Media Outreach

As discussed last week, Easter is the most visited day of the church year.  The necessity of avid preparation for an influx of visitors and attendance is no secret.

The shocking statistic below lead me to post an article about the importance of follow up.

Research has shown that almost 90% of guests will return to the church if someone follows up with them on the same day as their visit. Waiting just 24 hours decreases the odds of their return to just under 60%.*

As mentioned last week, we must prepare not only for the visitors in terms of a larger greeting and parking team, but must also focus on the follow up for these visitors.  Most churches have some sort of info/communication card they request visitors fill out.  If you don’t, I’d heavily recommend it!

Now that you have collected data and recruited a team to help with follow up on Easter Sunday (yes ON Easter Sunday not the Monday after), let’s figure out how to contact them.

Here is a variety of ways to connect with your visitors. Keep in mind, your audience will determine HOW you follow up.

• Face to face – I would assume to reserve this for people who have attended church at some point in their past.  This information would be good to capture on an info card.  For one who has never attended a church, it may be too invasive to show up at their doorstep.  If you chose this route, do not knock on doors after dark. People are leery, and rightfully so, of opening a door after dusk.  Do not assume to be invited into their home either…that is presumptuous and rude in many circles of our culture. Expect to offer your thanks, hand over the gift/card and move on.
• Social Networking  – This method would be great for first time visitors.  If you capture social networking information (i.e. check boxes for participants of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc), you can connect on completely neutral territory.  Hosting a family event within a month of Easter makes connection to visitors much easier. Now you can create the event in Facebook and invite people to your family function, allowing them to connect on their terms and timing.  Sending a direct message gives you an even greater edge.
• Mail – This is definitely the most costly of the options, but a hand written note can go a long way. At this point, it is almost counter cultural for someone to sit down and write out a thank you card.  You could opt to send out a post card promoting the continuation of a sermon series or an upcoming event, but keep in mind we want them to know we care about THEM. If all we do is talk about what we are doing, they will be less likely to care about the effort you put into reaching them (i.e. How can you help them?).
• Email – While email is quick and easy, it may not be the best way to say ‘We care about you and would like to see you again’.  With as many spam messages we receive, the last thing we want is to portray that we are “advertising” or “don’t have time to connect with you personally.” I’m not knocking email marketing – it is highly effective – but I may consider using email for the second or third attempt to reach them.  A tip in case you are interested in email marketing, MailChimp.com offers free mass email accounts for email lists less than 500 and its reporting system is GREAT.
• Phone call – I recommend this method for following up with parents if their child attended with another family. This allows you to connect with the parent, thanking them for being able to interact with their child, and start a conversation/relationship with the parent specifically about their son or daughter.  Don’t make calls after 8pm though.  Obviously if they have children, you’ll want to respect the child’s bed time.  Just as with the social networking approach, inviting them to attend a special family event could be more natural as opposed to pressing their attendance on a Sunday morning.

If you decide to follow up the day of, you’ll want to make your visitors and members aware of this at the service. They can opt to leave the card blank if they are uncomfortable being contacted the same day.  You could add a check box to your normal invite card, requesting that people notate whether they would like to be contacted or not.

Please share methods of how the church can follow up with guests.  The body needs to share with each other what is working! Look forward to hearing some great ideas.

*Anderson, Andy. The Growth Spiral: The Proven Step-By-Step Method for Calculating and Predicting Growth Potential in Your Church.

Photo By: Koshyk