How To Build The Perfect Church Plan-Your-Visit Page

May 13, 2021 00:32:20
How To Build The Perfect Church Plan-Your-Visit Page
REACHRIGHT Podcast
How To Build The Perfect Church Plan-Your-Visit Page

May 13 2021 | 00:32:20

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Show Notes

In today’s episode, we discuss how you can build the perfect plan-your-visit page on your church website. 

Almost every visitor will be on your church website before they show up for the first time. 

A good church website should have a page dedicated to visitors. 

 Join us as we discuss the ins and outs of how you should design your plan-your-visit page

We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow.

How To Build The Perfect Church Plan-Your-Visit Page

Write A Great Tagline

A tagline has the power to grab a visitor’s attention immediately. It sets the tone for a visitor and can instantly communicate what matters most at your church.  

Use Engaging Photography

People are drawn naturally to photography. You can communicate more about your church with photos than you could with a few lines of text. The adage is true; A picture is worth a thousand words. 

Create A Welcome Video

A welcome video from your team helps people get over the hump of apprehension. Attending a church for the first time can be scary, but it helps visitors feel comfortable right away if we get this right. 

Build a FAQ

A Frequently Asked Question section helps visitors get the answers to questions they are almost certainly asking. But it is more than that. It is another chance for you to tell your church’s story.  

Provide Information About Kids

Parents need to know that their kids will be loved and cared for before they are willing to visit your church. Make sure that is communicated clearly on the page. Even better, give parents a space to pre-register their kids. 

Don’t Forget the Details

Your plan-your-visit page needs to include all the critical info a visitor needs. Don’t forget to have your service times, location information, and a map with a link to Google Maps.

Ask People To Respond

As with everything you do online, you need to ask people to respond. A let-us-know-you’re-coming page is a powerful tool. Not everyone will fill it out, but you will find those that do are much stickier. 

For More Reading On Plan-Your-Visit Pages

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 00:00:00 In today's episode, we discuss how you can build the perfect plan, your visit page on your church website. Almost every visitor will be on your church website before they show up. For the first time a good church website will have a page dedicated to visitors. Join us as we discuss the ins and outs of how you should design your plan, your visit page. We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people Speaker 1 00:00:25 And grow. You are listening to the reach, right podcast, the show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello, and with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We're here to help your church see more visitors and grow well. Hey guys, welcome Speaker 0 00:01:04 To the reach right podcast episode number 45. I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. Hey Thomas, what's up? No, not too much in a you're doing good, man. I'm doing good. How are you doing good. Excited for our conversation here today. We're going to be talking about the perfect church plan, your visit page, how to build one. And this is something that goes on church websites nowadays, and we're of the opinion that just about every church website should have one. Uh, we think it's something that's really been beneficial to churches that we help. Um, and it's something that I think a lot of, uh, maybe pastors are wondering, how do I do that? Or what should it be on there? And so hopefully we can give some details on what that is, but maybe you could start us off today by telling us what is a plan, your visit page for a church. What are we talking about when we say that? Speaker 2 00:01:54 I agree, first of all, I agree with you that every church should probably have one, unless you don't want visitors to show up, but in that case, no. And you know, these, these are still kind of nude in the minds of a lot of pastor. When I mentioned these pages on my conversations and calls I have with pastors, a lot of them are like, Oh wow, that's interesting. And you know, a lot of these five-year-old plus year old websites out there don't have these pages they made, they all have an about page that that page has been around and maybe, maybe even an I'm new page, but a plan, your visit page is still kind of something that's newer. You know, we've, we've seen these pages, we've been building them on our websites for goodness, probably close to about five years now. But when we first started those, they were brand new and kind of just, I dunno, I kind of, we didn't invent it, but I kind of felt like we were some of maybe the pioneers for it a little bit to take credit, but, but yeah, very new still in a lot of mind for pastors, but this page is a page designed for someone who has not yet come to your church, correct? Speaker 2 00:03:07 Yeah. Speaker 0 00:03:07 Yeah. That's always been, our philosophy is when we build church websites, uh, and we've been doing this, you and I, we were just counting the other day. You started this in 2006, right? So I was in 2007. So 15 year anniversary for you there, Ian coming up, helping churches do websites. So I know a finger to emphasis on the old. Yeah, exactly. So now I kid, but, uh, this is something that's newer. Uh, and really our philosophy has always been that church website should be visitor geared first, right. And then member geared second. And that's always been our rule. That's, what's kind of helped us to be able to help as many churches as we have is really living by that philosophy. Uh, but you're right. A few years ago, it started to make sense that we need to have a clear place that we direct visitors. Speaker 0 00:03:56 Like while the whole site will really be using visitor language. There needs to be a page dedicated to helping people make that leap from someone that's looking at your church or getting information about your church or learning about your church and to someone that's willing to come and pay a visit. Uh, so, and this is really something that I think is primarily for in-person visits. Although the same model could be used for, if you're doing online services, it's really a good model to use. They're introducing the church. And I think that this is really something primarily for in-person visits. So, um, so that's, that's what we're talking about today. We want to give seven kind of key elements that you need to make sure you include on that. So I'll go ahead and kick us off with number one, the first element of a great plan, your visit page, uh, is a great tagline. Speaker 0 00:04:44 So your church has to write a great tagline to make this, something that stands out. Um, the tagline, when we talk about that, that's usually something that is the first very short, uh, set. It's a sentence at most, uh, a very short statement that you have when someone first gets onto that page, that sets the tone for their entire experience on that page there. So we've heard a lot of great taglines over the years, but this is really something that can capture someone's attention, lets them know what you're about as a church and kind of communicates that for you. So have you heard of any, I know people always ask us like, Oh, what do we do for that? And we're not anything we're about to say, it's not to say this should be your tagline, but maybe you it's something that kind of gives you an idea of something that has worked well for other churches. Uh, and maybe you should consider it. So I don't know if you heard any good taglines, uh, recently in, or Speaker 2 00:05:39 Just start with one that I don't recommend, even though it's totally biblical and we love the saying, but we don't recommend love. God love people. Uh, we've seen that everywhere. Uh, and again, if that's your tagline and what you use, we're not, we, we, again, we know that what that means and it's a positive thing to leave in the great command believe in that. Yes, absolutely. But no, I think you need to think be a little bit more creative and, and think about the visitor, one of my favorites, because it's totally focused on the potential visitor. So I wouldn't even say visitor it's, it's the potential, someone who is not yet maybe for lack of a better word sold on visiting your church. This is a church we work with there's that they came up with, which I think is great. It's that they say life is complicated. You want to get it right. We're here to help. And I think that's so great because it says, Hey, you know, we get it. This is a tough life. You're trying to figure it out. Right. And we're, we're just here to help and it makes it all about them. It makes it sound like you're for that person and helping them discover their God's plan for their life and leading them down that road. And, and so that's my favorite. One of my favorites, the one that sticks out to me first, Speaker 0 00:06:52 I think it's it's I like that one because it's not like it's necessary. It's not catchy. I wouldn't say it's not something that's like a, you know, kind of funny makes you chuckle, but I think it's so approachable to everybody. Right? So whether you love Jesus or don't know if you love Jesus yet, or whether you, uh, have been a part of a church or never have been a part of church, I think anybody can relate to the fact that yeah, life is life is complicated and you know, we want to help you get it. Right. And that that's, that's exactly what people want in a church a lot of times there. So I think that's a great one. The one that stood out to me, we just talked to these people just the other day and I thought it was, this is on the other end of the spectrum. Speaker 0 00:07:28 It's kind of on the, the fun side. And they were laughing when they said this it's an African-American church in, uh, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They said, we're the church in the hood. That'll do you some good, you know, that's, that was their slogan there. And it was really fun group of people, but I think it really captured what they were about as a church that, you know, they didn't take themselves super seriously. And that statement, it was kind of set tongue in cheek and everything. They obviously loved their community, but they wanted to make an impact in that community that they were serving there. So, um, those kinds of taglines, they really do set the tone, I think, for the rest of someone's experience on that plan, your visit page. Speaker 2 00:08:07 Yeah. That's good stuff. That's good. So yeah, definitely leading out with a good tag line. I'll go ahead and hit the second one here, which is to use engaging photography. We have preached this and become blue in the face. So to speak on just to have this on, you know, not just your website, but throughout social media, you know, the old adage, a picture's worth a thousand words still is relevant, even more relevant, uh, even more relevant because people are hit with so many marketing messages, daily and imagery and all of that. And, and people are visual and you need something that stands out and that is engaging and real actual photos of people at your church. They reduce apprehension too, because people get to see people like them. They get to see, uh, families having a good time, real, you know, people not, we don't recommend stock imagery. Speaker 2 00:09:02 Uh, if you can help it at all, sometimes we have to help churches with that with, with websites that we do, but we would much rather prefer real actual photos. And think about it, put yourself in again, the potential visitors place. What would you want to see if you were on the outside on me as a dad, I'd like to see, uh, you know, kids having a good time. I'd like to see families. I'd like to see just warm people, authentic people. Um, you know, um, you know, don't want to see, you know, someone, uh, holding a Bible out, like looking at me like this or something like that. So, uh, so, you know, think about what a visitor would like to see. And is it as much of that, because nowadays you can have longer pages on your website because people thumbed down from their phones. Um, you can, you can have several images on these pages and transition them really well. Speaker 0 00:09:57 No, I think you're exactly right. Like nobody is going to read, uh, blocks and blocks of texts on your plan, your visit, or maybe a few people will, but they are much more likely to catch what you're about, then read what you're about. And that's what your opportunity is here with these photos is to do that, um, to what you were saying about stock photos. Um, we're going to go out on a limb here. I think it's like, it's almost a sin to use, uh, to use stock photography on your church website, especially if you're using it to try and paint the picture that you're something that you are not a, so if you're a church that's really struggling to reach young families and you've gotten older and you have tons of photos of bombs and babies and stuff on your website that are stock photos. Speaker 0 00:10:41 And you're kind of openly trying to deceive people in a way. So now there's a fine line. You know, we want to, we use the website to paint the picture of where we're going as well as where we are right now. But I think good quality photography on our end is so important. A couple of things I'll add to the kinds of photos we're looking for. We have a saying here that we use at retrial when we're consulting clients, is that we're, we're looking to use photos of people caught in the act doing the values of your church. That's what works best on these kinds of things. So what we do not want to have on this page, as we do not want to have, um, gratuitous pictures of the building, um, you know, nobody really, there are some exceptions to that. Like if you have a really iconic building that everybody's going to know, cause they drive by it all the time and it's a landmark place, maybe one picture of your building is okay. Speaker 0 00:11:34 But, um, but pictures of your building, pictures of your, um, of empathy facilities, uh, pictures of chairs that are empty picture of children's ministry without kids in it, like the pictures I have all for showing off your children's ministry. If you have a great children's ministry, they're just better when they have of people in them. And there's actually like a picture of a nice facilities is not as good as a picture having a blast in nice facilities, right? So kids smiling and having fun. So really these are so important because people are going to catch what your church is all about so much faster than they'll ever read what your church is about. So this right. Um, I will say to almost all of our clients, that this is an area that it's probably worth it to spend some money. Uh, you probably have a photographer at your church. You probably have someone that does it at least semi-professionally or they pay for a little gigs. Most churches have someone like that, uh, equipment to do these kinds of things is less expensive than it's ever been now. So you probably have someone, but even if you don't, it's worth a couple of hundred dollars probably to get a really good set of pictures from a Sunday experience and really use those going forward. Um, it'd be money well spent. I would say Speaker 2 00:12:47 I like one more thing. I'll a couple more things I'll add. I like how you said Sunday morning experience. That's the thing we recommend too, because I think that even if your church is doing a lot of outreach and in the community, and that stuff's good to show too, but the Sunday morning experience is kind of what's on people's minds the most because they're walking into your, this building for the first time and we know how intimidating that can sometimes feel the people in the last thing. I'll say the only time maybe we would say stop photography would be acceptable as if you're in an area like a bigger city where maybe someone can find really good stock for photos of like your city, Skylar landmarks, landmarks, stuff like that. Now that still can be authentic. But again, that's kind of tough unless you're like in maybe New York city or one of the, so even that's a little hard, but sometimes we can figure that stuff out. Speaker 0 00:13:38 Yep. No, that's good. So why don't you take two number three, it's create a welcome video. These are also great ways to tell your story of your church without using blocks of text on your website. So these are videos. Usually they'll highlight the pastor of the church, uh, sharing a quick, like a couple of sentence reason for someone to show up on a Sunday. Maybe your tagline will be repeated in this kind of a video, the tagline we just talked about and then an actual invite to come out on a Sunday morning. So giving someone an invitation to respond, to take a step, to, to jump in with what's going on at your church there. So these have to be short. Uh, so we do not want a nine minute history of the church and talking about past leaders and when it was founded, actually, um, you know, to say it, plainly visitors probably don't care about that very much. You know, there's, I'm sure that there's people that care, but a visitor doesn't need to know who the third pastor of your hundred and 20 year old church is in order to come on a Sunday. They need to know what Speaker 2 00:14:45 May come later after someone's in the fold and a member. Right? Those, all that stuff's important, but not when someone's looking for a church, they don't care. Speaker 0 00:14:53 Right. That's exactly right. So, um, so getting this welcome video, right? I think that's really, uh, something that's important. Um, they should be, we say usually 60 to 90 seconds, right? That's how long these videos should be. They probably shouldn't be just the pastor talking the whole time. There's probably some video of, of the pastor speaking and then maybe some B roll footage in the background of kids having a blast, people being baptized, um, men and women, getting together, people hugging in the foyer, those kinds of things. Uh, so that's the kind of stuff we're looking for in these videos. What do you have to add to that? Ian? Speaker 2 00:15:28 Not much. I think you hit it, keeping it short, you know, no one wants to watch a movie on your website. They're coming for info to get it as quickly as they can while they're forming their decision. And I would say too, yeah, we still, it doesn't have to be from the pastor. I think if you could put together something short and maybe it kind of gives people a highlight of worship and the pastor and all of that and other things, but there's been so many studies that even though humble pastors know, it's not all about them. And every, we all know that it's not all about the pastor. However, there's been so many studies that show people stay at a church or they feel connected based on the relationship with their pastor and the teaching and the impression they get from him. So I'd say since you're going to be mostly who they hear from on a Sunday, that's still a good idea. Speaker 2 00:16:15 So that's what I'd have dad to that. Great. I'll tackle a number four here and that's to build out some frequently asked questions, some FAQ's as they're called. Now, these have been on websites for a while and on good websites, because I would say this also gets in the mind of the visitor and kind of these reduce apprehension because you can, you can answer questions ahead of time that they have in mind. And some of the usuals are, of course, how long is the service? What's the worship style? Like, you know, how do I need to dress? And all of those things have been kind of understood to be good FAQ's for a while. But we like to think a little, try to think a little more creative with some of these waters. What's maybe one you've you've seen that you like and a good example. Speaker 0 00:17:01 Well, my favorite, one of my, a friend of ours, who's a longtime client of ours, Tim Otis. He has a church called branches church in Washington. Uh, and I remember there's it's, uh, they even had like kind a picture of this here too. But like it said, when they talk about their dress code, they just said, wear clothes. Like that's their only dress code is what it says there. And there's a picture of his crazy face with his big beard kind of wearing clothes, this, uh, so, uh, but I I've loved that. Just kind of the attitude, but, um, I think what I like about this idea of building a frequently asked questions is don't misunderstand the purpose of this. Don't think that the purpose of that is to actually answer the most frequently asked questions, right? Like it's actually more to ask the questions that you are to answer the questions that you want to ask, or you want people to ask you, right. Speaker 0 00:17:55 That's what the point of our frequently asked questions section is because I think for a lot of us, um, you know, I know the questions I would get asked by visitors the most is, Hey, what is your stance on LGBTQ issues? Or what is your stance on abortion as a church? And I would know there's no reason why you should put that in your FAQ section. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a good answer for that. I'm just saying that you don't want to lead with that conversation to visitors that are on there for the first time. Right? So that's not the way, the way you want people to be introduced to your church there. So go with like the frequently asked questions that you hope people are asking, and it helps you to better paint the picture for your church. But yeah, maybe you have some ideas of, what's like a fun question you've seen on there. Ian, Speaker 2 00:18:39 It was one that I think you came up with that your old church that you pastored, which is still a website client of ours as well, but it was that, can I come if I'm this type of person and you kind of just addressed that. So I loved it said if I'm, you know, if I'm a Republican, can I come in? If I'm a Democrat, can I come if I'm black, if I'm white, if I'm, you know, what was one of the, if I'm an immigrant, you have one of those on there. I think actually it was pretty funny. Could I one set of, can I come if I'm either a Trump hater or supporter, and it's pretty funny, anytime, you know, that site is seen by churches that I'm talking with, they always laugh at that one. So, but yeah, so I think that the whole point was is we know churches hopefully are love everyone and want them to have an opportunity to come. So not that you have to take that type of approach, you know, these are, those are not for every church that type of, but, but that was one that always sticks out to me. And I think it's actually kind of humorous. Speaker 0 00:19:42 Yeah, we got so many visitors that came and they said they would mention that to me when I would shake their hands on their way out. And they, or they'd, uh, they'd write that in there. Hey, well, tell us about your first experience. We would send them an email and they would respond with a survey and they would mention that, um, just that it was, it helped them kind of get over the barrier. Cause we had, we had all kinds of serious things. Like we accept adulterers and fornicators, and that kind of stuff can come and be with us. And we also exists televangelists and Nickelback fans. We say all those kinds of things on there. So yeah, but it was something that kind of put people at ease and that's really what the frequently asked questions can do as it can help people be put at ease and know that they will have a good experience their first time there that's good stuff. Speaker 0 00:20:29 Cool. Number five, let me hit that. Uh, it's provide information about kids and your kids' ministries. Uh, give people information on that. This is probably the thing that certainly families, but at the even took a sampling of everybody. This is one of the most important things that you need to nail your plan, your visit page, as you need to make sure that parents know their kids are going to have a great time and they're not going to hate being at church. That's what this is all about is getting that across there. So communicating that on that site. So having pictures of your kid's ministry, uh, happy happening, having it with actual kids in it, uh, and, um, making sure that parents are comfortable before they show up, because you've taken time to talk about your kids' ministry and then it's something that you guys value. So they know that they can put some faith in that too. So what do you have to add? Speaker 2 00:21:22 Yeah, no, I think that that's, that's so crucial and you made me actually think of the churches that a lot of the churches that I consult with are aging, you know, mainline churches. And they tell me, well, you know, that's a great idea, Ian, but you know, we really don't have much of a kids ministry at all. And that's okay because I think half the battle is I still recommend that you talk about how much you're going to love their kids. If you do come, you know, because even if you don't have, you know, some booming kids' ministry with bounce houses and all sorts of stuff going on it, I hope your church still is welcoming to kids and has something in place that's going to give them, like you said, a fun experience to a certain extent and that they're going to be in a safe place. I think child safety is a bigger question now in security and all of that then compared to it's ever been. So even if you don't have a booming kids ministry, or a ton of kids, you still want to address it and that's going to help you reach families with kids. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:22:24 Yeah. I think it's, we talked to a lot of churches where it's kind of a, um, a chicken or an egg kind of thing. Like they want to have a great children's ministry and reach more young families getting families to come when you don't have a children's ministry or any kids to speak of. It's we're only a couple of kids. It's just really a hard thing to do. But I think you need to paint the picture there. You need to have the vision. If you're a church that has like, maybe you don't have enough kids for your children's ministry or a youth ministry during service, and maybe you're doing more of a family inclusive style worship for the few kids that are there. Talk about that. Talk about why that is your vision and why you folks are doing it that way and why you hope people will come and grow with you in that endeavor. Speaker 0 00:23:05 So I think it's really big. Um, here's another thing too, is on these kids' sections. Uh, it is a really cool tool and I think I'd recommend every church. You would give parents the opportunity to pre-register their kids before they show up on a Sunday morning. I know for us, when we've got visitors at our church that had a family had kids with them, that was a, a big slowdown because now for child security, reasons and safety, there are there's, there's a lot of things you need to do before. Some you just receive someone's child, you probably have them fill out a pretty good size form. You check with them on allergies, you get them, their stickers, you do all that kind of stuff. And for most churches, a first time visitor, it takes a lot longer because you have to get all that information, right. Speaker 0 00:23:51 Whereas if someone's kids have been there for years, you have it all in the system. It's a really quick process of punching it into the system and then their name tag prints out. So anything you can do to speed up that process and make it easier on Sunday morning is good. So giving a pre-registration spot and also, you know, another side benefit is that you get the per the parents information, you could maybe reach out to them, give them an email, thank them for coming to church. So any chance to grab someone's info before they come on a Sunday really is powerful stuff. We'll talk more about that in number seven, I think, but yeah, definitely. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:24:24 It's here now. Please do. Don't forget the details. What details, just the basic ones that should be there. Like service times, you can't, you can't kind of over communicate that. Cause we know we've known for years. That's like one of the most sought after pieces of content on your website is service times directions, you know, a Google map, you know, making it very easy for someone to just get there. Cause sometimes someone may be already like planning to visit and they just go there for that quick reminder. They'll hit your site there. So, but it's good to repeat it on this page. We, most churches I'd say all of them pretty much have it on the home page, you know, at least down towards the bottom or in a visible area as someone's scrolling down. But on this page again, since it's such a visitor geared page, it doesn't hurt to repeat Speaker 0 00:25:18 Those details. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I'll take a different approach on it. I think you're exactly right. Having the information. So that means your service times, name of your church, address, phone number, all those things are important to have that on there. I think having a link to Google maps. Yeah. So someone can click a button and get directions right on their phone. They know how to get there. Um, it, yeah, I think that's really valuable. This also serves a function with helping with local search engine optimization on here. So I think that having this page optimize this as a great page to optimize for local search engine optimization, what that means is local search engine optimization, as you know, he had, but just so our audience would know is how your church can rank in that map pack. So when you do a search for churches near me or churches in Austin, Texas, the first thing you'll usually see is ads. Speaker 0 00:26:11 Um, we can help churches with that with the Google grant. That's something that we do right below that there's a section for a map and it usually has the top three most important churches in Google's eyes. That'll be ranked on a map there. Uh, so people can find those. Uh, so the way that you rank on that, there's a whole bunch of, uh, things that you can do. We did a whole podcast episode on this two weeks ago. Uh, so episode, I think 43 is what it was. So if you want to go back and take a look at that, but one of the main things you need to do is make sure you clearly have your nap name, address, phone number all over your website. And this is one of those key pages to have service times and then make sure you have name, address, phone, number, name, address, phone number, have that on there. It really makes a big difference. I'm Speaker 2 00:26:58 Glad you covered that side of it. That's a big deal. So yeah. Speaker 0 00:27:03 Yeah. I'll wrap us up. Um, I feel like we end almost every podcast episode with this same point. Uh, but it is ask people to respond. Just everything you do last week, we talked about, uh, church newsletters. So we ended with ask people to respond that way. Speaker 2 00:27:18 We always end with this point because it's usually what you need to end with with your marketing and your web approach. Right? Speaker 0 00:27:24 You're right. Yeah. That's it. So, uh, on your plan, your visit page, you are wasting an enormous opportunity if you just dump a lot of information on people and hope for the best, but what you need to do as with every other page on your website is you need to ask people to respond. And what is the most common response in this area? It is to usually it's let us know you're coming, that's having a form that's called probably something to the effect of let us know you're coming and it has name and someone's phone number and someone's email address. And when they're planning on coming, this has them fill out a form and then they can kind of plan their visit. Now with that, we found that you need to make sure that you give some kind of a, if you want people to fill it out, you have to give them a reason to fill it out because everybody knows you can just come to church, uh, without letting someone know you're coming. Speaker 0 00:28:16 Although there are some exceptions in this COVID season that we're in right now where, uh, you know, some churches do have registration before you show up for capacity concerns, but in most cases and post pandemic, if you're listening to this, then, uh, in most cases, that is not how it works. Uh, so it is important that you give someone a reason. So usually that's something like, we'll give you a free gift. We'll show you around and introduce you to people. We'll give you a seat in the middle, so you're not in the back, but you don't have to sit up front and stick out. So we kind of make a promise to people and then ask them to do that. Now here's what I have found. We have some experience. We have clients that use it. I know as a pastor of a church that we have used it for years, I absolutely loved this. Speaker 0 00:28:58 And here's why most visitors did not fill out a plan, your visit for, so I want to be clear about that. This isn't something that you'll see almost everybody do. If you get a third of your visitors filling out that form, that's great. But, but what we found was that those that did fill it out were our stickiest visitors. Those that filled it out, uh, what it let me do as I could reach out to them ahead of time, say, Hey, I'm looking forward to meeting you this Sunday. Then when I got to meet them, they got to put a face with the name we connected. And we found that these people, their odds of coming back again were very high. And really that's our goal, right? Visitors that don't get connected to your church. Don't make a decision to follow Jesus. Aren't getting discipled. Really. We missed the Mark on those and that's not going to happen for everybody, but we hope that we can disciple as many people as possible. And so if that truly is our goal, helping people not just visit, but be, be recurring visitors and become attenders and become members and become a leaders, that's really our goal. And this kind of starts them down that path that way. So what do you have to add to that? Speaker 2 00:30:03 Yeah, not much other than I think for maybe that person saying, well, I don't know. Cause I've heard this, I've had this feedback before in conversations with pastors and ministry leaders. And then I don't know, that's just kinda maybe a little too in your face or intrusive to, to ask for someone's information or anything. And what I would say to that is that I don't think we re we don't recommend that you, you know, ask them for their social security number and even maybe even phone number. I think if someone does ask for a phone number, they say it's optional. And, and I, I, I've also seen on good church websites. They say, Hey, we're not going to hound you once you fill out this form or anything. We just want to know that you're showing up and let you know we're praying for you. Speaker 2 00:30:40 But I think keeping it simple. And I would say that again, you know, more people are used to doing this now. And I think coming out of the pandemic and everything, uh, and not just for, uh, church, you know, people visiting churches, but visiting a local business or a restaurant, sometimes these places required you to fill out a pre-registration form as well. Um, or something kid related, you know, registration. So I think people are more used to it now, uh, as well. So for that pastor, a ministry leader that maybe is a little apprehensive again, and you hit the nail on the head, not everyone's going to fill them out and that's fine, but I think that more people are used to it now. Speaker 0 00:31:17 Yeah, no, that's well said. That's good. Yeah. So we believe in these guys, these are something that I think that, uh, almost every church you should have a plan, your visit page on your website. Hopefully these seven tips have been helpful to you if they have been, uh, it would mean a lot to us. If you would rate, review, subscribe, let other people know that this podcast is out here and, uh, that has been a help to you. Um, we're really thankful for you guys in our and family and we hope to catch you next week. See ya. Speaker 1 00:31:46 Thanks for listening to the reach right podcast. We hope this episode will help you reach people the right way, looking for more resources for your church. Check us out online at reach, right studios.com. If this episode has been helpful to you, it would mean the world to us. If you would rate, review and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening. And we'll see you next week. Speaker 2 00:32:13 No.

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