Video Transcript: The Church Promotion Plan

We're going to talk now about putting all of this together as a church planter in  that word of mouth marketing with a church planter or promotional plan, talk  about these topics. And as you get forward, if you have a leader team, maybe  you can have them see this video with you. Or you can write down the principles and talk about this and really pull together a promotional plan. Remember, it's  about an engaging story. And we have one, we embody a reality, it's a walk with  God, we have a reproducible walk with God in grounded in an engaging story.  We know this is the way the church spread because Acts 13:48 says it as the Gentiles  heard this, they were glad and glorified the Word of God. And as many were  ordained into eternal life, and there was not everyone's going to be reached, but  you will reach those who are supposed to be reached. And the word of the  Lord's was spread abroad throughout all the region, I mean, what a powerful  word of mouth passage. So we're going to do is now get a church planting and  promotion plan. So what you need to do is write down your vision and mission,  clearly, and we've talked about that in previous sessions. So get a real clear and concise vision and mission. Changing Lives are your best promotion.  Understand that you want to share the testimonies you always want to put on  the stage, so to speak, those whose lives are being transformed. earn the  respect and the recommendation of your attendees, people who come  hospitality offered by leaders starts great conversation. So we're going to talk  about hospitality promotional approach, in a future session here at this church  planting class, four promotion is what you do. Not what you say, remember, it's  always grounded in the embodied message. Frustrating. Comments by word of  mouth are opportunities. Listen, learn, if someone says something negative,  don't react to their negative, get them talking. And I have often found even at  Christian leaders Institute, and many of you have been frustrated, because here  we are really low budget, we're educating 1000s, upon 1000s. And sometimes  things don't work so well. And I always mentioned to my staff, when we listen,  let's talk if someone sends me a nasty email, and sometimes you students have  sent me nasty emails, I don't like React and try to like defend myself, or basically indicate, yeah, we're frustrated about some of the things too, or if we dropped  the ball in any way, we're frustrated. But in the end of the day, what we are  about is raising up more leaders. So you keep things focused. Number seven,  the community is already talking understand that you're not going to avoid  people talking, your only option is to join the chat. They're talking about you  anyway. If the conversation is that's a boring church, or that's a church where no one goes, okay? That's the conversation. What you want to do is have  conversation that just lift up the name of Christ and create the buzz in your  community. Be interesting and engaging in your conversations about faith.  Always, always based in love. Not faith that tears down but faith that builds up in in in, ask people to join in their walk with God at your church. If it's not worth  talking about, it's not worth doing. Think about that. If what you do is just so you 

know, boring non relevant, why do it. Now, I do know that you have janitorial  work and you have like a lot of these things. Is that worth talking about? I  believe it can be worth talking about. Be creative. Pray about that. Make the  story of your new church a good one. And the bottom line. It is a good one. But  see what God is doing in May that narrative be something that people want to  talk about. It's more fun to volunteer at church that people are talking about.  Remember that buzz, number 12 prayerful promotion makes the difference,  bathed all this promotional plan in prayer. So let's talk about the church  promotional plan. Well publish it apply your vision and mission clearly. Okay, it  could be your website brochures, mailings. Maybe there's a banner that you  have and let people know why you exist in your community. Get the talkers  talking. Get your team to talk about how God has called them to plant this  Church of God has changed in their lives at this new church plant identity Find  the right talkers, the ones that that really adopt your vision and mission, create a communication channel to reach them regularly. Give them the topics to talk  about, and they will want to talk about them, believe me, keep them happy and  motivated. You know, when Andy writes about this types of things, these are  basic principles. But take them seriously. Not, don't give a stage to every talker.  Make sure it's the talker who really exudes that enthusiasm for the  conversations that you want to create in the community. Who are the right  talkers, leader who will need leaders who will network these are people who are  sharing what their friends are already. Leaders who are teachable, if someone is not really teachable, and they're just arrogant, do not give them a stage, they will cause you great damage. Leaders who follow the Lord and the leaders God has  placed at your church. Are they walking? Are they embodying the message  leaders who show evidence of that solid walk leaders who are positive about the new church? Those are the right talkers. Again, we're talking about this  promotional plan start the promotional wheels going and do not stop. Get the  promotional DNA going from the very start at your calling place, all the way to  the building of the church. Keep it going after the planting in various size stages. And then planting daughter churches you know, after you planted a church, you  want to plant another church, keep the buzz going, which will have a  promotional DNA placed in them. That is the new church plants that you plant as well. So this promotional plan is really part of everything you do just like in the  early church, develop your communication channels, use email, phone calls,  mail notes, make a Barnabas team and hold team means know what's a  Barnabas team. A Barnabas team is a team of encouragers who can promote  and say hey, we're gonna start a Barnabas team are on your what's the  Barnabas team Do? It talks about how to create conversations in our  community. Develop communications just for the talkers. You know that  Barnabas team for instance, design emails, newsletters, community blogs, or  paper newsletters just for your talkers. You can't call them up every time to have 

a new topic to talk about. You need a simple, ongoing message delivery system  that they can stay in tune with. Maybe the talkers need a closed group at  Facebook. Maybe the talkers need special emails, but pay attention your talkers  are that promotional lifeblood for you, feed your talkers, talkers live on a diet of  information, keep them fed to keep them talking. The word of mouth stops when  there's nothing to talk about. talkers, wants to know what's going on. They want  to know what's happening before anyone else does. talkers, maintain their  expertise and status by being well informed and educated. Think about that. A  talker needs that opportunity to share something if you don't give it somebody  will give talkers that opportunity to share and it won't be that vision or mission  that God has laid on your church. So feed your talkers. Here's what talkers want  to see. They want to see detailed data data. You'd be surprised at how much of  what you think is mundane is of great interest to your team members, like  financial reports and all of those things. A talkers are hungry for detail. They may not share much about that but they are interested. Progress Reports talk about  future initiatives and events. Let them know what you're working on. Church  family news. Remember talkers want to be family members. fill them in on the  personalities and happenings at your future or your new church or at your  church or who wherever whatever stage you are in the church planter planting.  Always say yes to a volunteer. You can walk into any political campaign without  an appointment and offer to volunteer. There will always be a project waiting for  you the secret campaigns always save some work for volunteers, for example,  they do not send out big direct mail campaigns, they always leave a stack of  envelopes to be stamped, sealed by hand. Have someone ready? When talkers  are ready. This is very important in a church plant and in any ministry. I know  here at Christian leaders Institute I'm always asking myself, How can we say yes to more volunteers. Make your talkers feel important and get them together. Find a way to make them feel like insiders. And let them show up show it off to their  friends, a political candidate. shake as many hands in the office as on the  campaign trail. I still get a holiday card every year from the senator from whom I  volunteered in 1988. Wow. Show that you appreciate your talkers. So there you  go. You're always thinking about how to make talkers feel important. Make it fun. Why in the world do you have those walkathons with the rigmarole of getting  getting per mile pledges? Isn't there an easier way to raise money than selling  cookies is because these gimmicks are a lot more fun than going door to door  with a tin cup. Make it fun. Make sure they know your gratitude. Get good at  making your talkers feel appreciated and recognize they will talk 10 times as  often you can never say thank you enough and every Thanks. Is there a reason  for them to talk even more? We've had some beautiful talkers here at CLI they're sharing the message all over. And I'll tell you I've always thinking how can I  share my gratitude with them? The the message, the messages drive the word  of mouth, never forget that great word of mouth topics are often hard for 

traditional marketers to see. They violate the rules of marketing. They aren't  planned. They aren't corporate. They are rarely official. It's an exception when  people want to repeat your official company motto and carefully crafted theme.  Instead, people latch on to the unexpected. So your messages have to be of a  variety, but still around your vision. But those compelling conversation pieces.  So the messages drive your church plant or plants. They need to be authentic,  creative, engaging, life changing. Epic, authentic means real testimonies, I love  testimonies at church, the more testimonies, the more people see the power of  God, creative things that we used to have a phrase we were doing worship  planning. What's that? Where's the person in the bush? Now we talk? Where's  Christ here? Where's that little thing that help people see even more? God's  love and grace and power in your life? Is it engaging? Is it like this is about you  and me? Is that life changing? Is there a next step provide is that epic? Does it  really matter. If you'd actually think about sermons that way? Are they authentic? Are they creative? Are they engaging? Are they life changing? Are they epic? Make this list of five characteristics part of every one of your sermons, your  sermons would make a big difference to help them by the power of the Holy  Spirit would really be transformation, grounded, of course, in the Word of God.  Search for the messages. Don't overlook this. The topic that works best for you  will be something so simple, something so silly, that you may miss it. Good word of mouth topics are kinds of grit are the kinds of great easy ideas that get buried  by bureaucracy in a corporate planning session. Lower the bar, keep your mind  open expect it may be your intern who comes up with the most amazing word of  mouth topic. These there are three rules to developing a great topic. Keep it  simple, organic and portable. That's one thing as a church planter always be  listening. If an idea is good, it doesn't matter who says it. Get that idea out there. And acknowledge wow, that's really good idea. Sometimes people give the idea. And then people feel threatened because they didn't think of the idea. Create an environment where every idea is honored, portable messages. There should  never be in there should never be an there should never be what what am I  trying to say here? There should never be and anywhere near your topic. Oh, I  see if there's certain say what I'm trying to say is topics don't work as well when  they become less. Try us because we're friendly, affordable experience, have  great customer service, and you'll get a free ice cream while you wait. Your topic should instead be repeatable within a second to will give you a free ice cream  while you wait. Otherwise, no one will remember it. So what we're saying here is what's easily understandable. What's portable, what can be something that  people hear right away, and they can like say I get what you're trying to say. Test your topics. The only way to know if you found a good topic is by trying it out in  the real world. No amount of planning will help you know in advance. Test it, the telephone game is a good example. Can your topic get passed from person  person at least three times and come back to recognizable the high school 

test? Ask a teenager. If your buzzworthy a glimmer of interest means you're on  to something good. So these are just testing ways that you can constantly test  your word of mouth perspective, the customer test, leak your topic to a customer or two and watch what happens. Do they respond to it? Do they repeat it? Does  anyone new come into the store and ask you about the topic? Keep things fresh. Topics go stale after a while. Unfortunately, the more people talk about  something, the less interesting it is, success can eat away at a topics  effectiveness. Because the motivation for word of mouth is often to share inside  information. Don't don't drop a topic, here's something to watch out for. Once  you have a successful topic that keeps getting good word of mouth, you have to  keep it up. Your comment, your commitment to a topic will set you apart just as  much as the topic itself. But we can do I'm gonna do different shades of that  conversation. So don't just drop a topic, the power of testimonies, whenever you can have people talk about how they came to Christ. Now your church is helping them advance in the walk their walk with God. This creates a lot of word of  mouth. I sometimes wonder if for like a series of preaching series, you don't  even preach, you just do, like 10 weeks of testimonies. Now, or maybe three  weeks of testimonies, if you can one week of testimonies, I believe that's a  powerful way to proclaim the gospel. So your church planting plan of promotion  word of mouth is something to really take seriously. And to decide. This is what it is, as bi vocational leaders, many of you don't have a budget anyway, for  spending a lot of money on marketing. As people who are leading vocationally  and being paid. You don't have a lot of extra money as well. Often in church  plants, those resources are not available. And in some ways, they say praise  God about that. So you really have to be shareable, portable, remarkable. You're walking the walk, it's authentic. And if you lay that as your foundation, that's  better anyway, gimmicks and marketing and advertising. To me after 30 years of  seeing a lot of church plants. I will tell you the best thing to do is just really  become shareable because you're real and you're authentic. And people see the Holy Spirit in you they see you're guided by the word of God they see that you  love. They see your organization loves others, they see that you are about the  truth. All of those things are very powerful in starting the word of mouth  campaign, but most importantly, about proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ  everywhere in your community.