Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Christmas Eve is one of the biggest services you'll have each and every year. And it's always so chaotic. You have places to be and family to be with right after service, but here's the thing follow up after your Christmas Eve service is one of the most important things you can do in this episode, or to explain to you our strategy on how to best follow up with your visitors. After your Christmas Eve service, we hope this conversation helps you reach more people and grow. This is the reach right podcast. You're listening to the retried 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.
Speaker 2 00:01:00 I'm ready to get.
Speaker 0 00:01:05 Hey guys, welcome to the retried podcast. Episode number 77. I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost
Speaker 3 00:01:13 Ian Hyatt. What's up Thomas.
Speaker 0 00:01:15 Hey Ian, not too much, man. Merry Christmas. Uh, here we are, uh, right before Christmas and Christmas Eve services. And looking forward to you guys, looking forward to Christmas this year,
Speaker 3 00:01:25 Here we are. We are to have somewhat more of a normal Christmas compared to last year. It will be a little more normal ish, I suppose. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:01:34 Yeah. There's I hope so. I mean, we were still not having a Christmas Eve service at our church. We, uh, I think we're, you guys have them, right? You guys have tons of them. I'm sure, right? Yeah. Yes. Everything is normal ish. Uh, but yeah, we have, uh, we have, we just started having our Sunday services again, we're not quite ready to do multiple. Uh, we used to do multiple Christmas Eve services at our church, so we're not quite allowed to do that, I guess yet here in Hawaii. So a little bit tricky. Uh, you asked about, um, you know, what were I asked you about what we're doing for Christmas and everything. And so there's nothing normal about Christmas in Hawaii for people though. So it's totally different here. Like we, I mean, my childhood was usually going out surfing on Christmas morning with whatever new surf gear we wound up getting. And so we try to continue that tradition and we eat fish and do that kind of stuff. So totally different world here, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love, I love Christmas in Hawaii, but
Speaker 3 00:02:30 As you know, I'm in Austin, Texas, and usually we never get any white Christmas. And I think it's forecasted that it would be like 80 and sunny, which is, you know, not bad, but like, I don't know. I always CA because we never get one here either. I kind of always crave some sort of a white Christmas or at least a cozy stay in weather. But, uh, I don't think that's going to
Speaker 0 00:02:52 Aye, aye. Having pastored in Wisconsin for six years, I got my fill of white Christmases and white Januarys and white February's and white marches and white Aprils and all of the above. So I I've had plenty of white snow wise in my life, at least. So anyway, but today's conversation, we're going to be talking about how to follow up with visitors after your Christmas Eve service. Assuming like most churches you are having a Christmas Eve service again this year, uh, Christmas Eve is traditionally one of the most attended days of the year. I know at churches I've led and been part of that. That was always after Easter. It was our big, you know, kind of our, our second super bowl. It was our big day of the year where we saw tons and tons of visitors. Uh, I find that for a lot of churches, it's really kind of a frantic one because it's, it's, this it's Easter, it's like Easter, but then you have your own family holiday that is like kind of baked into the middle of it.
Speaker 0 00:03:51 If you're leading a church and you have kids, or you have a family, you probably have lots of other obligations and commitments and the moment your service ends, you know, you're probably checking out for like, I mean, God willing for a week or so. Right. That's the, you have that. And then you have some time off from, to do Christmas and the day after Christmas and kind of doing things that week between Christmas and new year's. I know our office at retry kind of closed for that time there after Christmas Eve. So like everybody like to do that, but that actually makes us miss one of the biggest opportunities. And that is following up with visitors after that Christmas Eve service. So I think today, I think what it's really about this episode, we want to talk a little bit about the importance and some strategies as hard as it is to follow up with visitors after your Christmas Eve service. So yeah, I think it should be a really good, a really good conversation. You don't know, I wouldn't assume much about what your church does for visitor follow-up in Jed. Do you know? I'm sure, you know, in general what they do. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:04:53 We've done things. It, it times we, you know, uh, well, we'll be talking about a few of these things here as we get into it, but, uh, we've done some follow-up gifts. We've done a follow-up a handwritten letter and those types of things. And, uh, our pastor has at least, or at least as its name, his name on it, as you know, and we've said in this, I'm part of a very, what you'd call a mega sized church. So, uh, he's not handwriting thousands of, uh, of, of letters out, uh, each time, but we've done a few things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:05:24 Yep. Good. No, yeah. Uh, us too, you know, we, we have some swag that we give out and we have a pretty well thought out follow up process, but I think this is really some of the, uh, um, you know, the secret sauce for a lot of churches in seeing people, seeing churches grow, seeing people be discipled, seeing people get connected to your church. It's not so much in the getting them there. You know, that's part of it, but actually getting them to, to stick it out and having a clear process that you take people through to help them assimilate into life at the church there. So, um, so a lot of these things I think are going to be common to some other episodes we've done about general followup processes. We have, we did an episode probably a year ago or so now that was dedicated to the perfect visitor follow-up process.
Speaker 0 00:06:07 And we outlined all of that, but there's some specific things that I think you could think through it on Christmas, because if you don't really think about this, you have a, another, a million other things that are happening on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. This stuff won't really get done unless you start planning it now. And that's why we're getting this out here a few days, at least before your Christmas Eve service, hopefully you could put some of this here into practice there. So I'll say this too, before we, before we jump in one of the one things we don't say on this, this is not one of the tips, but this should be absolutely implied if you've listened to any of our podcasts before, you've probably heard this, this theme is that you need to get people's information. Uh, so, uh, we don't talk about that in one of these points here, but all of this is going to be assuming that you have some kind of a system, whether it's, uh, they, they text in, or they fill out some kind of a card or however it is, you have some kind of way to gather their information, including email address, ideally email address, phone number, and if you can physical address.
Speaker 0 00:07:08 So those three things are, are important. Parts of kind of that, that follow up process there. So all of this implies that you already got that information, but why don't oh, can I ask you to add your church? What do you guys do? Do you guys do, is it digital or do people fill out something physical to give their information? If they're a first time visitor,
Speaker 3 00:07:27 A little bit of everything. If they come with kids, they have to give that information when they're checking their kids in or going through the security thing, uh, and all of that, sometimes it's, they did it ahead of time online through a plan, your visit form, and left us the info there. Sometimes it's the guest. Yeah. Sometimes it's the guest greeting card. We also have kiosks, we have a mic, a medley of different,
Speaker 0 00:07:49 But like during announcements, like, do you, I don't know if anything is said, like they have, like, I know our church, we've tried like the QR code on the
Speaker 3 00:07:57 Screen
Speaker 0 00:07:59 To let us know you're here, you know, text to this number to let us know you're here or fill out a card or it's got everything at your church. Huh?
Speaker 3 00:08:07 We have the QR code on the, on even the guest greeting card on the back of the seat. So they can kind of do either, uh, if they prefer to write it out by hand or use the QR code, they, they can. Um, but yeah, that's so, and yes, in the announcements that's mentioned, uh, and we also say there at the service that, you know, uh, we do this even not on Christmas that we want to give you a gift, you know, come to the guest greeting center, we have a gift for you. Um, just to say, thanks that you came, blah, blah, blah. So yeah.
Speaker 0 00:08:38 Well, speaking of that, why don't you get the first, uh, the first tip on how we're going to encourage people to follow up after Christmas Eve? What's the first one.
Speaker 3 00:08:46 It's just that it's to give them a gift and it doesn't want a gift. And also it's the season of giving, right? So we're already getting gifts. So it really fits with Christmas, for sure. To give some sort of a gift, uh, whatever that would be. Um, you know, a lot of churches do, you know, warm coffee stuff, you know, around the, whether or not that's a Starbucks gift card or a coffee mug, or, you know, uh, maybe it's a, uh, um, oh, one of the, you're not a Yeti, uh, that would be an expensive gift, but you know what I mean? One of the metal, uh, um, helped me out. Um, that's right. Yes, that's it. So, um, and so something along those lines, but yeah, of course it shows that you appreciated that they came and that I think is a first, first kind of good step to take.
Speaker 0 00:09:32 Yeah. I think just, uh, I know sometimes churches get weird about this cause it's like, you feel like you're giving away so much money, but it's so I it's so small in the grand scheme of things. I think that on average you could probably find a way to spend $5 or something like that. You know, if it's a $5 gift card or you can find stainless steel tumblers online for $5, or you could certainly get coffee mugs printed for under $5. And yeah, there's so many different things you can D is, is always good. I think having an, I would encourage you to go good with the candy though. Don't just like a, you know, like a Hershey's kiss while we're talking about candy corns or anything like that. No leftover Halloween stuff. So
Speaker 3 00:10:15 No one can, anyway,
Speaker 0 00:10:16 You do something nice. Do chocolates. Chocolate is the key to people's hearts a lot of times. So, uh, or a combination of that, some chocolates in a coffee mug or something to that effect would really go a long way. But this is usually the spot where you do the exchange for the information, right? So that's kind of like, you never want to tell someone, Hey, give me your email address and I'll give you this. Like, you're not saying like that, but it's kind of implied that, Hey, let us know you're here. And if you do that, we want to say, thank you for being here. And we'll give you this gift. We have a lovely gift for you. We're going to give you a Bible. We're going to give you something. If you let us know that you're here for the first time, we just want to say, thank you.
Speaker 0 00:10:54 So I think kind of setting it up that way, giving them a gift. And that's a great way to exchange information with people when you do it like that. So exactly, exactly. That's good. Next one is after the night after Christmas Eve, and this is so important on the timing, but thank them in an email. Um, and I want to challenge you. I know this is hard and it takes some logistic thinking. And I know that I I've been there before, where I have family stuff. I had little kids in ministry and on Christmas Eve, I am getting out of there and we're going right into Christmas mode, but you need your, your day really isn't done until you got those. Thank you for coming emails out to those visitors on Christmas Eve there. Uh, I think that if you wait, the problem is that you're probably not going to be doing it on Christmas.
Speaker 0 00:11:42 You shouldn't be doing it on Christmas. You're probably not gonna do it the day after. You're probably not back in the office till sometime in the middle of the week. And that frankly is too late to be sending some kind of email with that. Um, I have a little bit of input on, on this. I think that the other challenge is that it really has to be from the lead pastor of the church. That's the right person for this email would come from. Not that that person is somehow more important than God's eyes or something like that. But just to someone who is a visitor, if they heard you speaking on Sunday on, on, uh, at Christmas Eve, you're the one that gave the, the message there. They had some kind of interaction with you on the stage and just means a lot to people to get some kind of an email from the pastor of the church.
Speaker 0 00:12:27 And, uh, it has to be something that at least has something personal in it. Can't just be, um, it can't just be an obviously form email. It can't just be, Hey friend, thank you for coming. Uh, God bless you Merry Christmas. Although it has to be, Hey, this is Thomas. Uh, it was so great to meet you, Jane and I really am thankful. I hope this was a good time for you and your family. You have some information on whether they have kids or not. I hope your kids enjoyed themselves too, and all those things. So I think really getting this right and finding a way to do it before. Uh, but before you get into Christmas mode is what's really important. So anything to add to that?
Speaker 3 00:13:09 No, not not much. Uh, I think you hit all of the main points there. I think just reiterating email is a good thing rather than a phone call, probably especially around this time of year, uh, phone
Speaker 0 00:13:22 Calls receive phone call. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:13:25 Or even if it's yeah. The day after or whatever. Yeah. It's just the time. Yeah. I didn't mean it.
Speaker 0 00:13:32 How are the press, how's the present opening going? You guys are going to get what they wanted and I just check it in,
Speaker 3 00:13:38 Uh, Christmas morning. I'm just like, uh, okay. Yeah. But, uh,
Speaker 0 00:13:43 Ah, I got one more thing to say. Um, so it has to be from you and it has to be that night, but here's a little trick is it doesn't actually have it, just have to, it doesn't actually have to be from you. It has to be from your email account. I think that's really important that it comes from your email address, but there's nothing wrong with getting some people to kind of help you with this. And I think of course, depending on the size of your church, I mean, you probably won't have hundreds of emails that need to go out, but you might have 10. If you're a, if you're a church of a hundred people, there might be 10 or 15 people that are there for the first time. And so you might get seven or eight email addresses from them. And so getting those out, uh, and having a couple of people help you with that, but you have to be people you trust to give them access to your email and your login, stuff like that. But I think that's the way that really most churches, especially larger ones that really get this and know it has to be from the lead pastor. They have systems in place and people to help to get personal emails out there. So, um, just to put that out there for everybody, um, think through who can help you with this.
Speaker 3 00:14:48 Exactly. And a good transition to the next one here is ask them for feedback in this email. Right? So that's a good thing too. It's a w uh, if anyone's been, uh, watching or listening to our podcast for awhile, we are always big on calls to action asking someone to do something, but this is actually a very, uh, it's not a, uh, a pushy way of doing it. It's actually just shows that you cared about their experience, uh, to ask for that, you know, to ask for feedback, you know, did you, did you enjoy it? You know, um, all of that. So that's, um, you know, it's a good thing to do in the email.
Speaker 0 00:15:22 Yeah. I'm a big believer in, in asking for a really a specific kind of feedback. Like I actually, I, the way we talk about this, I think we talked about this a little bit in our, uh, overall followup process. Like, so if we had the perfect follow-up process, you should ask for feedback, but in this first email, I really believe that your feedback that you're asking for you, you need to kind of ask it in a way that people aren't going to tell you what they didn't like about church, right? Because not that you don't want to hear it, because I think that's an important thing. And you probably will ask that from people maybe at, um, at a later time at your membership class, but really they came once. They haven't really, they haven't earned the right to speak into, you know, what's wrong with your church just yet.
Speaker 0 00:16:07 Let's give it, let's give it a little time. So usually what we do is we encourage you to ask for feedback, because what it does is it makes people feel like they can be constructive and like you actually care and you want to know their feelings and their input is valuable, but you want to frame it in a way that it is only going to help them to reinforce the good things about their experience. So usually the feedback of the question I would recommend is what did you notice first about your time at celebration church or whatever church you're at? Uh, so what did you notice first? It's not overly positive. Like it's not, I don't think you can ask. What did you like best? You know, that's, yeah, that's a good question, but it probably, it's a little bit too one sided. If you're not going to also ask what did you like least, or what did you like? But I think if you asked that question of what did you notice first, they can slip something bad in, but I have found very rarely with that question. Do I get some negative feedback? Unless like, you know, your greeters were rude or something like that,
Speaker 3 00:17:05 Unless you got a bad greeter. So
Speaker 0 00:17:07 Usually, usually you'll get, you know, we love the worship or we love,
Speaker 3 00:17:10 And you did have a greeter, uh, rebuke you for showing up at a church late one time. I do remember that. So it was that, oh, that was a long time ago here in Austin and or the Cedar park area, if,
Speaker 0 00:17:23 Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I do remember that. Yeah. They said, oh, pastor, this was funny. I was visiting a church and they told me, pastor really hates when people are late. So don't do that. That's what the notice first in that case, that's all we'll say about what church it is. They may be listeners here. So love you guys. That's it. So cool. Uh, so I think, yeah, uh, definitely, uh, asking for feedback is important. The next one is, uh, send the card. I think that this is what you do after, uh, kind of moving you, let it rest for a few days. And then probably on the 26th, 27th, 28th, next time you're in the office or your team is in the office. I think that's the time to get a card out and you want to make sure that card gets there before, you know, the next, you know, if possible the next service happens.
Speaker 0 00:18:14 So this year, Christmas is on a Saturday. Uh, yeah, Christmas is on a Saturday. So Christmas Eve is a Friday. You'll probably get this card out on Monday or Tuesday. That way it'll get delivered to people in your community on Thursday, Friday that time. And so it has a chance for you to be able to connect with them on that there. So I think this card, uh, it's something that, it's one of those things that, uh, it really is touching the people. If they receive a hand written emphasis on the handwritten, a handwritten card, do not waste your money on sending a form card that doesn't have your name and does just a printed signature on it or something like that. Don't waste your time and money with that, that that's a, that's a terrible use. Everybody gets plenty of junk mail already that goes directly in the trash.
Speaker 0 00:19:02 It makes no impact, but nobody ever throws away a card that has hand addressed handwritten. And again, this is one of those things. You can get a team around you to help you with that. I know my penmanship is atrocious. And so for me, I would never in a million years write these cards for people because they wouldn't be able to read it. But, you know, having someone on your team hand write it, you can still sign it and do those kinds of things, making it personal. That really goes a long way and really helps to connect with people. So anything to add? No.
Speaker 3 00:19:32 Oh no. I think that's a good segue into the next one too, which is, don't forget the kids too. Don't forget to mention the kids and, uh, and maybe, uh, have something, you know, sweet, cute for them, something memorable for them. Uh, you know, how many times have we heard that? You know, um, some parents are just a whole family joined the church because of a kid's experience at a church. You know, maybe, you know, I, I know we have, uh, my kids have friends that their parents are unchurched. They don't go to church, but we've taken them to events and the kids have come back home and said, we had such a great time. Daddy, we got to start going to church. You know? And, and it, same thing. It's the impression that you leave on that? You want the kid talking about your church and the experience they had, and maybe it's a, you know, uh, little, uh, cheap gifts for them, you know, something stickers or something like that, or a little, uh, we did those little things that I don't know what they're called. Uh, but we've done at our church where you like pushed down on them and they do the automatic flips off of a desk or something like, I don't know what they're called, but
Speaker 0 00:20:32 Stickers are a good idea. I think, because you can slide them right into a card. And as much as adults love handwritten cards, like I said before, kids getting something in the mail is an even bigger deal. Right. Cause like kids, they don't get mail right. To get mail it's I got, I got mail. That's awesome. And then they open it up and there's stickers. I don't know kids at a certain age, at least they really love stickers and those things, and you can make it age appropriate, what it is. I mean, if it's a, if it's high school aged kids, maybe you throw in a, you know, they like Starbucks gift cards too. So you want to do something like that, just giving them a gift of some kind. But yeah, I think really, uh, if your church is serious about reaching families, I think that's right. Getting the, getting something for the kids and getting them something in their hands is really important, too. Exactly,
Speaker 3 00:21:17 Exactly.
Speaker 0 00:21:18 Awesome. Next one. Uh, when we talk about quite a bit here too, is you need to build an email sequence if you don't have one already, and this will probably be very similar. You might make a slight modification to your normal email sequence for visitors, but I guess this is just a chance to reiterate. If you don't already have an email sequence, you need to build that email sequence. And what does that mean? That means that you have a set of emails that will have some personalization ability. So it'll put their first name in there every time. And it sends out all by itself on its own incremental basis. So someone comes for the first time. You automatically send them an email or two the first week, another email, the second week, another email, the third week, the fourth week, the fifth week, and some kind of a sequence it's probably going to be between five and seven or eight different emails over a course of time there.
Speaker 0 00:22:13 So sometimes people get weirded out by this. They feel like it's strange to not actually type something out or like it's somehow dishonest. Let that go. This is really something that is part of communication nowadays is making sure that you're communicating that way. And this is the easiest way to automate it. So we've talked before about MailChimp, constant contact. Uh, the one we use here is called Zoho campaigns. It's a little bit more specific to our environment, but I think MailChimp is probably the best or the most common one for churches. But you know, your church management software, like church, community builder, fellowship one, they probably have some of these things built into the system already, too. So depending on what your church management software looks like there, but again, personalization that is key to this here. You don't want to just say again, Hey friend, you have service coming up or whatever it is, make sure you at least use the automation to get their first name in there and you get it right. So, yeah,
Speaker 3 00:23:09 That's good now much to add there. I think you covered the basis and I like this last one that I'll bring this home with and that's also invite them to something specific. Um, so I really like this because, you know, it's, it's more than just, we hope to see you next Sunday. And I think that right now, just, and though we don't like this, we're in the day and age where regular attendance is not every Sunday anymore. Um, you know, people are engaged. It's about engagement. We'll talk more about that later podcast. But, uh, but basically, you know, it's not just about coming next Sunday. If you have something, an event, maybe it's a series upcoming in the new year, which is great because that's when everyone has their, their resolutions. If you have a very relevant series that, that hits home with someone it's, it's, it's giving them something else to look forward to other than just Christmas Eve. And this is good for, I think also those people that only come around Christmas Eve and Easter, give them something new and fresh. That's more than just a traditional, we came on Christmas. We'll be there next Easter, for sure. Maybe in between a couple of times. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:24:15 Yeah. Yeah. I think that this is like, it just reinforces the power of a personal invite, right? So the emphasis here is on something specific, like just, I want you to come back or hope you come back next week. That is not an invitation. I think you'll get such a better response if you phrase it in like, Hey, my wife, Melissa, and I would love it. If you would be our guest and join us for a, uh, a kind of discovery meeting where we introduced what our church is about, it's happening on January the 10th. Uh, and it's at 11:00 AM. Can you and your wife make it, you know, if you have that kind of a specific invite you'll, you will have a through the roof response compared to just a casual, uh, Hey, hope, hope you come back. Right. So don't, I know that this is an email, right?
Speaker 0 00:25:06 So it's something that you're going to be inviting them to this, in that email, in the email sequence, it's going to be building towards that. So don't have any shame if people don't want to receive it or don't want to come, they'll unsubscribe, don't, don't freak out about it. And you can't like, I think we almost always err on the side of not wanting to offend the people. Right. I think we need to give people a lot more credit. Listen, people are so used to getting emails from every single organization that ever asks for their email address. They're used to getting emails from them. And so it's not hard to hit that unsubscribe button if they don't want to hear from you anymore. And if they don't want to, they'll let you know. And that's okay.
Speaker 3 00:25:45 That's good that you knew that too. Right? Because then you would say that's better than just not knowing what that person thought and if they wanted to come back. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:25:53 Yeah, yeah. So let go of that fear and you, you just need to really be willing to invite them again to something very specific, ask them in there. Can you make it with me at this time? Can you be there and your response rate on that, if it's coming from the pastor of the church, asking if someone specifically can be there, your response rate will be very, very high. Some of them will say, no, no, we're not. We're not there yet. Or no, we're just kind of trying out a few churches or, you know, no I'm busy that time, but you will get responses, which is better than nothing, right? You'll kind of know where people stand and you will get a lot of yeses to that too, because they feel personally invited by the pastor. So really a huge thing. So, and I think that wraps it up.
Speaker 0 00:26:35 I mean, that's, I think you follow these steps here. I mean, you'll be able to turn a lot of these people that are visiting now, of course, other factors, right? If you're a terrible preacher and you do worship on, on videotape and that's just the way that it is, it's going to be hard to get dozens and dozens of people to come back to that. But I think if you are doing your part in the service we expect most churches are because we put so much effort into our Christmas Eve services. We assume you're doing some things right there and you're making good first impressions with that. I think you follow these kinds of step in your odds of people coming back and really here's what we have to drive home. Is that just getting them to come back and growing your numbers as a church, that's not what this is about, right?
Speaker 0 00:27:19 This is about people coming and being discipled. People, hearing the gospel, people, learning about Jesus and giving their lives to him. That's what each one of these emails. And that's what its aim is, is to help people on their journey, into a closer walk with Jesus. Right? So that's what it comes down to. Uh, I, I think you follow some of these steps and I am confident I've seen it and I'm confident. You'll see more people make decisions and be discipled to follow Jesus. And that's what we're all about here. So that is a great way to close it out to what it's all about. Awesome. If this has been helpful to you guys, it would mean a lot to us. If you would rate review, subscribe, hit the like button, let us know this was, uh, good for you. Thank you guys so much for being a part of our retried families is our last episode before Christmas. So Merry Christmas to you and your family. And, uh, we do have an episode coming out next week, kind of before between Christmas and new year's here. So we'll catch you at that and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 0 00:28:20 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.
