Every church has events to gather their community and add value to people in some way. So getting the word out about the events is important! 

But marketing is not the only thing you should rely on to get people to come to your events. 

Marketing is the activity and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging your offerings that have value for your community and potential community. 

In other words, marketing is how you communicate about your church and share what you are offering with the world. Marketing is not "outreach" necessarily or the only thing to rely on to get people to come to your events.

So the focus of this post is not on how to get more people to come to your events, but how to communicate effectively about your events and other “offerings” so that the right people come.

So I'll give the disclaimer that, nothing will replace person to person outreach, care and follow up. 

Marketing can attract more people because the better you communicate, the easier it is to get the word out.

That being said, marketing is an important piece of the full picture that will supplement what you do. 

Let’s dive into 6 strategies to successfully market your church event to the world.

Table of Contents

1. Map Out Your Promotional Dates on Your Marketing Calendar in Advance 
2. Best Channels to Market Your Church Event
3. Fine Tune Your Registration Process 
4. How to Promote Your Church Event Without Feeling Like a Salesman 
5. How to Get People to Sign Up Early for Your Church Event

Church Marketing Strategy #1: Map Out Your Promotional Dates on Your Marketing Calendar in Advance 

First, make sure you have a Marketing Calendar that can be updated in real time and shared among your staff.

Think of your Marketing Calendar as your overall guideline that sets the course for your social media, printed marketing collateral, promo videos and other marketing material. 

I’ve created a list for you below of the important promotional dates to map out for every event.

For the purpose of this example, let’s say we are promoting a larger event for 30 days. You can always scale back a bit for a smaller event.

• Your Event Date
• Determine Marketing Materials: Set this date 60-90 days before your event. Determine what videos, graphics, social posts, printed materials, and signage are needed. Create a master list and set these in motion with your team and staff.
• 30 Day Pre-Launch: Map out the date 30 days before your event as the start of your promotion. This is when you’ll want to start talking about content related to your event through multiple channels. 
• Announce Your Event on Sunday: Map out 2-4 Sunday’s where you’ll highlight the event and have a booth in the lobby for registrations.
• Set a date that registration opens for an early bird price and when it goes up to the normal price. 
• Mark Off Your Launch Week: This is 7 days prior to the event where you’ll do some type of promotion daily leading up to the event or last day to register 
  

Now that you have your overall dates mapped out. Let’s move on to the best channels to market your church event.

Church Marketing Strategy #2: Best Channels to Market Your Church Event

You will want to market your church event on all relevant channels. The most powerful channels are your social media, your website and, believe it or not, your email list. 

When it comes to social media choose two platforms that you’d like to focus on, instead of “trying to do it all”. For most churches, this will be Facebook and Instagram as these are the largest platforms with the most people on them.

Here’s a list of ways you can use social media to successfully promote your event: 

• For every post about your event on Instagram, point people to your link in bio or the link sticker on your Stories that takes people directly to your website event page (If you don’t know, everyone gets the link sticker now on Instagram, this is a powerful tool!)
• On Instagram include your event in your bio, your link in your bio and in a Story Highlight. 
• On Facebook include your event in your bio and change your cover photo to the event graphic.
• Go live on Instagram and Facebook to expand upon something educational related to your event that would intrigue interest 
• Plan to post about your event once a week in your 30 day pre-launch and 4-7 times the week of your event (in a creative way, not the same type of posts!)
  

If you don’t have a professional graphic designer, I use Canva to create basic graphics and carousels to get the job done.  

Next, is your website. Your website should be the central place for everything you do at your church. I should be able to find anything I need on your website. There are a few ways you can make your event more prominent when people come to your website during your 30 Day Pre Launch.

Here’s a list of ways to use your website to promote your event: 

• Create an event page specific to your event and link the registration page, video testimonials, videos of your guest speakers, the benefits of the event to your community, what they’ll walk away with, and a personal note from your Pastors encouraging everyone with the heart behind it.
• Create an announcement bar at the top of the page to highlight the event during your 30 Day Pre-Launch 
• Create a pop up that comes up every time someone visits your website highlighting the event and takes them to the registration page  
• If you write a blog or transcribe your messages on your website, include a link or inline form directly on the blog to highlight your event.
  

If your website needs some serious help, I use Webflow. It’s like if Wordpress and Squarespace had a baby. It’s got the developer functionality like Wordpress, but less clunky like Squarespace. 

Lastly, do you need to dust the cob-webs off your email list? Now’s the time. Email marketing is actually the most powerful way to promote anything but it’s not used much by churches. Businesses rely on email marketing to make sales in today’s world. 

You can still utilize your email list even if you haven’t for a while. Get an email service provider to import your church directory. 

My absolute favorite is ConvertKit. It’s a robust platform for a good price. If you aren’t planning to use email much, you can stick with the free version until you’re ready to expand.

Here’s a list of ways you can use email marketing to promote your event: 

• Send a weekly email leading up to your event with a snapshot of the event. Use the content from your website page. For example, send testimonials one week, send the descriptions of the speakers the next week and share a story or the benefits of the event for your community the next week. 
• The week of the event you can send multiple emails reminding people of the last day to register, sharing stories related to the event, breaking arguments that may stop people from coming, sneak peaks of the content of the event etc. Be creative! Don’t send the same graphic with the same invite message, or people will tune out.
  

If you want to learn how to write better church emails, head over to this post: Email Marketing for Churches: 9 Tips for Crafting Better Church Emails.

Church Marketing Strategy #3: Fine Tune Your Registration Process 

The registration user experience is crucial to marketing your event. Have you ever tried to buy something or register for something and it’s really confusing or doesn’t have the information you are looking for so you just hop off? I have! 

I want your registration page to be clear, concise, and answer common questions people may have before registering. 

Here’s what your registration page needs: 

• A clear event description in one sentence and a sub description with a little more detail. This will help your community to be able to explain the event to their friends as well.
• The benefits of the event for the person coming. Don’t focus on the features of the event, but the benefits for people.
• Clear timing, price and what’s included. 
  

Don’t put too much information on this page. Give the straight details and keep it concise. 

Church Marketing Strategy #4 :How to Promote Your Church Event without Feeling Like a Salesman

You may think that if you promote your event too much you’ll seem annoying, redundant or salesy. 

That could happen, but it’s not based on the frequency of you talking about your event, it’s based on what you talk about when you do.

If you’re only saying the same thing to make the invite over and over or not connecting the invite to why you want people to come, then it could start to feel like you are just throwing empty words out into the world online.

What you need to do is tell a story with every invite. Tell stories of people’s lives changed, tell stories of your preparation for the event and let people in your world talk about the benefits for the people coming to the event and the heart and purpose of why you are doing it. 

Now that’s not salesy. 

Don’t be too shy to give the shameless plug either! It shows you really believe in the purpose of what you are inviting people to.

It’s best to sound (and be) confident when you are inviting, if you don’t sound confident, people won’t be sure if it’s worth it to join in.

Plus, if you’re too quiet about it, people won’t find out about it. It’s crazy how a few stories and clear communication help people see the big picture and want to be a part! 

So don’t worry about feeling like you’re selling too much as long as you are connecting everything you communicate to how what you do will serve your community so well. 

Church Marketing Strategy #5: How to Get People to Sign Up Early for Your Church Event 

It’s always hard to plan when people don’t register for your event until the last minute. Am I right?! 

Thankfully there are a few ways you can get people to sign up early to create some momentum, be able to plan better, and it actually helps get the word out as well!

The first way to get people to sign up early is Early Bird Pricing. 

If this is a paid event, you can do Early Bird Pricing until a certain date. If it’s NOT a paid event, you can offer something special for people who register before a certain date like a small gift, an added resource or a special workshop.

This works like a charm and will help people want to share about the event sooner.

Next, you can have a table in your lobby for multiple weeks decked out with signage and iPads for people to register and a person to talk to them about the event. 

This helps to keep the event top of mind in a visual way. People remember visuals more than words. Also, it may look easy to just register right there, which will encourage them to just do it while they are at church. 

If you need help with marketing signage, I love Church Media Squad! Check them out.

Conclusion

Now you know 6 church marketing strategies to market your next event successfully! These strategies will help you to communicate effectively and spread your message to the world in a greater way.

Here’s what we went over: 

1. Map Out Your Promotional Dates on Your Marketing Calendar in Advance 
2. Best Channels to Market Your Church Event
3. Fine Tune Your Registration Process 
4. How to Promote Your Church Event Without Feeling Like a Salesman 
5. How to Get People to Sign Up Early for Your Church Event