways they can share the event with others, social media integration, dates and times of event, and link to your main church website.

4. Facebook

Buy some advertising that is directly targeted for your specific  audience. Create a profile and cover photo that goes with your series (the Facebook graphic dimensions cheat sheet might help). Design artwork that is easily shared by your attenders. Definitely post it on your church page and encourage your people to share it. You might even give them directions for how to share.

5. Community Christmas Events

Find out what’s going on in your community that you can get involved with, have a presence and pass out invites. Find local holiday parades, Christmas light displays and concerts. Find ways to partner with them, advertise at the event or get your foot in the door in other ways. Be creative and don’t be afraid to ask.

6. Email Marketing

Email is not dead. Email typically gets much higher click through rates than social media. Plus your email list should be your tribe. It’s a highly targeted list of people already engaged with your church. Reach out to them, point to the ways you’re promoting your Christmas services and encourage them to invite their friends.

What are some ways you are promoting Christmas this year?

More Christmas Ideas:

• Check out God Rest Ye Stressed Communicators: Planning Christmas for Your Church for more Christmas help.
• The church marketing Christmas elves are ready to help. Check out even more church Christmas ideas for help with planning, promotion and inspiration.