Church Marketing Strategies: 6 Ways to Increase Community Engagement

Are you having difficulty drumming up excitement about your community events? You want your congregation to take the next step and get involved in the life of your church, but how do you convince members to actually make it happen?

The most successful churches know that text message marketing is one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways to engage congregants and promote events. In fact, many churches are choosing text messaging over email and social media.

Why? More than 90% of text messages are opened in the first few minutes of receipt.

And it doesn't stop there.

There are plenty of other great ways to get members excited about your events.

Church Marketing Strategies: 6 Promotional Activities to Increase Community Engagement

Try these simple church marketing strategies to increase community engagement:

1. Create an Event on Facebook

Facebook has become a popular tool to promote community events. Since this tool is used by more than 2.7 billion people from around the world, reaching a few people, especially those already in your network, shouldn't be a problem.

To get started, on your business page, click the event button. From there, you can choose an image or video to appear as the event's featured visual. Additionally, you can include important event information, including date, time, and location. As a best practice, ask followers to RSVP to the event.

Bonus: Try using a text alert to promote your Facebook event. When you're ready to invest in an industry-leading text message marketing provider, remember that more than 210,000 businesses, nonprofits, and organizations choose EZ Texting.

2. Create a Keyword Opt-In Campaign

Find news ways to get the word out about big annual events like silent holiday auctions. Keyword opt-in campaigns can be used in this scenario. For example, recipients who opt-in might receive a special preview of goods, event schedule, and more. A text message marketing campaign is a great way to promote your event quickly, efficiently, and affordably.

3. Create a Volunteer Brigade

Try encouraging members to join a special volunteer brigade. Find interesting, community-oriented, and mission-critical projects that the group can do monthly. It's a great way to get members out of the pews and into the community.

4. Create an Online Connection Desk

Give members an opportunity to learn more about community events. In most cases, this can be done through an online connection desk or community events board. You might even try leveraging a textable number. For example, members can text a number and receive a link to an online events calendar.

5. Encourage Members to Share Skills

Try encouraging members to share skills during special workshop events. One recent study indicates that writing, public speaking, and programming are some of the most coveted skills out there. Depending on the size of your congregation, there is a strong likelihood that at least one of your members knows something about at least one of these (or other) skills.

6. Create a Welcoming Committee

Finally, set up a welcoming committee for new members. Try pairing committee members with new members. This kind of "buddy" system gets new members familiarized with the church's mission, community events, after-hours programs, and much more. Additionally,

Increase Community Engagement With Text Marketing

We've been helping churches grow and maintain close ties with congregants for more than a decade. As an industry-leading and recognized text message marketing provider, we've made it super easy to get started.

Send your first message in minutes! Will it be a coupon, event notification, or reminder? The fact is, text message marketing works for any kind of enterprise, business, nonprofit, or organization.

For some quick inspiration, we recommend downloading our free guide: The Church Text Message Marketing Playbook. In this playbook, we show you the most popular types of text message campaigns to grow event attendance quickly.

Photo: Getty Images/Chatchai Limjareon