An oft forgotten tool, Door Hangers offer a unique opportunity to engage your current members in local outreach, generate awareness of your church in your local neighborhoods, and create opportunities for face-to-face engagement, prayer, and inviting people to attend your church.

   

Tips and Ideas for starting a Door Hanger campaign in your church

1) Start with research Because Door Hanger campaigns are uniquely personal, start by researching the neighborhoods your church currently reaches. This will help you determine what neighborhoods you want to canvas and determine the demographics of the people living there. This research will then help understand if your message should primarily focus on information about family events, meetups for young professionals or networking for older adults. Focus on areas you're likely to see response. If your church doesn't have a spanish speaking ministry, avoid the area in town that is primarily hispanic.

2) Keep The Information Simple It's tempting to want to include information on every ministry and make your door hanger a "mini website," but resist the temptation. Stick to one main theme/event and focus the message to get the result you want. If your door hanger is designed to invite people to a safety awareness event with your local fire department, don't talk about "uplifting worship" or "anointed preaching." Talk about fire trucks, free food, and learning home safety tips to keep your little ones safe.

3) Design with intentionality If your church has a brand/theme/logo, make sure you stick with your theme, though customize the application for this event. That means stick with your colors and fonts and keep your logo on there, but perhaps customize the back of the door hanger to have some imagery that relates to your event. While this may seem boring, it helps create brand awareness, which is important when people consider attending a church. You don't want them seeing 4 different pieces of literature from your church and thinking they are from 4 different churches! Take the approach of "variations on a theme" when designing your Door Hanger. Clearly recognizable as you, but still appropriate to the event.

4) Get your members involved Door Hanger campaigns are so special because they combine outreach with member involvement in a very hands-on way. When deciding who will give out door hangers, consider directly asking members to select their own neighborhoods or areas. This creates an opportunity for "neighbors to meet neighbors" which is always better than having someone unfamiliar (and with little opportunity for relationship building) handing out door hangers. The goal here is as much inviting people to your church as it is creating an opportunity for neighbors to meet, bond a little, and start building a relationship.

5) Track responses Tracking website hits, visits, and sign-ups is a huge part of a door hanger campaign. Without this information you won't know if your message was a hit with neighbors, or needs to be thought through for your next event. If your church uses connect cards, consider including a spot for "door hanger" when asking how people heard about your church.

6) Plan to do this a few times Marketing researches say it can take up to 6 times of hearing a message before people respond to it. That means you may need multiple door hanger campaigns along with a mailing, some advertising, and sponsoring an event like a parade in order to start seeing results from your marketing dollars. Don't quit if people aren't knocking down your doors after one campaign. Play long ball with this.

START YOUR DOOR HANGER CAMPAIGN TODAY! CLICK HERE

With so many complementary benefits, it's well worth your while to consider if a door hanger campaign could give your church the participation, awareness and attendance boosts you're looking for.