Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 In today's episode, we unpack seven ways. Your church can make a better first impression online for most people. Their first experience with your church will not happen on Sunday morning. It will happen on your website, but how can a church website capture a visitor's attention and inspire them to learn more about your church? Join us as we answer that question and much more in this conversation, we hope it helps your church reach more people and grow
Speaker 1 00:00:38 You 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. Hey guys, welcome to
Speaker 0 00:01:07 The read-write podcast. Episode number 37. I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost.
Speaker 2 00:01:15 Hi, how's it going, Thomas?
Speaker 0 00:01:17 Oh, go on goody and excited to talk through our conversation here today. We're talking about seven ways your church can make a better first impression online. I think it's going to be a good conversation because it is, uh, certainly more important than ever before. Um, people this, uh, if you are mistakenly, still believing that people's first impression is when they pull into your parking lot or when they walk into the foyer, I think you're dead wrong for the vast majority of people, uh, because almost everybody, this was true 10 years ago, but even today, even more so, um, the vast majority of people, their first experience with you, their first impression of you and really their decision on whether they want to be a part of your church or not, or even try you out, uh, it happens online before it happens in person. You agree?
Speaker 2 00:02:04 I totally agree. Yeah. I don't know how many stats there are to back that up. Right. And, uh, so, uh, yeah, I mean, and that's been the case, um, and I, you know, more churches compared to 10 years ago, understand this now. Uh, and they understand how important it is, but I am surprised to still hear how many churches, uh, they, I think they're still, you know, because they've traditionally viewed the four year, the park parking lot or their church sign is the first impression. Uh, um, you know, I think that's still out there a little bit, you know, for sure. Um, but, uh, but more and more churches are catching on.
Speaker 0 00:02:37 Yeah. I mean, that's what I was taught in Bible college. That's, you know, Bible college one Oh one is they, I remember getting, uh, like talks from my first pastor when I was first in ministry, uh, and kind of getting a job description as I was the associate pastor, which in that time in that church, it meant I did everything, uh, that didn't, that he didn't want to do. Uh, but it was one of those things where I got a speech about how the, the parking lot and what people see when they're walking up to the front door, when they're walking into the door and that people make that they make that judgment on what your church is going to be like. And they've probably decided, well that they're going to visit again or not. They've decided that before they even sit down in their chair, now you can do things to ruin that.
Speaker 0 00:03:22 But you know, that that's what we were taught. And I would say that today, that same principle is true, but it happens on a website. And I would say within the first handful of seconds, people probably decide whether or not they're going to visit your church right then. And if their first experience that people have on your church website, uh, if it isn't something that, uh, meets their expectations, this an answer, a few basic questions, they probably decide right. Then whether their, your church is worth a visit or not. So, um, yeah, it's really important. So why don't I I'll go ahead and dig in. We have seven, uh, ways that you can make you a better first impression for visitors on your site. Uh, and I'll go ahead and tackle the first one. Uh, it is you can include a plan, your visit page on your church website. Uh, so what this is, and you can give us some detail on some of the specifics of it, but this is a page that is really designed exclusively for first time visitors, helping them get over that initial, um, visit apprehension that people have and helping them make a decision to, to show up and plan what their first Sunday is going to be like. So tell us a little bit more about what a plan your visit page is all about.
Speaker 2 00:04:32 Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. We'd love to Thomas and, uh, of course we, uh, designed these day in and day out here, but, uh, the thing about these pages, if they've actually been a big deal and a thing, even before the pandemic, I think that, uh, the pandemic has accelerated the need for those because people are, uh, they have a little more apprehension these days, uh, and they're used to RSVP ING and, you know, uh, whether or not it's to, you know, a limited amount of seats in your church or in a restaurant or something, people are, they're registering for things online in general, more these days. Um, so on these pages specifically, you would allow someone to fill out a form, uh, to let you know that they're, they're coming now before that though, before you just throw the form in their face, some of the helpful things to have on this page would be even a welcome video from the senior pastor, brief 60 to 90 seconds kind of gets them to break the ice extends a warm greeting, and that reduces some apprehension.
Speaker 2 00:05:28 It's also a good place to have frequently asked questions, you know, and, and, and address the fact that, that, you know, you know, that if someone goes into a church for the first time, it can be intimidating or even feel a little weird. And so, Hey, here's what you can dress like, you know, come as you are type thing, here's what the music's going to be like. You're stripped to expect in the service. And then another very effective thing is, is to have information on what if, uh, if a parent's bringing kiddos, if you're a family and you're bringing kids, this is the page where you want to make sure you address that because that's always in the back of our, at the front of a parent's mind. Um, and you know, so to address those things and then allow them to respond, um, you know, to let you know, and, and Hey, we found that this actually helps churches, uh, kind of, uh, you know, their greeting process when they kind of know a certain fan, not everyone's going to fill out those forms, but, um, when they do, you know, you can even kind of say, Hey, we're, we're excited to see you, Mike, uh, and your family this weekend.
Speaker 2 00:06:30 And we'll, we'll save a spot for you, you know?
Speaker 0 00:06:33 Yeah. I find that when people fill out a form like that, what it does is if they, if they get a response email or something that says, Hey, we're excited to see you again, it's at 10:00 AM. It's like, it's almost like setting an appointment in some ways. And their likelihood of making it to church is just much higher than rather than if they just see the information and it's left to their own devices there. So I think that's really a, it's kind of a, uh, a marketing strategy, I guess you'd say, is getting people to, even though there's not like a financial commitment, but it's almost like a little commitment to say that I'm going to make this, my church this Sunday, I'm going to be visiting this place here. So I think the thing about these, uh, plan, your visit pages is, uh, the other thing to remember is that you have to drive people to them.
Speaker 0 00:07:15 So what most churches do is on that home page section, like right at the very top, what we'd say in a web design, as we put it above the fold to borrow a newspaper term, is that you'll have a really clear link that says plan your visit or I'm new or something to that effect that makes sure someone knows in bright colors, that this is where I go first, if this is my first time there. So that's something that's really important, but I think these plan, your visit pages, I think you said it well, Ian, we have found that not everybody is going to fill them out. We don't have to require in most cases, unless you have some COVID restrictions or something, we don't require people to fill them out to attend your church. But I found that over and over again, that people that do fill them out. They're more likely to make it to that Sunday. And they're much more likely to come back on another Sunday because I'm able to email them or send them a text message and connect with them before and after the church service there. So a plan, your visit page, I think it's a borderline must for churches in 2021. I think it's something that really is helpful.
Speaker 2 00:08:20 That's good stuff. I'll tackle the next one. The second one I'm really excited about talking about here is use an outward focused slogan. Um, so, um, and so it's good to have a slogan or a catchphrase that greet someone right on the homepage of your website. And the key is to make it outward focused. And you know, you and I, having both pastored and being in ministry, we know it's, it's easy sometimes to get you, you, you think you're being outward focused, but you're really kind of giving people internal language, like, you know, come, uh, be refined by the fire, uh, the fire of God and come get, come get refined and, uh, grow spiritually. Well, that's kind of, you know, obviously that stuff will happen as someone gets discipled later and all of that, but, uh, but you know, you really want to make it outward, focused and simple.
Speaker 2 00:09:10 And I know we have, we've seen a lot of good examples of this out there, but something short and focused on the visitor, something that, you know, like it or not, when someone comes to a website and even though we know this is like, you know, anti-Christian always have the mindset what's in it for me, that's what people have in their mind when they come as dates and how am I going to be benefited? Or how is my family going to be benefited if we come check you out on Sunday? So it needs to be extremely visitor focused, the ideas and examples you would have. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:44 Yeah. I have a few examples of what, what we see often as kind of a mistake for a headline or a tagline there or a slogan. So some of the most common ones churches will use it, basically. They're kind of their foundational statement. Like love, God, love people, or, um, love men train set. And, and we're all for those. Those are great kind of foundational ideas for churches. We're not against those concepts. You know, the, the idea of the first and second commandment being to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. We are for that. Yeah. But I think that, that, again, remember the focus of that is you're talking about what we do as a church, as a church. We love God and we love people, whereas a better, a better slogan that basically says the same thing is tell people what they're going to get.
Speaker 0 00:10:34 So if you focus it more on them is, uh, find, find, uh, find friends and find a faith or something like that. That it's about what you will find, not about what we do, but about the hope you're going to have. So make, uh, when it, when you help people understand and connect the dots between what you're going to do and what's in it for them, I think it goes a long way to help people get over that. And I can't express enough how important these are. These are really, uh, getting these statements right. And making sure you have a really solid one that is outward focused. I mean, people do read this here. Here's what we found is that on websites, people read a very small portion of the texts that you're going to put on there. On average, you know, the average site visit might be less than two minutes. And so if you're thinking that they're going to read the vision statement of your women's ministry, every visitor's not going to do that. The 99% are not going to read that content on a single visit, but almost all of them are going to read that first statement to see what you're all about and what they're going to get out of a visit with you there. So, yeah, I think it's staying outward focused with that is really vital for churches.
Speaker 2 00:11:42 Yeah, yeah. Nothing much to add. Why don't you tackle the next one?
Speaker 0 00:11:46 Can do, uh, it's clarify your site navigation, clarify your site's navigation. Uh, this is one of those things that I think that there's a few mistakes that we see out there. Uh, I guess I'll put them into two categories. One is the language that you use in your site's navigation. Uh, so a lot of churches are kind of stuck in using very church specific kinds of terms, uh, for their navigation. And then the other one, it has more to do with the depth of the navigation and having so much content there that what you want to visit or to do a, that just kind of gets lost in the navigation there. So I'll tackle both of them. So the first one is about the language and making sure that you're using really inclusive and outsider focused language and not, uh, insider focused language that only, uh, only churches would, would understand.
Speaker 0 00:12:39 Like, so something I see a lot is, uh, what is the, is it, is it Lottie moon? Is that the name of the Baptist? Uh, there's like a Baptist missions giving thing that happens. I think that's what it it's like Lottie moon or something to that effect. I'm not from a Baptist background. So forgive me on that. But I see that statement, like, there's like a, a Lottie moon offering or something I'll see that kind of, and that kind of terminology and the thing is only a Baptist. Right. Totally understand that if I'm butchering that and got it totally wrong, let us know in the comments on this year. So it's again, so this is so deep that, you know, very few of us understand what it is even, but I think if you get into, um, you know, a lot of times we'll, we'll use terms like, like here's one, for example, when you say the term missions, right.
Speaker 0 00:13:25 If you put missions in your navigation to, to most of the world missions doesn't mean Christians going to foreign lands to tell people about Jesus, it means kind of like a mission statement or it's something that, that we go and do. And so if you put mission on the top of your website, expect that people will be probably confused by what that means. Exactly. That's probably not a good thing to have in your navigation there. So those are the kinds of things, just making sure you're using outsider, like things that a non-Christian would understand in the language and your navigation. The second one is kind of similar it's it's in the depth. And here's what we find is that that's the mistake we see so often is that churches, they, they are stuck trying to figure out a place for everything on their site. And we understand that that's a real, one of the biggest challenges we have.
Speaker 0 00:14:16 And we spend probably the most time in our pre-production process of websites, trying to outline, outline the navigation of the site to fix this problem, because what a lot of churches do is they'll have so many navigation and page links that what's most important gets lost, right? The things that people need to see it gets swallowed and all this other things. So what we see a lot of is churches having maybe 10 or 15 items in their navigation on the top, and then on each one you can hover down and see seven other drop-down items that people would see all of this content there. Um, maybe you could tell us a little bit about more of the way we prefer to lay out a navigation, um, as opposed to this huge, you know, one page and all these dropdowns, having all this content there, maybe you could tell us a little bit more about how we solve that problem.
Speaker 2 00:15:06 Yeah. And how we solve that problem is to have what we refer to as a mobile first approach. And the reason we have this approach to our web design here is we know that most people over half of all peoples statistically will be coming by way to your website from phones, um, or you know, or some sort of a tablet, mostly phones though. Um, and so the more they have to click through, uh, you know, all like a big, like you said, drop down menu and navigation of pages. The more they're likely to just bounce right off the website and let's face it. People are even more impatient these days going to sites. Cause it was just how much we're all bombarded by stuff, online and marketing and all of that. And if they're coming from their phone, they're even more impatient because they're not sitting down in front of a desktop, they're just there, they're browsing and surfing and going quickly.
Speaker 2 00:15:56 So within a matter of seconds, you want to make the navigation simple. We try to eliminate drop-downs all together. We've done it on a few projects and sometimes it could still be relevant, but mostly, uh, we want just a simple navigation and, and, and you may have covered this too and forgive me, but I don't think he did, but basically we know also a lot of church websites they'll have a page for something and they don't even have enough text on that page that would warrant it, meeting its own page. Um, and so instead we have, like, let's say an about page, you click on the about page and on that page, now it's acceptable to have a longer, more well-designed page that someone can thumb down from their phone, uh, and get to the, to the values, the mission and vision, the beliefs, and, and, you know, you can link people out to beliefs. We know that's where things can get a bit deep. Um, but really you can have a longer, more well-designed, you know, there's a page for something and not have to have a big busy dropdown menu. So that's what I think keeps it very simple to and clear navigation for people.
Speaker 0 00:17:05 That's a great example. So what we see the about page is one of the, the most likely culprits, right? Where you'll see, there's the link that says about at the top. And then under that, it'll say our history, our staff, our mission, our vision, our core values, beliefs, all those different blinks, and it's not good on a mobile device. And it just adds to so much confusion. So if you're looking for some rules of thumb, I would say this number one, do your absolute best to get rid of dropdown menus. If you are a church that just has an overwhelming number of ministries, there's even ways you could do this with like pop outside navigations and some of those kinds of things that are more mobile friendly. But I think that in 2021, uh, I do not want to make any more websites that have drop-down menus in them.
Speaker 0 00:17:59 So that's one rule of thumb. And here's another one that this is a challenge for a lot of churches, the number of items in your top navigation. So that's whether it's across the top or it's a pop out, it's where it'll say, uh, you know, about ministries and sermons and events, that kind of stuff, seven seven is your limit. You don't do more than seven. I would prefer if you could do three or four, you know, that's, that's what at the retreat website, we have three items in two buttons. That's what we have on there. That's, what's in our navigation. And so I think for a church, it's the same thing, but it takes some real work. It takes some thinking. You'll probably have to have several calls. You need to flow chart this out, but it's something that, um, if you want a rule of thumb seven, remember the number of God seven, that's the number it's, God's chosen number because he knew in 2021, that's how many navigation items we should have on our websites. So that's where that comes from.
Speaker 2 00:18:51 Well, with that, I'll go to knock God's number. We'll go to phone item number four now. Um, so, uh, no, that was good. Uh, but, um, is to create a video background. Um, so these background videos have been a thing for the last, you know, couple of years, but they're, they're still very effective. Um, we understand that, you know, uh, when churches kind of closed their doors, this got a little tough to pull off. Uh, but you know, this is something now though that, uh, well pre pandemic, it was a thing. And now it is to, as churches are starting to open back up, you know, they're able to get you if you can get a videographer. Um, you know, and, and honestly, a lot of churches have someone in their church stick and that they can pull this off without being a professional videographer, but it's worth getting a view videographer if you have to, but this is something like a 12 to 15 second loop of life happening on a Sunday.
Speaker 2 00:19:41 The Sunday morning we experience it might be, um, you know, someone getting baptized and then it transitions over to show in the pastor preaching. And then it shows kids having a great time and children's church. And the reason why these are effective at getting back to everything we're talking about is having simple navigation and having something mobile geared is it gets someone's attention really quickly. And again, only about maybe 12 seconds. So we're not, no one's going to watch a movie on your home page, but if it's a loop that catches their eye real, real quick, um, they'll, they'll sit and see that. And they'll see people like them want to say this again, reduces apprehension much like the plan visit page we talked about because they're seeing people like them, uh, doing life and, and, and they're going to feel more comfortable coming on a Sunday when they have that kind of experience.
Speaker 2 00:20:31 So, um, and this is also something I would say that has replaced the scrolling carousel of images or the graphic slider as it's also called where, you know, that was the thing. And that's also something that is a, uh, uh, out of date website, uh, practice. I would say you have to no, no for sure. No, one's gonna watch, and they're not always interested in all of your events and every announcement right away wrote rotating there for, you know, um, however long. So the, you know, if you can't pull the video back, read off, we recommend like a still shot image, but the video background takes it further, uh, and just gets people engaged. But what else would you add to that?
Speaker 0 00:21:13 Yeah, I mean, I think what it does is it, it's all that stuff that's in your about page that you want people to read, all that content. It just, it gives you a 15 second version of it is to see people living out the values of your church, like that is going to get caught. When people see people that look like them, uh, and they see people that are, uh, enjoying the life of the church. You're not going to have a bunch of people usually frowning and, you know, like looking sad or depressed during your sermon or something like that or whatever it would be. Not people you want, people caught in the act doing the values of your church and just enjoying the life of your church there. This is going to make a better first impression and tell the story of your church better than anything you can do.
Speaker 0 00:21:57 And when it's a background video, it's not invasive, it's not getting in people's way. It's not a pop-up that stops them from doing other stuff it's usually done. The normal page layout that I think is probably, uh, you know, we almost always should do some variant of this as you're going to have a logo and a navigation at the top, you're going to have the tagline we talked about before. You're going to have a clear call to action button. And usually behind all of that is going to be the background video that is not getting in their way, but people are catching what your church is about just, uh, without an invasive practice that we're doing there. So I couldn't agree more. And I think the next thing kind of goes with that number five, I'll go ahead and hit that. Now it's at a welcome video.
Speaker 0 00:22:40 So this has to be distinguished from that background video, right? Background video is a silent, uh, you know, little B roll footage, usually of life happening at the church. And what goes on there, the welcome video, you mentioned it briefly before yet, but it's this 60 to 90 seconds, not more than 90 seconds, but it is a quick intro that a visitor would have to actually choose to watch. Uh, but it would tell the story of why someone should come out and take that first step of maybe coming to visit or Washington line or whatever that first step is for your church there. Why should somebody do that? So most of the time it's going to be the pastor. Uh, that's in that you're going to not just have a talking head video though, of just the pastor for 90 seconds. You're probably going to have some cutaways to, again, some of that kind of footage that's in that video background, but all the while it's talking about, Hey, here's what we're about as a church. Here's why you're going to love it. Uh, and here's how you can take a next step. And it's, you should always include an actual invite to come to service in that video there too. So don't just, just like you wouldn't end a sermon by saying, so that's what God says and yeah, they want you to move with it. The same, the same thing applies to these videos. As you shouldn't say, this is how great we are as a church, here's what you're going to get for for coming.
Speaker 2 00:23:59 And
Speaker 0 00:24:00 That's it. I invite them say, Hey, come this Sunday, we'll see you at 10 o'clock, we're going to have a gift for you. We want to make sure that you're here. Uh, you know, so invite people and make sure they know the next right step. Tell them to fill out that, uh, form. We're going to talk. We talked about that. They can let us know you're coming. We talked about it a little bit already. So all those things add up to some of the stuff we'd see in that welcome video. What do you have to add about that?
Speaker 2 00:24:24 How much is it? And people would much rather watch it. You know, again, you, you said 60 to 90 seconds. So again, people, they have a limited attention span. And when they're coming to your website, they're not looking to watch a movie, like I said earlier and so short, but, uh, it it's all about that first impression, uh, that we were talking about too. And I think that when people would much rather watch a video than read through a bunch of texts. So when you take this extra step, you're, you're speaking the language of today's culture there, you know, everyone's watching videos all day long from their phones on whether that's YouTube or social media or wherever they're at. Um, and so I think that, you know, you're going to make a good impression. You're going to get them more engaged. Um, you kind of touched on it.
Speaker 2 00:25:04 I would also just say that it doesn't always have to just be the pastor. It can be, it can be, you know, that's the main person they're going to hear from on Sunday. It could be the senior pastor, but if you have the ability to get creative, even though while you want to keep it short, you know, we've seen a lot of churches. Do they even have, you know, show some of the worship happening or do they have like someone doing the voiceover while they're kind of giving a little bit of a virtual tour type thing? So there's a lot of neat things that you can get creative with it, but keep it short. That's all I would add. Awesome. And that's actually a good transition when you said invite them to do something to a point number six, all I'll dig into that and that's to give people a clear call to action.
Speaker 2 00:25:45 Um, so, and this is not just from the video, uh, this is just basically right from the get go when they come to the website. Um, we learned this, you know, I think from I'm looking at the book on my shelf, uh, Donald Miller's building a StoryBrand, um, he says that, uh, and there's, by the way, that's a good resource for anyone listening, uh, for a lot of what we're talking about today, he really knows his stuff. And we've, we've used a lot of it here for our approach for reach, right. But one of the things he says, getting back to the calls to action is that when the eye gets to it, a homepage on a website, it kind of looks, goes in a Z, uh, like in a Z formation. And so then after that, it checks out really quick. So what you want front and center, and you would want it in the middle because of the way the eye goes.
Speaker 2 00:26:31 And then you'd also probably want this clear call to action up at the top, right. Is what we would recommend. And Donald Miller would recommend. Um, so basically whether or not that's plan a visit, um, for most churches it's plan a visit. That should be the, the, the called action from the homepage. Again, we're not just talking about the homepage, but for now as an example. And then, uh, and then it often for churches maybe that are not quite meeting are also virtual and have a physical meeting. It can be two right now, which is watch online or watch live and plan a visit. So you can get away with two on the homepage, but right now you don't want to go any more than two different main calls to action. Again, you're going to have your navigation for other pages, but these are the ones that stand out. And then you can maybe also share it throughout the rest of the website. You know, there's other clear calls to action, but specifically those are kind of the main ones from the homepage.
Speaker 0 00:27:26 Yeah. I think that's one of the mistakes we see most often is that, uh, yeah, you need that first call to action on the front of your homepage at the very top of there, but you really shouldn't be putting any content on your website, unless you have a response for someone to execute as a result of getting that information there. Otherwise you're just dumping information on people and don't give them any kind of a way to give you feedback or respond. And so, um, some of the ideas, I guess, but really everything. Like if you give a belief section on your website, that's great. I mean, most churches, I would say dump beliefs on the people. But what if, instead of just having all your beliefs listed, you end with a button, say, Hey, have a question about something we believe, let us know, you know, and they have a form they can fill out because they want to have a conversation about that.
Speaker 0 00:28:15 Every pastor in America would love to have a conversation with someone that's new to faith. And they're asking questions about, um, what this theological piece means, because these are questions that are on people's journey to saying yes to Jesus, right? So starting those conversations, most churches have a kid's page where it talks about what you guys believe about your kid's ministry and what the church wouldn't should children's ministry happens and maybe their age ranges, but very few have something at the end that says, Hey, sign your kids up now and skip the line on Sunday morning registering. So those kinds of things on every single section of your site, you should ask yourself. It's if you don't have something to ask someone to do, it's probably not worth talking about on your website. So don't just give information for information sake, always have some kind of a way for people to respond on there. So this is really paramount for visitors is that they need to be asked every single section. Don't give content without some form of response that they can take a step in their direction on that there. So that's really important.
Speaker 2 00:29:23 Cool. And don't put a forum. I would just add one thing to that. Don't put a form on your website without asking someone to fill it out. Um, so I've seen like when you go to like a prayer page, I've gone to many church websites and I've clicked on the prayer and then it's just a four. They, you know, it doesn't say anything else and it doesn't them to, Hey, we want to pray for you please. Uh, we'll be in touch, blah, blah, blah. So I've seen that so many times too.
Speaker 0 00:29:48 Yeah, very good. Yeah. That's true. I'll wrap us up here with number seven then it's, uh, incentivize them to give you their information. Uh, so when you have a call to action, like we just talked about, you need to make a point of making sure that the incentive is clear in every single one of those calls to action. So they need to have some kind of a promise as to what they're going to get in return. So we talked about beliefs. Well, the incentive there is clear that as if I fill out this form, then someone will answer my pressing question about what we believe about the Trinity or whatever that topic is there. Or if I fill out this form to pre-register my kids that I get to then skip the line and not have to wait 50 minutes and talk about my kid's allergies on Sunday morning, I can go straight in and save some time that way.
Speaker 0 00:30:36 So the problem usually comes when it comes to some of these more general forums where you're asking someone like this, we talked about, let us know you're coming. So the question is like, why, why would I, what's the advantage to me, uh, of letting you know that I'm coming on a Sunday morning. That's why we have to really incentivize that. And so what most churches do is, uh, on that form that says, let us know you're coming on a Sunday again, that's on your plan, your visit page. Usually churches will give some kind of a promise as to what you get for filling out that form. So I know at our church that I pastored, we'd say it we'll, we'll, uh, we'll show you around and introduce you to someone. We will, uh, find a spot in the middle for you. So you don't stick out in the front or in the back too much.
Speaker 0 00:31:20 So you'll fit right in. And then it will give you a free gift. We'll give you some kind of a, a gift. Now here's the thing is if they showed up and didn't fill out the form, we'd give them a gift too. But we'll talk about the fact that they're going to get a gift. Also for us, it was a cup with some swag and we actually gave him a $5 coffee gift certificate that they could go and not at our church, but they could go to a local coffee shop and enjoy some coffee on us. And so we would give them some kind of a gift. So here here's what we have found is that when you give people a reason to fill out a form, you incentivize it you'll get a much higher response rate. Uh, so finding ways to incentivize people is really important. So do you have anything to add to that?
Speaker 2 00:31:57 No, not much. I mean, I think that it's just, again, you know, people have so much apprehension. People are in such a rush these days. And I think that, you know, you got to incentivize with everything that you do. Uh, so this is a, this is a good practice in the end. And when you, even when you're doing your announcements at the church for a new person to, you know, fill out that connection card, you know, let them know there's a gift. My church does that. We'd done it for years and it's always, it's been a great thing we give out. Cause we're in Texas, it gets so hot here during the summers, we give out the, you know, the little water bottles with the, the little, uh, things on the side. So the little tin ones or whatever, not full Yeti, that a Yeti is not in the budget, but you know, something like that.
Speaker 2 00:32:38 Um, you can think through different incentives, but yeah, always in, in anything and even like the prayer example that I mentioned, uh, earlier, I mean, you know, let them know that, Hey, you know, one of our team members is going to be praying for, you can expect good things to happen. We're here to of course, you know, address the spiritual need that you have. And, um, you know, and here's, who's going to be kind of praying for you. So go a little bit more in depth and make, you know, mention the benefits I would say to, uh, to all of these calls to action.
Speaker 0 00:33:07 Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. I think incentivizing, it is so important for, for churches. I found just that nobody will, will happily give you their information anymore. Just by being asked, they have to have a, they have to have a reason to do it. It has to be about what's in it for them as much as we don't like that in the church, we need to give something away for people to do something like that. So, well, that wraps us up for today. I hope that's been helpful to you guys if it has been, uh, it would mean so much to us. If you would take a second to give us a comment rate, review, subscribe to the podcast, let your friends know about this. If this has been helpful to you also. Uh, so thank you so much for being a part of the retreat family. And we'll see you guys next week. See you guys
Speaker 1 00:33:50 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:33:53 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 and 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 1 00:34:21 <inaudible>.
