Church marketing ideas for promoting your events so you grow the church

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Do the events at your church create growth?

You can leverage events to grow the church, just like we help Cornerstone Church see new families join the church every month.

The key is to think about building your brand instead of just promoting an event.

Many churches scramble to get promotions together at the last minute for an upcoming event, and they end up not seeing the results they want for the investment they make.

As the person in charge of church communications, you feel frustrated because you are always playing from behind.

You are not using the church money well
Your days are constantly full of stress
You don’t see new guests from your efforts

Churches doing marketing well have a clear system that provides an onramp for new guests to join the church. The system is consistent to allow you to know what needs to be done well in advance, and it gets new guests.

I have served as the communications director for several churches to implement a system that supports the brand with effective marketing. We consistently see an increase in attendance to church events, more people joining the church, and an increase in momentum for the church as a whole.

Benefits of the onramp system:

• It allows us to plan to be sure we are inviting new guests throughout the year
• We are able to budget for the year to steward the church money well
• The church gets results of people taking action because we plan in advance

As a church, you must provide onramps each quarter to invite new guests. An onramp is where you have a new-guest-centered event that you promote well with a marketing budget.

• Determine in advance what events are an onramp to get new guests
• Provide a list of items you will do to market the event to those in the community
• Budget according to the list of promotions you came up with
• Have one of these events each quarter

Check out the promotions we did for the women’s event at Cornerstone Church. The Women’s Conference is an outward-focused event designed to attract new guests to the church.

When you get this right, you’ll have effective promotions to get new guests to come to the church. You will steward the church money well and be more creative in your marketing. Overall, this will be a much more enjoyable process for you, creating positive momentum for the church.

Princess Warrior Poster 22×28

Below is an example of what a promotion package can look like for an onramp event.

• Business card-sized invites (order 1000)
• Screen graphic 1920×1080
• 5 social media graphics 1200×1200
• Email blast graphic
• Facebook cover
• Mailer to send to the church database 6×4 inches (500)
• Poster 22×28 (12)
• Lobby banner 36×60 inches (2)
• Website landing page