12 Powerful Tips That Will Help You Reach More People This Easter

Steve Fogg 3rd Mar 2016 Communications

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You can never have enough communications ideas to promote your Easter services. I’m always on the look out for innovative ways to reach more people and create more impact for my church. Why is it especially important at Easter?

Did you know that according to Google, more people search for church than at any other time. 20% of people are undecided about attending an Easter service. That is a huge opportunity for your church!

Here are 12 tips that I hope will help your church reach more people than ever before.

Creative Invitation ideas

Tip #1

One of the best tactics to reach more people at Easter is to arm your congregation with an invitation tool. For us at Crossway it is a simple postcard. Our 2016 Easter postcard is below.

Tip #2

I love what The Oaks Fellowship are doing with buckets. Yes. Buckets. Read more here.

Utilise the power of social media

Tip #3

Social media is the most potent viral communications channel that I’ve ever encountered. The ability to reach new people is staggering. I recently wrote here about how photo booths can supercharge your social reach. This tactic has worked for me time and time again. I highly recommend it.

Tip #4

There is also an insightful article here also about how you can also equip your staff team to spread the message on social media. I love the idea that you can mobilise the core of your community.

Tip #5

Create shareable graphic content for your community. As social networks increasingly create strategies requiring you to pay to reach your audience, a very smart way around their paywall is to equip your community with the graphic assets to share content on their own feeds. More reach with less budget. Who wouldn’t want that?

Tip #6

Use video. Facebook and Twitter have launched an assault on YouTube. Facebook recently surpassed YouTube for the most desktop views per day. Expect mobile to follow soon. To increase for profit businesses and nonprofits adoption of video, Facebook seems to have taken the reach limitor off video—for the moment at least. Exploit it while you can. You can also leverage Facebook Live. Check out how here.

Tip #7

Create a Thunderclap. Create a social media message and a compelling photo to share with the Thunderclap service. Email your congregation and ask them to lend their voice to the post. This is a great way to get a message out at a certain time.

Tip #8

Create a fun hashtag and promote it in your services and your communication channels in the days leading up to your Easter services. Something like #EatMoreEggs or #ThereIsNoSuchThingAsTooMuchChocolate or #HamOrLamb. You get the idea. It doesn’t have to be super spiritual. It’s simply about finding a fun way to engage people. (Pro tip: Initial cap your hashtags so they’re easier to read.)

Tip #9

Celebrate your volunteers. Your church is all about people and many of those people serve faithfully. Why not celebrate your volunteers as they prepare and rehearse for Easter? By tagging them you also tell their friends that your church appreciates them. Oh, and your church is also now in their friends’ feed. That is pretty cool free exposure.

Do something newsworthy

Tip #10

Are you using a helicopter to drop Easter Eggs? Serving people? What interesting things is your community doing that may be a news story? Read more here about how you can help get your story in the news.

Website

Tip #11

If someone visits your website you could create some simple online evites that your congregation can use to invite a friend. Check out these 2 examples from Harvest America and Eaglebrook Church.

Tip #12

Have the service times for your Easter services clearly and prominently signposted. Don’t make it hard for potential visitors to find the right information. Here are seven stunning examples of what different churches have done for their websites at Easter.

Your turn

These are just a few tips that I’ve used and seen used well around at different churches. Got a question or want to share a tip for others this Easter? Please leave a comment below.

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5 Comments

Keith Alberts - March 3rd, 2016 at 3:34 pm
Some great ideas here Steve. In the US, there is an every door direct service to reach all households in a zip code. Here’s a plan to accomplish that for those in the US. http://www.vibrantparish.us/blog/BUILDING-A-VIBRANT-PARISH-BLOG-FOR-YOUR-CATHOLIC-CHURCH/4-step-evangelization-plan
Steve Fogg - March 3rd, 2016 at 4:04 pm
Thanks Keith, what is the effectiveness of direct mail in your experience? I only wrote about what I know works.
Keith Alberts - March 4th, 2016 at 2:18 am
I have not worked directly with churches on this. I have given this as an idea to many customers who have tried it out. Every door direct is challenging to measure. The ones that have done it say their pews seem more full. Is that perception because they’re paying attention or are there really more people there?

I have heard of churches that will offer a gift if they bring the card in with them to Easter or Christmas service for non-members. Mostly the gifts are books. I have also heard of one church who handed guests a rosary made by the children in the faith formation program when they brought the flyer back in. It’s one way to see if people are responding to the flyer.

Another way to measure would be to put a QR code on the mailing to a dedicated url which has a video message from the Pastor inviting them in. Give them a special verbal invitation for a short meet and greet with the Pastor, coffee, and donuts.

I know this doesn’t give the real measurement that marketers are looking for. The Happy Easter flyer I receive each year from the local church is always nice to see however, even if I’m a parishioner at another church.
Sarah - March 15th, 2016 at 1:02 am
So I can answer the direct mail question and how it works because our company works only with churches on their print marketing and we help them with tracking ideas.

QR codes don’t work anymore. No one scans them. Not a good tracking idea.

But in general with our churches they see a 1-3% response with direct mail. We had one church see a 10% response rate after a mailer but that is not normal. But we were still super excited for them.

It is all about the language a church uses on the card, their call to action and their design.
Sweety - March 23rd, 2016 at 8:43 pm
I want share one creative idea to reach more people on this Easter on a budget, i.e video invitations & video greetings. You can create them using inviter.com, it also allows free trail up to 25 guests.