In the age of COVID19, your church needs more flexibility and creativity in its outreach. An email welcome series is a simple way to share who you are as a church. Plus, it’s more intentional and personal than social media, and it gets results.

Showing hospitality to visitors on Sunday morning may not be possible if your congregation’s friendly faces are mostly meeting online or behind face masks.

How do you get newcomers to come back to another online service? How do make them feel invested in your faith community and make it their own in the COVID era?

Perhaps you’ve doubled down on social media posts.

And, sure, those are great for giving people a starting point for learning who you are. Many people will check out your Facebook page to get a sense of what your church is like before committing to get involved or share their contact info.

But social media should not be the foundation of your outreach efforts.

• You don’t own your social media posts. Facebook (or Instagram, Twitter, etc.) does. And Facebook decides who sees your posts. They also can change their algorithm at any time to make it more difficult for your posts to get seen.

  
  
  

• Social media is not personal. Social media provides an opportunity for you to make a great first impression, but you need to move beyond it into more personal spheres once that first impression is made. In a digital age, email is the perfect next step.

  
  
  

• Many people are not on social media or are rethinking their relationship to social media. If you’re making your social media accounts do the heavy lifting of your communications strategy, you’re likely losing potential members before you ever have the chance to win them over.

So what’s a church to do?

I suggest putting a solid email marketing strategy in place.

When was the last time you gave your email away to a website? I’m guessing it was to a business who offered you something for free - maybe a coupon or an online quiz or a download of some sort - in exchange for that email.

Offer a “freebie” to visitors on your church website (and Facebook page) in exchange for an email address. This immediately moves your relationship with visitors to a more intentional, personal level.

They get a great resource, such as a Bible study, a prayer guide, a worship playlist, etc., and you get the opportunity to share more about your church. And unlike social media, you know your message is reaching them. It’s going straight to their inbox rather than being filtered through the tech gods’ algorithms.

Follow up that freebie with an automated email welcome series that introduces visitors to your church, your core values and beliefs, key staff persons, etc. Share more free resources - like the blog posts and sermon series you already have available on your website - to increase your value and trustworthiness in their lives.

It may be awhile before your church is back to “business as usual.” Will you put your hospitality and outreach on hold until then?

I hope not. Be proactive about welcoming online visitors and drawing them into the life of your church now.

Download the free PDF to see what such a welcome series might look like for your church. Feel free to adapt it as needed for your own community.

Need help creating your own freebie and welcome series, personalized for your unique community and audience? Fill out the contact form, and let’s get started!