Tips: Getting the Word Out About Your Event
- Schedule the event in your PCO group. Instruction on how to schedule a PCO group can be found here.
- Send an invitation to your PCO group. Include details about the event and the link to RSVP through your PCO group. Learn how to find the RSVP link here.
- Post about your event/program in the Foothills Online Facebook group. If you don’t personally have Facebook, identify a group member that does who can post on the group’s behalf.
- Email your church friends and the most active members of your group, inviting them to attend AND invite five of their friends.
- If your program/event has crossover with other groups, email the leaders of those groups and ask them to invite their group members to attend your event.
- Send a follow-up email to your group thanking those who have already registered and inviting folks to sign up. Also, include encouragement to personally invite friends to attend.
Other Tips
- One of the best ways to ensure turnout at events and programs is to continually invite people to join your PCO group throughout the year, even when there are no upcoming special events! Come to church and share about your group with those you meet. Follow up with folks you meet by emailing them the link to join your PCO group.
- Another great way to increase engagement is by teaming up with another group to host an event or program. Talk to other group leaders and brainstorm ways you might work together and events you might co-host.
The Bottom Line:
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, our best way to reach the most people is through targeted outreach rather than all-church communications. Many people ignore or delete things in the generic emails but will open and respond to communications they believe are sent just to them.
We also find that most people show up at something for the first time because they were personally invited by someone else in the church. Even if we fill the emails with everything we are doing in a given week/month, when we ask people how they heard about an event or group, it was from a friend or new acquaintance they met when they came on Sunday. So the job of "marketing" is actually best done by the existing members inviting people they meet - which means helping your group members understand that an important part of their group work on Sundays is to greet people they don't know and invite them to join the PCO group or attend an event with them.