Church events are a fun time to bring the congregation together and socialize outside of regular service. Of course, that’s only if people show up! When you’re ready to start promoting your next event, there’s one marketing platform that’s as effective as it is affordable — since church advertising budgets usually aren’t the highest. Here are seven ways to promote your church event with email marketing.
Design amazing email layouts
Your emails are a representation of your event. If you send boring text-only emails, what are people going to think about your church event? Likely that it’s going to be boring! To spice up your messages and make your event look as fun and exciting as it undoubtedly will be, be sure to use professional and eye-catching email layouts.
The layout is the foundation to fun. Include plenty of sections, graphics, headings, or even videos to really make your event seem like the party of the year!
Since you’re busy planning a church event, you likely don’t have time to design these incredible email layouts from scratch. Luckily, there are hundreds of free event promotion email templates available online from websites like PosterMyWall.
Simply choose the design that best fits your church event, customize the information using the drag-and-drop editor, and you’re ready to send to your contact list. Professional-level layouts don’t need to require professional-level skills or time!
Start sending emails early
People don’t see a message about an event and go the same day. They need time to plan and prepare. So don’t wait until the last minute to start sending emails about your church event. Start sending reminders early to give attendees plenty of time to mark their calendars.
Most event email marketing campaigns start at least a month or two before the date of the event. The first email should be simply a “save the date” type email with general information about your church event. Make it memorable and exciting, so everyone will run to their calendars to write it down!
Build excitement with regular emails
Of course, people don’t always do what they’re asked on the first try. In marketing, there’s something called the Rule of 7. This “rule” states that it takes around seven times seeing a message before people decide to act. What that means for your church event email campaign is that you can’t just send one message and hope for the best. You need to remind potential attendees with regular emails.
Most email marketing professionals suggest sending between two and four emails per week. That should be enough to keep your event top of mind for your readers without irritating them by constantly filling up their inboxes.
Since everyone got the major details in your first email, you can use some of these follow-up emails to build suspense. Focus on key aspects of the event, like the speakers, activities, food, etc. Make the individual pieces of the event seem as exciting as possible, so the event as a whole will look absolutely incredible. Build that buzz!
Provide plenty of information about your church event
Your emails should be entertaining and exciting, but they also need to be informational. People won’t attend an event if they don’t know all the details. So make sure everyone is informed!
In your emails, answer all the fundamental questions about your church event:
- Date and time
- Location
- Activities
- Food
- Speakers or guests
This list isn’t exhaustive, so feel free to add any other information attendees might need before deciding to attend. The more informed your readers are, the more likely they’ll come to your church event.
Answer questions by responding to emails
No matter how much information you put into your emails, there are still going to be questions.
When you set up your email marketing campaign, allow replies to be forwarded to a monitored email address. That way, when someone has a question, they can simply hit the reply button on your marketing email and get the answers they need.
Collect as many contacts as you can
Naturally, an email marketing campaign won’t work very well if you don’t have any contacts to send messages to… Before you send anything about your event, start collecting email addresses from as many people as you can.
The best way to get started with your contact collection is to ask people in your congregation if they’d like to sign up for church newsletters. This is a great way to provide value to fellow church members and start your collection of email addresses.
When it comes to email marketing, there’s no such thing as too many contacts. Always continue thinking of new ways to get more email addresses. Just like with church attendees, the more the merrier!
Encourage readers to share your message
If you don’t collect many contacts, does that mean your email campaigns will be a failure? Not at all! The beauty of emails is that they’re super easy to share. All you have to do is hit that little forward button, type in your friends’ and family members’ email addresses, and press send.
By asking members in your congregation and people in your contact list to forward your church event emails to their friends and family, you can boost your marketing reach exponentially! And you don’t even need to collect more email addresses…
If your emails are well designed and exciting enough, your readers might even share your emails without you needing to ask. That’s why it’s so important to use professional layout designs and include well-written sections in your email.
Make your next church event one to remember
The best church events are the ones with the most attendees. Get the entire congregation involved with a well-designed email marketing campaign!
The best way to promote your church event with email is to use eye-catching professional email designs, start sending emails well before the day of the event, build a buzz with regular sends, provide plenty of information, respond to questions, collect as many contacts as you can, and ask other church members to share your emails.
If all the aspects of your email marketing campaign work together, your next church event will be the biggest and best yet!
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