Free Church Planting Training

Church planting can be difficult.   You pour your heart, time, and money into creating a place where people can know the love of Jesus, often while juggling family and work life.  As with anything worthwhile, there will be moments that it seems like too much.  The good news? Marketing your new church plant doesn’t have to be one of them.

You may be thinking, “I have enough on my plate, without worrying about marketing my church plant!”  However, we live in a time when many well-established churches are having a hard time reaching new people.  While you may think your church will be the exception because you’re new, that newness presents another obstacle:  lack of awareness.  How are people going to find your church if you’re in the pre-launch stage or brand new?  Marketing is essential for connecting with people in order to reach them for Christ.

This series is for you if…

If you’re further into the process and people aren’t showing up, maybe it’s not time to question your calling to plant a church.  Maybe it’s time to seek godly wisdom and lean in closer to Him.  It’s possible that all you need is a little bit of training on how to get the word out.  If so, you’ll love the “Church Planting: Build Awareness of Your Church” series.  It’s a partnership between Church Marketing University (specifically Ryan), Church Multiplication Network, and Life.Church’s Open Network.  You can view it here.

(CMU members, you have two options for viewing- either on the open network or alongside the other videos in our Launching Course.)

Even if you’re not a church plant, there’s advice here on creating a culture of social media engagement,  continuing to build awareness of your church, and even building your digital volunteer team!  Let’s talk about what’s covered.

Inside the Church Planting Awareness Series

4 Marketing Essentials to Create a Culture of Invitation & Engagement

Consistent invitation and engagement with your church is an outflow of culture.  Either you have a culture of invitation and engagement, or you don’t.  In order to cultivate this culture, you have to help people see how their involvement supports the mission.  And, make no mistake, their involvement DOES support your mission.  Why?  Well, people are much more likely to listen to something when it is shared organically.  That’s why creating a culture of invitation and engagement is crucial to reaching the lost!

In this video, you’ll learn 4 ways you can create a culture of invitation and engagement in your church plant.  You can view it, along with the entire church planting series, here.

Why Your Digital Location is Important and How to Improve It

Your physical address is only part of being found. (This is awesome if you’re a mobile church or renting a temporary space, right?)  Having a strong online presence throughout your website, search engines, and social media is just as important as new paint on the building.  However, while you likely know how to make a building look presentable and preach a sermon, you might not know how to make sure other people can see your digital location.  Don’t worry!  We’re here to help.

In this video, Ryan will show you how to improve the digital location of your new church. You can view this video, along with the entire church planting series, here.

Marketing Pieces You Should Have in Place for Your Pre-launch Services

If you’re familiar with Church Multiplication Network’s framework, you know all about pre-launch services.  If you aren’t, here’s a basic explanation:  Before you launch your church officially, it is best to have practice services leading up to it.  That way, your team gets used to setting up the service and serving together.  In the process, you’ll figure out what about your church plant works, and what doesn’t.

However, even though these services are “practice,” you should still use them as an opportunity to introduce people to your church.  In fact, they’re as essential to connecting with your community and launching a healthy church as your official launch day will be!

In this video, you’ll learn what type of marketing materials should be ready for these practice services, including things like signage and follow-up cards.  You can view it, along with the entire church planting series, here.

5 Parts of a Core Marketing Plan for Launch Day

As you get closer to your launch day, you’ll need marketing materials, but they might not look exactly like you’ve imagined. For example, while you will need old-school invitation cards, you can’t just stick them on bulletin boards around your city an hope for the best.  You’ll need a strategic plan for using them.  At the same time, you can’t ignore newer options like social media ads.  This video will cover what you need to know about marketing for your launch day, outlining the five parts of your core marketing plan you’ll need to have in place.

You can view this training and the entire church planting series here.

How to Maintain Marketing Awareness after Launch Day

Once you launch your church, the journey has just begun. After that, growth is a process of constantly relaunching.  What’s relaunching?  It’s continually using marketing tools to reach new people and share what’s happening with returning guests. If you want to learn how to maintain momentum after the launch of your church plant, you’ll want to watch this video!

You can view it, and along with the entire church planting series, here.

4 Tools You Need to Build an Effective Marketing Team

Want to know a secret to healthy church growth?  Having a team that’s incredibly engaged in raising awareness for your new church plant.  While everyone on your launch team should be marketing your church, you know they have other responsibilities, too.  That’s why you need to use tools that will help your church market, follow-up, and invite new people to join you on this journey!

If you watch this video, you’ll learn about the processes & tools required for building your marketing team. You can view it, along with the entire church planting series, here.

Using Marketing Tools to Build Awareness