Church Marketing Sucks

There is something about the Christmas season which is unlike any other season on the Christian calendar. Many people just seem to be in a better mood for starters, and in that there is an openness to the deeper meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it.

For churches, this means there is a great opportunity to get your message out there on social media during the Christmas season. But there are some things that you need to put in place and consider.

1. Plan Your Content Early

Did you know that most stores plan their Christmas sales in August? Because they need long lead times for ordering stock and have a supply chain that takes time to arrive, it is essential for them to plan. While we don’t need to roll out Christmas on the heels of Halloween like retail, we can learn from them and create content well ahead of schedule to maximize our impact on social media.

You can create a schedule for your Christmas season around key services and events at your church. Think about the kind of content you want ahead of those services and events. Also think about the content you’ll create at the services and can reuse on social media after the event.

2. Don’t Just Promote Your Services

There are many ways you can promote your services in a way that isn’t just saying ‘attend our service.’ You can create engagement posts that just have a link to your service page. Rather than just ‘come to our service,’ it’s Christmas content that points to your website.

I’ve seen one church pastor use social media to invite the wider community along to church. This is something that can be easily done if you have a competent and confident speaker. Make it fun and inviting, and watch your existing audience share it.

People are more likely to share something if it offers more than service times.

3. Create a Landing Page

One mistake I see many churches make is that they have engaging social media but it doesn’t link into their key events/services of the year. Christmas is such a huge opportunity. I would highly recommend that you create a page on your website especially for those special services with directions on how to get to your church, service times, what to expect and who the service is for.

4. Schedule Early

Once you have created your content you can now pre-schedule and upload your social media content ahead of time according to how you have created your content calendar. This way you can focus on engaging with your audience when the posts are live online.

Think ahead and remember how busy December is. You don’t want to be scheduling posts then. Get it done early.

The Social Opportunity

Social media is a great opportunity to build bridges into the wider community that wouldn’t necessarily attend your church. In relative terms it is cheaper and more effective than traditional media in reaching new audiences and is low hanging fruit just waiting to be used. Connect with your community on social media this Christmas.

More Christmas Ideas:

• Check out God Rest Ye Stressed Communicators: Planning Christmas for Your Church for help with Christmas.
• For more Christmas help, the church marketing elves have been making a list (and checking it twice) of Christmas ideas and resources.