The Final Marketing Push

10 Promotional Boosts for Your Final Marketing Push

The plan works when you work the plan. Promoting your launch is not just about spending money. You have to be willing to invest in advertising leading up to your launch day, and you also have to hustle. There is a grind in your final marketing campaign’s weeks and days, but it will pay off on launch day if you are willing to work at it.

Here are ten strategies you can use to gain an additional boost for your final marketing push.

01. The Rule of Seven

• You need seven interactions before you get a transaction. In the church world, that would be seven contacts before they visit.
• We want to get in front of as many people as possible as often as possible. Do everything we can do to reach as many people as possible, but everything points back to one thing: the website.

02. Your Website

• Before you make your final marketing push, you need to make sure you switch your pre-launch website to your full website.
• Front and center on your website should be your launch date, service times, and location.
• Registration for kids’ ministry should also be available on your website. This will help the registration lines tremendously on launch day.
  Everything on your website should be designed with first-time guests in mind.

03. Get Feedback on Your Promotional Material

• What do people who do not go to church think about your marketing material?
• Do not just hear what church people think. Ask some people who are not yet involved in a church.
• Know thyself: “Know what you’re good at and lean on that. Know what you are not good at and hire someone to do that.” – Marc Poland, Discover Church

04. Mailer

• Mailers have a higher return on investment than social media marketing, but you do not have to choose one or the other. Do both.
• Have your mailer go along with what people are thinking about and touch on a felt need.
• It is not just the quantity of mailers but the quality of the mailer. Get feedback from those who have sent mailers in the past. Run it by your coach.
• “We sent 150,000 oversized mailers in Philadelphia and had 450 people on launch day, and almost a year later are still adding people to the team from the mailer. At least ten people on our leadership team now came from the mailer.” –Marc Poland, Discover Church
• “The largest single reason people showed up on launch day was because of the mailer.” – Joe Adams, Manna Church
  Remember: Have the mailer point to the website.

05. Social Media Advertising

• Do multiple ads on multiple platforms, each targeting different types of people.
• “Everyone wants to be known/belong and to have purpose/reason to exist. No one can help people with this more than Jesus, so we based all of our ads around those two ideas.” – Joe Adams, Manna Church
• “You should do at least two posts a day starting nine days out only talking about launch day. We used images from preview services and encourage people on our launch team to share as much as possible on their social media platforms.” – Joe Adams, Manna Church
• Reminder: Keep communicating where you are meeting and when the launch taking place.
• Share a post on the morning of your launch day: “We are meeting today and cannot wait to see you! Be here (location) at (service time)!”

06. Communicate Expectations

• Let people know what they can expect from your church. Do not assume people already know what kind of church you are and what your culture is.
• Take a video of the setup and show them what you are preparing for them.
• If you want people with kids to come to your church, prioritize communicating what they can expect in the kid’s spaces. Remember, you are asking them to leave their kids in a different room than they will be in when they have never met you or been to your church before.

07. Personal Invites

• Person-to-person invites will be one of the top reasons people attend launch day and will be the leading reason people continue to visit after launch day.
• Create a budget for invites: Let your team know you do not just want them to invite people but also to take them out to lunch. Reserve $1,000 for people to take friends out to lunch and invite them to church.
• Print out small square invite cards that people can hand friends and family to use when inviting people.
• Sharing social media posts is free and highly effective. Make sure your posts are sharable and encourage your team to be online evangelists and share as well.

08. Be Visible

• Every weekend leading up to launch, be visible in your community doing outreach and community engagement.
  • Buy school supplies for elementary schools. For example: buy boxes of crayons to give to kids in elementary schools and include an invite card.
    Pay for people’s meals in restaurants in your neighborhood and give them an invite card.
  • Go to a grocery store and give out gift cards with an invite card as they enter.
  • Give away gas at a gas station and hand them an invite card. “One person pulled up to the gas station with an empty tank of gas and had forgotten her wallet at home. She had no idea how she was going to get home that day. We bought her gas and saw her on launch day.” – Marc Poland, Discover Church
• Video all of these outreaches and show them on your social media. If someone attends or joins your team from one of these events, then share that story!
• SWAG – Give away shirts, coffee cups, whatever that keeps your church visible leading up to launch.

09. Get Your Team Involved in Inexpensive Outreaches

• Outreach does not have to take away your team’s focus from launch day. Many inexpensive, low effort outreaches can make a significant impact. Here are some ideas:
• Give away packs of gum.
• Give away bottles of water.
• Give away dog treats at a dog park. “We now have someone on our leadership team that first heard about Manna Church when someone gave them a bag of dog treats at a dog park.” – Joe Adams, Manna Church
• Buy McDonald’s Sundaes gift cards ($1) and hand them out to people as they enter the restaurant.

10. Keep the Momentum Going

• On the Monday after launch, start planning to promote your second service.
• Take the best picture of your launch day you can find and post it with something like this: “Did you miss the launch this Sunday? Don’t worry. You can join us next Sunday (time and place).” Then boost it and ask your team to share it.

This content was sourced from the ARC Coaching Webinar, “The Final Marketing Push,” with Joe Adams of Manna Church in Colorado Springs, CO, and Marc Poland of Discover Church in Philadelphia, PA. You can view this video in the ARC Resource File Library under training videos.