In large part due to technological advances and the literal tearing down of walls that divide people groups into little segments that basically hate each other, the playing field in any particular area of the world (including church) is more level (or flat) than ever, but most churches have not yet caught on to this.
Hear me – the “old strategies” of leading church may work.
- Some churches still swear that mass mailers are wildly successful. I believe them.
- Some churches still say that 9am-5pm are the best office hours. I believe them.
- Some churches still proclaim that the sermon is the most important thing a church can offer. I believe them.
The problem isn’t whether I believe them or not, it’s that MILLIONS & MILLIONS of people don’t and while an equal number of people may really love mass mailers, traditional office hours, and have lives that revolve around the sermon, new strategies will reach people that old strategies won’t. I’m not even saying one strategy is better than the other here, but that new strategies are needed to reach unreached people. Period.
Here a few numbers behind how Courageous Church has used new(er) strategies to reach new people.
- Of the 700 people in attendance @ our church grand opening on January 11th, over 65% of them learned of us online.
- Over 50% of our weekly 1st time visitors learn about our church from Facebook or Twitter.
- About 50% of our financial giving takes place online.
- Our Facebook ads have been shown a total of 26 million times. Yes. I’m serious and we rounded down :-)
- A very low ball estimate for the cost of a mass mailer to 26 million people would be $400,000.
- Our ads (which are numerous, targeted, current, etc.) cost us $8,000
Is your church having success with old strategies? Tell me what. How?
Are you using new strategies that are working?
Are you doing anything that you thought would work, but hasn’t produced the results you expected?
PS: I will be speaking more about all of these things @ Bug Conference on July 13th and will be blogging and consulting about these topics really soon.
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I love this. The church always seems to be one step behind. If church were a business there would be no way we could survive.
In the last few months (as a young church planter) I have been focusing more and more on trying to be mindful of my unique surroundings and area. Being in a rural town in western NC most things done by larger city churches have never been tried here. So, we use the old street team approach. We don't spend lots of money on advertising, but instead use flyers and small business cards that we give out and place all around town. It works for us. We make it stand out, simple and very attractive looking. nothing earth shattering with that concept, but it works and our people really buy into getting the word out that way.
A new thing we are trying is the Facebook ads. So cost effective and easy to do. No other church in our area is doing it and traffic to our website is up and people are checking us out because of it. We have been pleased with it.
Being a former radio GM in the area, I was also able to get regular free radio ads and also billboards. The billboards actually worked really well when they first went up. We had a quite a few people find out about the church because of them.
That's just my thoughts and perspective from a more small town approach.
Thanks Shaun!
AGREE TO DISAGREE
Target market and strategic leadership will ultimately determine the course of the ship. Since you fit in generation Y, you can confirm the above strategies work …. FOR YOUR TARGET MARKET also known as YOUR TARGET FLAVOR.
Different strokes for different folks. South side of chicago and many rural areas do not utilize the internet to its fullest capacities and therefore exercise alternative strategies which many would label ARCHAIC.
We are generation Y, HEAR US ROAR, HEAR US ELECTRONICALLY COMMUNICATE but statistics also show around the world that most areas have not translated as quickly. ie.. twitter, blog feeds etc..
finally :: remember :: you will not reach everyone. … talk to people who exercise your flavor …
COURAGEOUS CHURCH is successful because you are communicating to those with similar thinking/marketing/flavor interests — keep up the COURAGEOUS WORK
Hey Shaun, Keep challenging the traditional and old. I think Facebook is an awesome target audience. I planted in an area that is much more rural than Atlanta and have found it is not as successful. I suppose this is old, but Billboards and door knockers have been our most successful forms of advertising! Maybe it's because we only have 1 main thoroughfare in our community or that we are smaller, but it seem to work. We are making a move a little closer to south Knox and I am looking forward to trying things that will make people gasp….any suggestions?
I think that what we're seeing here, and really what Shaun has pointed out in his post, it's different for different churches. Yes, if your audience isn't online, then offline strategies will work best. However here's this scenario – your congregation / members may be online, but not using Twitter or Facebook or even a ning-type community. Simply they don't know how or whatever. Then an internal strategy would be to teach them how (could even have classes where the youth show adults). As they go online in these channels, they may then connect with other members, self-organize based on common bonds/interests and then grow tighter. Oh, and also w/Facebook share content w/ friends outside the church that gets them curious to check out the church. As I teach in my workshop, there are so many ways to spin social media for a church.
Would like to hear more from you on the facebook ads. How it works for you, cost, etc.
Okay Shaun, You inspired me. I relaunched a new Facebook Campaign yesterday and have had over 100,000 impressions and 65 clicks for a total of $18.63. Not bad. Time will tell if we have people come to our weekend worships experience as a result.
I will keep working outside the box!