Following my previous article, which briefly highlighted the importance of digital outreach, the most frequent question I received was: “How do you actually do that?”
It’s a valid inquiry, as the necessity of digital marketing was suddenly thrust upon churches worldwide, many of which had never attempted it before. This shift is a hidden blessing of the pandemic, as it forced a necessary gravitation toward online engagement. While we still utilize traditional methods like mailing new residents at Mecklenburg Community Church, our strategy is now primarily digital. As our marketing director explains, we are meeting people exactly where they spend their time—which is online.
To implement online campus best practices, we use a strategic mix of mediums that work together to maximize impressions. This integrated approach includes everything from social media engagement to leveraging Google ads for church growth.
This involves running a paid search campaign on not only Google, but all search engines so that when anyone, anywhere is searching for us directly, looking for a church or searching any of the keywords we are using, we will show up at the top of the search page.
We are running a retargeting display campaign so that for anyone who has searched for us or landed on our website will be strategically serving ads to people we know are interested.
With traditional radio in decline, we focus on digital radio ads with a mix on Pandora, Spotify, iHeart Radio and Sirius XM, that can be much more targeted than traditional radio ever was.
After doing our research and finding that our target demographic spends most of their time with digital video, specifically YouTube, we invest a good amount of marketing dollars into that medium. We also run a pre-roll campaign with a focus on YouTube to be sure we are in front of the people whose attention we are trying to capture.
We do an email marketing campaign a handful of times a year that is sent to everyone who has given us permission to contact them throughout the years, using our own database information. We do not purchase lists to send to, so we know that each person receiving the email communication has some sort of interest in or experience with Meck.
Finally, with the continual growth in users across social media sites, we run a social media campaign (which is different than simply boosting a post), primarily on Facebook and Instagram, where we have run tests to realize where we have been able to gain the most traction.
There is a synergy that works among each of these mediums and with cross-device technology, we are able to be in front of more people, more times, on more devices.
Now, before you say, “Good for you—we don’t have that kind of money!” I want to offer two thoughts on that: First, you’d be surprised at how cheap most of this is. So don’t write it off before you look into it.
Second, and more important, is to remember this is outreach. This is reaching people. If you’re going to spend money on something,
… this is what you want to spend it on.
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This article originally appeared on ChurchAndCulture.org and is reposted here by permission.