The 3 Pillars of Evangelism Marketing

Larry WitzelMarketing Practices

Evangelism Marketing that Works

The rumor is that evangelism doesn’t work. People have told us that direct mail doesn’t work, that advertising just doesn’t work anymore.

But our experience has been different. We have seen evangelism marketing be effective at bringing people through the doors of churches. Here at SermonView Evangelism Marketing, we have found that when pastors bring us their evangelism marketing, they routinely get double, triple and even quadruple their previous response. There are a lot of reasons for this, but fundamentally it’s about building on the three pillars of an effective evangelism marketing campaign.

Before we get to those, however, I must point out that the most effective marketing method is the personal invitation. So you need to inspire your members and equip them to invite their neighbors, friends and family to your event. Give them invitation cards that they can use. Indoor banners in the lobby and sanctuary are also inexpensive tools that can build excitement for the event.

The 3 Pillars

Surrounding the personal invitation, though, are the three pillars of an effective evangelism marketing campaign:

Direct mail. The first pillar is direct mail. This is the only way that you can guarantee that someone in every home of your community has an opportunity to respond to your invitation. TV can’t do that. Radio can’t do that. Newspaper ads can’t do that. That’s why direct mail is still the anchor of an effective campaign.

Outdoor advertising. The second pillar is outdoor advertising. Banners outside the church, and road signs placed at strategic intersections of your community, help the visual brand become more recognizable. Developing brand awareness three weeks before the event creates an environment where your mailing becomes even more effective, because recipients recognize the mail piece from the outdoor advertising.

Social media advertising. The third pillar is social media advertising. Two thirds of Americans are active on Facebook, with the average time spent on Facebook approaching an hour a day. The Facebook advertising platform also reaches Instagram and WhatsApp users, so we have found it to be the most effective for evangelism event marketing. By testing your ads, working to improve the Relevance Score, and sending users to targeted landing pages, you can see great response from a reasonable budget.

Multi-touch Effectiveness

Each pillar is effective at its job, but only when you combine all three advertising methods do we get the magnified effective of multi-touch marketing. In fact, our data shows that campaigns that use all three pillars consistently outperform those that use just one or two.

By using a cohesive campaign that takes advantage of direct mail, outdoor signs, and Facebook advertising, while at the same time inspiring and equipping your members for personal invitation, you’ll see better results. Contact us today if you would like us to help your next evangelism marketing campaign get a higher response rate, at a lower cost per guest, resulting in more people at your next outreach event.

Want to talk about how to use the 3 Pillars to promote your next evangelistic event? Call us at 1-800-525-5791.

Facebook Advertising – To Boost or Not to Boost, That is the Question

Vince WilliamsEvangelism Practices, Marketing Practices, Marketing Tools

Every day we talk to churches about their Facebook advertising needs. In almost every conversation the idea of “boosting” posts comes into question. Facebook has clearly made it easy to promote articles and get views, but is that the right approach for your evangelistic series?
I would suggest the answer is rarely yes. Let me explain.

The first question in any marketing or promotion is to decide the goal. This one key element will drive all of your thinking and decisions throughout your campaign. With event marketing, such as promoting an evangelistic series, the goal is typically a strong call-to-action or direct attendance. For strong call-to-action events, we recommend thinking through your marketing funnel (see an article on funnel marketing here). This means that your Facebook ad needs to drive the action that you are asking to receive—often a registration. Now that we have our required call-to-action let’s see how Facebooks advertising options fit into our campaign.

Facebook Boosts
Facebook has given every one of their pages an easy way to reach more people through the boost. The boost is a way to get a posting to be seen by multiple people in your area for a certain amount of money. However, boosts generally lack the elements required for an effective ad campaign: targeting, ad quality, correlation to the landing page, testable results. The truth is that all of these can be handled within a boost, but take hours of investigation to maximize. The boost has been an overused feature due to its convenience, but in the end, a lack of tracking an testing has left it with weak results for the money.

Boosts also have to be attached to a particular page. For event marketing, this can be counterproductive to your goals. Imagine a person learning about your event and then viewing your church Facebook page. They may run across more internal “Adventist Speak” than we want them to see up front. Or, they could find no activity at all; giving them the idea that your church isn’t worth visiting. Then there are comments. If a new viewer posts a comment they may get a retaliatory response from a member—doing more harm than good.

For example, I recently know of an ad posted through a Facebook page that had the comment “I’m not sure about Saturday as the Sabbath, but this looks interesting. I think I’ll attend”. Unfortunately, this comment was seen by a member of that local church which attacked the commenter for their suspicion of the Sabbath. I’m sure, you already have that person in mind from your church, and you can see what this type of combative comment stream can do to your event (and the potential to have a real conversation with an open heart).

Facebook non-paid Sharing
Sharing is what Facebook does best. Sharing allows you to invite people in your church’s and member’s social circles to your event. With sharing you reduce the potential for negative comments. And even if there are, your members may be more sensitive in their response since the connection is someone they know, or is connected to someone they know. SermonView’s website registration platform comes with an invitation feature that will help your members get the word out. Most campaigns come with Facebook post sharing, online quizzes, and the ability to share videos that will get attention. To see the suite of resources that come with our website registration package, click here.

Managed Facebook Campaign
By allowing us to manage a Facebook campaign for your church you get the best of all worlds. You’ll save money and get more results. Here are the benefits that come with a managed Facebook campaign from SermonView.

  • Ongoing Testing: All of our ads are being reviewed throughout the week to determine what is working and what needs to be removed. This is based on the number of clicks, the cost per click, the percentage of conversion on the registration page and the relevance score in the Ad Manager. All of this combines to give our team a complete picture of your campaign and trim out the wasted dollars.
  • Savings on Your Budget: We set up all of our ads to base it on the actual traffic going to your site and not just impressions. Impressions can be purchased for low dollars, but don’t translate into registrations (which is your call to action goal). SermonView saves its churches money by building up the relevance score of the campaign. Facebook charges you less for an ad as long as they get what they want out of the ad, which is engagement. We align ourselves with Facebook’s goal of engagement to ensure a low cost/high response campaign for your event.
  • Better Results: We have multiple tools that we use to ensure you top results for your budget. We’ll use various forms of ads from slideshow ads to video to make sure your ad gets seen. We also use retargeting techniques to continue to advertise to people that originally clicked on your ad, but didn’t complete a registration. All of these techniques lead to a higher conversion and more people coming to your meeting.
  • Ad Management: Probably one of the best reasons to work with our team is our ability to manage your ads in real time. This means that we separate your ad from your church page (the benefits of which I mentioned above), and we manage all of the comments. We remove all of the “trolls” that write disparaging things about the Adventist church and any comments that are lewd. Otherwise, we allow the comments to build and grow in a way that will expand your reach and improve their effectiveness.

In the end, Facebook advertising is a skill—the quality of which will affect your results. We’d love to share with you what we’ve learned and how we’re seeing Facebook change the face of evangelism marketing today.

4 Things We’ve Learned About Facebook Bible Study Leads

Vince WilliamsUncategorized

A year ago, the SermonView team embarked on a journey to answer a question: How can churches better reach people interested in Bible studies in their community?

Today, churches aren’t seeing the kind of results they used to get with old-style tear-off Bible study card mailers. In part, this is due to a smaller number of people using mail as a primary form of communication. In addition, a single mailpiece cannot speak to the diverse needs of a community. We knew there had to be a better way, so we started working the problem.

Our team went through dozens of possible solutions—looking at cost and availability—to determine where a Bible study card-style system would work. The solution we kept coming back to was social media—especially Facebook.

Many churches had been wary to give Facebook a second chance because they didn’t see results on their first try. But our research pointed to Facebook as the key, and we just had to find a working system that unlocked the power of social media advertising.

One year later, we have some answers. Here is what we’ve found:

Facebook advertising can lead to Bible study interests
Today, 79% of all adult internet users in America are Facebook users. And two out of three Facebook users are on it daily, spending more than 50 minutes per day on the platform. This level of saturation rivals direct mail, and—even better—it gives advertisers the ability to reach each individual in the household.

Not only is it able to reach each person individually, but it collects more data about its users than any other social media network, allowing advertisers to target specific needs and specific interests. All of this adds up to a perfect vehicle for reaching new faces in your community. But if mostly larger corporations and businesses are finding success with Facebook advertising, how can it be used effectively for your local church?

Generating Bible study leads
Although Facebook is a portal into people’s lives, it is also a confusing maze of options that can paralyze even the most sophisticated user. As our team started diving into the world of Facebook, we tested types of advertising, several different audiences, and varying styles of ads. After millions of impressions, and over sixty thousand interactions with interests, we learned some powerful lessons about how to use Facebook effectively. Specifically, here are four things we’ve learned:

  1. Every ad needs a home: Facebook requires that all ads connect to a Facebook Business Page. If the Page is not congruent to the ad campaign, users will sense disingenuity and won’t click on the sponsored ad. It is important to develop a page that is specific to your various goals—whether it be marketing for an event, Bible study generation, or generic page marketing.
  2. An ad manager is vital: Facebook allows people to engage with your ads. In fact, they encourage it. Ads constantly receive responses, comments and shared posts. This means that your ad needs to be managed to help monitor where those reactions are going. It is a tricky balance. Ads need to receive reactions in order to keep costs down and encourage more viewership, but vulgar or disparaging comments need to be managed and removed. Setting someone up to take the time to review each ad’s responses throughout the day will help your ad be more successful.
  3. Minimize friction for maximize response: Facebook offers several options for your ad. Whether you should utilize a landing page with your event information, promote a Facebook event, or create a lead generation page can vary on the function of the ad. Testing various techniques is the only way to truly determine the best results for a given campaign.
  4. Testing will save you money in the long run: The path to Facebook effectiveness is multivariate testing. This means you need to have substantial volume to determine which combination of ads, techniques and audiences will yield the results that make it worth it for your church to continue. The good news is that through testing, you’ll be able to find the sweet spot that maximizes response. But in a shifting environment, systematic testing is the only way to ensure ongoing success.

SermonView is committed to perfecting this
Through our experiments, we have discovered a system that meets the needs of local churches, and we’re excited about the results that churches are seeing. With multiple churches continuing to help test this new avenue for reaching communities, we have found a system that beats the costs of traditional Bible study interest mailers and allows a church to better control their costs and number of interests. Today we are seeing interests responding to a request to receive a Bible study at 30%-50% the cost of the best results from a traditional Bible study card mailer. We are also learning what works in various types of communities and creating better ad models as we learn.

Today we can reach more people, faster, and with more data than before—helping churches to connect with the people in their community who are just waiting for an invitation to learn more about Jesus. It is time to redeem social media in a way that builds real connection and invites people into a genuine community of faith in their local community.

Want to try using Facebook to reach people in your community? Contact us!

3 Ways to Use Facebook for Evangelism

Larry WitzelMarketing Tools

The key to using your evangelism marketing budget effectively is deciding who you want to reach, then finding the best ways to reach where those people are. There are many ways to reach potential interests: Road signs and banners reach people as they drive by your church neighborhood. Direct mail reaches people in their homes. Your members can take invite cards wherever they go and invite the whole neighborhood.

But, in the modern world, there is one place where people spend a lot of their time.

Facebook.

With nearly 2 billion active users, it’s the largest social network in the world, and by a huge margin. Two-thirds of Americans are active on Facebook, spending an average of 50 minutes per day on the platform.

If you want to reach people where they are, Facebook has to be part of your mix.

So here are three ways to use Facebook as part of a multi-touch evangelism marketing campaign:

1. Church page
Your church should have a page where you post announcements, upcoming events, and pictures and videos after church activities. Some churches share their sermon videos every week. Your members are on Facebook, and your church page is a great way to communicate with them.

(Don’t have a Facebook page for your church? It’s time to start one. Here’s a how-to article!)

How to use it: Begin promoting your evangelistic event 8 weeks prior to your event, to build excitement and help members get it on their calendars. Post at least twice a week until 2 weeks prior, when you should post every other day. Share articles about the topic, and your prayers for the event. Share your event pre-registration website, for people to sign up. Give people ideas for how to invite their friends and neighbors. Then make sure you and your church leaders like each post. The more likes a post gets, the more Facebook shares it with other users, so lots of likes will increase the visibility of a post to your members who have liked the church page.

2. Member shares
Members should post to their own social networks, letting people know that they’ll be at the meetings. The key is controlling how your members share on their pages. This helps make sure your marketing message has congruency through every channel. SermonView’s Direct Response Platform includes a complete social media sharing system that matches perfectly to your other marketing efforts. Your members can use the system to point people to the event website with the simple click of a button. They can also share posts from the church page, magnifying their effect.

3. Advertising
Facebook knows a lot about its users, so Facebook advertising allows you to target ads to geographic location, age and interests. That means you can purchase ads that appear in user feeds of people, for example, who live within 10 miles of your church and are interested in Bible prophecy.

SermonView has developed a unique two-stage advertising program that runs before an event and has seen pretty amazing results. Initially, we use images and titles designed to provoke a response by viewers. This engagement leads to a higher relevance score. The higher the relevance score, the more Facebook shows your ad in your area. Then, as your mailing starts to land in mailboxes, we add branding ads to intensify the effectiveness of your other marketing efforts. These ads get to leverage the campaign’s relevance score, leading to more visibility, and ultimately to more people at your event.

These ads work better when placed by a third-party organization, rather than your church page account because the initial ads can provoke some nasty responses, which may be hard for some of your members to see. But ultimately, this method gets more qualified people to your event. SermonView monitors these ads, and their reactions. We remove anything that is derogatory about the church, but leave other comments that may cause a comment chain.

Let’s Do This Together
Facebook is a wonderful opportunity to maximize the effectivenss of any church’s evangelism budget, but it takes constant attention and lots of data to see strong results. SermonView has a team that keeps up with the best practices for using Facebook, and we continually look for ways to leverage the platform for church outreach.

Let us help you add Facebook to your evangelism marketing mix and we’ll show you how it can maximize any church budget.

—Larry Witzel, Founder & President of SermonView

Shadow Empire Continues to Draw Crowds

Vince WilliamsCase-studies, Evangelism Practices

In 2016, over 600 Adventist churches in the United States and Canada joined together to share The Voice of Prophecy’s Shadow Empire with people in their communities. And the results were exceptional: tens of thousands of guests walked through church doors, many for the first time. And thousands of them stayed to join follow-up Bible studies.

It was a compelling four-part event that truly exceeded expectations.

But although the nationwide campaign for Shadow Empire is over, it’s momentum is far from finished. Churches who have used Shadow Empire as an evangelistic tool in 2017 have seen continued interest and steady attendance for their series.

CASE STUDY— THE WOODLANDS ADVENTIST CHURCH
In a community packed with booming mega churches, it’s a challenge to bring in new faces for evangelism series. Pastor Chris Jones of The Woodlands Adventist Church, located in The Woodlands, Texas, knew he had to use a new and unique approach to reach his community— so he decided on Shadow Empire.

And his community responded to the documentary-style videos featuring Shawn Boonstra, the Voice of Prophecy’s Speaker and Director.

“Everyone told me they loved how it was produced,” Pastor Jones said. “I had one guy tell me that the presentations were perfect, with just the right amount of info—not too much or too little.”

The March 31- April 4 event yielded over 120 online pre-registrations, with 70% of registered attendees actually walking through the doors of The Woodlands Adventist Church. Several attendees also decided to join follow-up Bible studies.

“One of my friends that I have been praying for and working with for three years asked for Bible studies after this series,” said Pastor Jones. “That is a huge win for Jesus!”

THE STRATEGY
Pastor Jones partnered with SermonView Evangelism Marketing to come up with an effective multi-touch strategy to help make Shadow Empire a success in his community.

We utilized:
A colorful, attention-grabbing bi-fold mailer, designed to stand out in the mailbox

Detailed demographic study of the area

A personalized landing page for people to pre-register for Shadow Empire and reserve their seats

Targeted Facebook video ads, which reached over 20,000 people with 40 shares

Each of these pieces, when used together, led to a cost of $150 per guest—far lower than average evangelism results.

THE TAKEAWAY
We have found that although the nationwide advertising for Shadow Empire is finished, churches who use Shadow Empire as a series continue to see results. It continues to be an effective tool to bring in new people through the doors of local churches.

Pastor Jones was so pleased with this Spring’s Shadow Empire that he plans to run the series again as a pre-event for the Voice of Prophecy’s A Pale Horse Rides this fall.

“The feedback from those who attended has been amazing!” Pastor Jones said. “We will definitely do Shadow Empire again in the fall before the next series, A Pale Horse Rides.”

In Search of Meaning in Puyallup

Carrie WhiteEvangelism Practices

PUYALLUP, WASH. — Two days before the event, more than 600 people were pre-registered for the Voice of Prophecy’s In Search of Meaning: Archaeology & the Bible March 3 event in Puyallup. The only problem? The venue had just 300 seats available.

In an effort to accommodate the hundreds interested in attending, the Voice of Prophecy contacted each registrant and asked if they would be willing to switch to an added time slot. Most were happy to help make room for more visitors.

Then there were more.

On opening night, over 800 people came through the doors to hear archaeologist Tony Moore share his fascinating stories about how archeological history relates to the Bible today. It was a presentation that piqued interest and kept people coming back for more night after night.

The response was overwhelming. Both time slots for all five nights were completely booked.

“It was exciting to walk in the early the second night and see the continued excitement of a full atrium of guests,” said Heidi Baumgartner, Washington Conference Communication Director. “People showed up early, chatted with new friends while they waited, and had a general excitement about the ancient world lessons they were learning.”

How did The Voice of Prophecy reach out to the community?
The Voice of Prophecy asked SermonView to handle marketing for this series, which was a pre-event for Shawn Boonstra’s Revelation Speaks Peace evangelistic meetings one week later. For the archaeology event, our strategy included a viral quiz for social media paired with direct mail, road signs, and handouts for local church members.

After reviewing the data, here is what we learned:

1. Interactive content improves response rates. Social media is a powerful tool for reaching a community, but it requires intentional strategy to get maximum response. Our Facebook ad campaign reached 74,168 people within the Puyallup area, based on demographics of those we knew would be intrigued by this meeting format. We then ran a generic ad for the series and an ad focused solely on promoting an archaeology quiz we created. Our finding? The Quiz was the clear winner. It received a click-through rate that was 25% higher than the more generic ad. The quiz system also had a built-in sharing feature that multiplied the efforts of a paid ad. It allowed people to share their quiz results with their friends at no cost. But of course, promotion needs to be measured by attendance. The quiz had the lowest bounce rate on the registration page and led to a surprisingly high 2.2% conversion to registration.

2. Multiple efforts add up to big results. In addition to Facebook ads, several promotional materials were created to help spread the word about the event. First, a customized bifold brochure was mailed to those living in Puyallup and the surrounding area. The team at The Voice of Prophecy and SermonView worked closely together to create a brochure that was congruent and met all of our promotional best practices. Road signs with simple information and graphics were placed throughout the area to enhance awareness, and increase the effectiveness of the mailers and Facebook ads. Each participating church had invitation cards for members to pass out in their circles of influence.

God blessed these efforts, which helped make In Search of Meaning, a huge success. Our most important metric for marketing success is always a simple equation: Cost per Attendee. With In Search of Meaning we saw a number of less than $40 per attendee. This demonstrates that with a little bit of marketing strategy and a whole lot of prayer, God was glorified through an incredible night of fascinating archaeological presentations!

*Photos provided by Heidi Baumgartner, Washington Conference

Finding the Cure for Evangelism Marketing Blind Spots

Vince WilliamsMarketing Practices, Uncategorized

Now, I don’t want to be too bold here, but I am just going to say it. We have blind spots in our Evangelism marketing. There, I said it. How do these blind spots affect us? They lead us to false conclusions about our efforts and convince us to quit, when we should just alter our course slightly. Let’s look at where these blind spots came from and how we can start to reduce their impact on our ministry.

If you really drill down to the basics, evangelism literally means to share the Good News. And that’s it. Evangelism is the passionate desire to share Jesus, and, at the core, the mission for those who serve God’s Kingdom. We know that God can use a week-long sermon series and He can use an emotional two-minute discussion with a stranger. In both cases, this is pure, raw evangelism.

But at times, as we pour our best efforts into searching for new and inventive ways to reach the people around us in our communities, we don’t see new faces in the crowd during our services. Are we missing an important piece to the evangelism puzzle?

Perhaps the biggest blind spot that we see time and time again lies in the uncomfortable realization that historically, churches reach out to themselves instead of to others. It sounds harsh, but it is a reality of the human experience. We see things from our perspective. This is why there are professional marketing companies in the world. Their job is to see it from the other guy’s side. How do marketers get past themselves to understand a different group of people? They start with a targeted audience, or persona.

One of the most important questions we need to ask ourselves is, “Who is it that we desire to reach?” Of course, as missionaries, we desire to reach anybody and everybody. Why would we ever intend to reach only a select few, when our mission is to reach the whole world?

Hopefully that answer, and comfort, comes from the reality of outreach—targeting a specific audience is the most effective way to reach people. We do this all the time when targeting those who live on the streets for homeless ministries, or inviting only women to a women’s ministries event. We are not purposely leaving out people—we are simply using a more effective, targeted approach.

Unfortunately, the idea of targeting audiences for church events is often ignored, in preference to the “wide-net” philosophy. We spread our nets wide, hoping to capture as many people as possible. The problem is, we let virtually everyone slip through the cracks.

Not convinced? Let me share an illustration.

Say a church wants to host a health event for their community. The church members want to share the importance of a healthy vegan lifestyle, while also sharing tips for a longer life. From our perspective, these two themes go together as part of our health message. This certainly sounds like a good way to reach a larger group of people… right?

The thing is, the church has a blind spot to two different audiences. They have assumed that the people in their town care about BOTH healthy eating and healthy living, just because it is true of themselves. They also assume that they will reach any and all people interested in any aspect of healthy living by covering both topics. Unfortunately, in general, this is not the case. Those that are interested in vegan cooking classes may be younger and more conscious of animal rights and sustainability, while those that are older may be more interested in living longer. These are two very different, very distinct audiences.

So, what happens if you offer both types of events? Unfortunately, you get even less people to show up.

You see, when people receive new information, they instantaneously decide if it is applicable to their life. If it looks interesting, they will keep reading. The problem is, because of how our brains work, they are now looking for reasons NOT to attend.

By planning an event for two different personas, you simultaneously lose both.

You will still get the older generation that sees the correlation between healthy living and vegan cooking, or the man who just found out that he has a food related disease and needs to learn to eat healthy. But you likely won’t get the young health-conscious couple looking for new vegan recipes that are too young to care about living longer, or the older couple who made a resolution to eat healthier, but still loves their meat and potatoes.

So taking the time to hone in the target audience you’d like to reach, truly makes your marketing more effective.

Here’s what we believe is the cure to this evangelism marketing blind spot:

1. Determine the problem you are solving in your community, and consider that groups relevant needs and struggles. Don’t assume anything, but break the problem down to its base level.
2. Address what solution you have to offer. Does it fit the needs of the people in your community? Do they understand how your solution will benefit them.
3. Determine the general demographics that are best served with this solution. Look at Age, Gender, Income, kids (Y/N), married (Y/N), to determine who this outreach would best match.
4. Identify your unique qualifications to address the problem and the solution.

With this simple approach we can start to look beyond accidentally trying to reach people who already know what we know, and do what we do.

There’s a quote that I recently came across that says, “Know your limits; but if you have the passion, pursue it intelligently.” And that is really what evangelism marketing boils down to: pursuing our passion intelligently, in a way that will draw others closer to God.

By starting with a focus on who and how you will help your community from their perspective, you’ll give yourself the best chance to use your marketing dollars effectively. And in the end, Better and more effective marketing means more people through your doors to learn about Jesus.

By Vince Williams, Co-Founder and Vice President of SermonView

Does Evangelism Still Work Today?

Larry WitzelEvangelism Practices

Last year, I ran across several articles trying to answer this question: “Does evangelism still work?” I always have two immediate responses to that question. My first instinct is to reply, “Well, does breathing still work?” After all, the word “evangelism” literally means to share the Good News. Just as you can’t live without breathing, you can’t be a disciple of Jesus without sharing His Good News. It’s as natural as breathing.

But usually the intent of the question is about public evangelism: doctrinal meetings to which the public is invited. And this leads to my second, simple response: Absolutely yes.

Last year, we worked on campaigns with hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist churches throughout the North American Division. These are urban, rural and suburban churches, in red states and blue states, from highly churched to highly secular regions. No matter where you are, public evangelism can work. When you plan and execute an outreach event speaking to the needs of your community, and partner with SermonView to craft a clear invitation that demonstrates the value of what you’re offering, people come. God works through you to share the Good News, and lives are changed.

The proof is in the remarkable results that many of you have seen at your events. During the last 5 years, SermonView has introduced over 10 million families to Seventh-day Adventist churches throughout North America. And during the last year, our churches saw 10,000 guests walk through their doors, many with no previous connection to the church. Does public evangelism work? Absolutely yes.

That’s why when the door opened for us to team up with Shawn Boonstra and the Voice of Prophecy for Shadow Empire, we jumped in head-first. We helped over 600 churches across North America host the series, which led to many making the decision to connect with a local church or join Bible studies. And we are confident that God has big plans to reach even more people during the follow-up series, A Pale Horse Rides, in October 2017.

Yes, there continues to be a place for public evangelism. We see it working, because new people are continuing to walk through your church doors to learn about Jesus.

I sit here in awe of what God has done through our partnership together. Thank you for allowing us to join you in ministry this year, and for believing in the evangelism marketing process. I can’t wait to see how God is going to bless your evangelism efforts in 2017.

-Larry Witzel

Why SermonView Evangelism Marketing?

Vince WilliamsEvangelism Practices

After years of research, we’ve found that higher response rates don’t just come from a nicely designed handbill. While design is important, the combination of compelling copy, marketing best-practices, intentional calls to action, audience research, and eye-catching design must all work hand-in-hand to obtain significantly better response rates. These traits can be hard to distinguish, but we use data-driven, evidence-based decision-making to increase the effectiveness of every campaign that we develop for a local church.

Compelling copy. If your goal is to reach non-Adventists, then you need to understand the way non-Adventists approach evangelism. While SermonView is an Adventist-owned, ASI-member ministry, our team of marketing professionals come from a variety of faith backgrounds. They use their unique life experiences to speak with clarity to those you’re trying to reach, helping to bridge the cultural divide between your church and the people in your community. This has resulted in higher attendance at meetings across the country.

Marketing best-practices. Direct marketing professionals know that continuous improvement comes from continuous testing. When you make a change that you think will improve response rates, the only way to know if it is a true improvement is to try it and measure the results. Then you keep what works and discard what doesn’t. Over the last five years, these incremental improvements have added up to revolutionary change, resulting in thousands of more people engaging in the life of a local church.

Intentional call to action. Our goal with every mailing is to move interests along a path with minimal friction and provide simple steps that lead to a commitment. Our website landing pages and telephone response system offer a simple first step for most campaigns. Ongoing, automated emails comprise a second form of contact, which leads to higher attendance. Our proprietary system has been developed specifically for evangelism marketing and maximizes participation at your series.

Audience research. Our team does intensive research based on your area and considers over a dozen factors when building a list. By managing dynamics such as age, income, and ethnicity, we develop a strong list of neighborhoods near you that will generate the highest response rates for your event. We also factor drive times and traffic patterns to make sure that the people you invite are able to make it to your event. This research is unique for each campaign, because every campaign is tailored for your local community.

Eye-catching design that tells a story. Design plays two major roles in every marketing piece. First, it needs to quickly communicate the basic details to someone who might attend your meeting. Second, it needs to be congruent with your target audience. SermonView’s marketing team includes professional designers, who ensure that the layout and design for your marketing piece will have the highest impact.

Evidence-based decision-making. Subjective opinions are only relevant when confirmed by objective facts. Our practice is to use actual data to influence improvement, not just instincts. We have found that when you use the hard evidence of actual response rates, you get better decisions. And ultimately, that leads to more people through the doors of your church.

We have seen that when a local church hands SermonView responsibility for evangelism marketing, they consistently see results two to four times what they had before. They simply get more guests for the identical budget. We know you’ll see the difference SermonView will make in your response rates and the number of guests at your next meeting.

5 Ideas for Hacksaw Ridge Evangelism

Carrie WhiteEvangelism Practices

With the recent release of Mel Gibson’s moving depiction of the Desmond Doss story in Hacksaw Ridge, many viewers are asking the question— why? Why did Doss refuse to carry a weapon? Why was he so adamant about not training on Saturdays? Why did his faith play such a big role in his life?

hsr-graphic

The movie gives the church an incredibly unique opportunity to step in and answer those questions that viewers are searching for. Our team at SermonView has come up with a couple ideas for how you can do just that:

1. Utilize Bible Study Cards: With an eye-catching design, the Bible study card is made to pique the interest of someone who has heard of or seen the movie. Bible study cards are most effective when they offer a valuable resource to the recipient, and with Hacksaw Ridge there are a number of offers you can make to engage with your community.

2. Host a Documentary Viewing: Invite members of your community to continue lerning about Desmond’s faith by watching Terry Benedict’s 2004 documentary The Conscientious Objector. This is also a great way to get people familiar with your church and a perfect opportunity to invite them to come back again. Promote it throughout your community with a custom campaign kit designed to get noticed.

3. Craft a ‘Faith Like Doss” Sermon: Invite your community to join your congregation for a sermon that outlines Desmond’s Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. Send them an invitation that will grab their interest with a call-to-action to join you and learn more about the faith that made a hero.

4. Share “Hero of Hacksaw Ridge”: The 128-page book, written by Booton Herdon with a postscript by Doug Batchelor, is the exciting Desmond Doss story in book form. This is an excellent alternative for those who prefer to read over viewing the movie.

5. Adopt a #LiveLikeDoss Mentality: Perhaps the most famous words in Doss’ story are, “Lord, help me get one more…” Evangelism Marketing boils down to that very same mentality- just like Doss, our goal is to reach at least one person with the message about Jesus. (And check out the #LiveLikeDoss hashtag on Twitter for inspiration!)

Our Hacksaw Ridge Campaign Kits (vertical and horizontal banners, invitation cards, and more!) are available now starting at just $500. Call 1-800-525-5791 to learn more.