I am wrestling with something and hoping to get some feedback from you guys that read this…feel free to reply to this message or e-mail me at jarretjames@gmail.com.
Here is my dilemna…how do you advertise/market church? 20 years ago churches would send out flyers, knock on doors, and get a pretty good response from it. I have found especially where we live (GTA-Greater Toronto Area) that kind of advertising is just not doing much if anything.
I am curious what you think. If you are a church-goer what is your church doing that is successful. If you do NOT go to church I really want to hear from you…what-if any-kind of advertising from a church would appeal to you? What would a church have to say or do to “peak your interest?” And conversely, what kind of church marketing/advertising are you unresponsive to?
Thanks for your thoughts and help. Like I said, either respond to this message or e-mail me at jarretjames@gmail.com.
I will tell you what does NOT work – a church that Chris and I visited a handful of times back when we were looking, oh say 2006, keeps sending us their letters. They aren’t postcards that say “we’re having this great service, come join us!” …. no, it is letters addressed to church family. So frustrating. Do they not check their membership list and do they not know if they haven’t had a visitor in 3 years?
That is sad…but kinda funny to me. Thanks MB
I do go to church but I can tell you what peaked my interest when I started going to HopePark.
It was simple things….First I noticed window stickers in cars…still to this day I see the old stickers in windows that say “Yeah God”. It was catchy and made you wonder.
The other thing we still do is t-shirts. They are walking billboards and if the designs are really cool they grab interest.
Finally, hold community events. We are truly blessed to have an amazing music program led by Lionel Cartwright and we constantly have concerts and such. For example, 4th of July Concert with free food and fireworks for the entire area. Awesome event and a ton of people get to come see what we are about.
Good luck and if I can help more please let me know.
Great stuff Joe. I like the window sticker idea alot.
I contemplated wearing my “Bridge” shirt out and about to advertise for the church… I think when we get the website printed on the front it would give anyone that notices the shirt a place to go to find out more info…
the stickers are a great idea. kinda like the car magnet thing…. magnets might be better because they are removable. either way, great idea joe.
the flyer thing peaks my interest just because i keep an eye out for that sort of thing. but what i find about the flyers is that they are VERY intimidating to non-believers and loaded with stuff that is very confusing to understand.
the 4th of july concert is also a great idea. maybe we can tie our picnic idea into a canada day event? i know i’m not much help as i’m just commenting on everyone else’s posts… but just wanted to throw my two canadian cents in!
~Steve