Best Water Bottle Give Away... Ever: Servolution @ the bar

Pastor Dino Rizzo goes with his team on late-nite bar outreaches. They simply station themselves outside bars around closing time and offer people water and juice and Chick-Fil-A sandwiches. Pastor Dino gave a sandwich to a dude who was shocked to see him there – he said he goes to his church and really couldn’t believe his pastor cared enough to check on him.

Lesson: Serve people when they least expect it.

Best use of Social Media. Use the Net to net newcomers

Shaun King launched the Courageous Church in Downtown Atlanta using only Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging. Even with no catchy mailer, six hundred people showed up. Facebook was so impressed that they featured a blog post talking about how Pastor Shaun used Facebook to build a church community.
Lesson: Social media is more than an online accessory; it’s a dynamic active community to tap into.

Best Prelaunch Website: itown Church

Best Word of Mouth: MyChurch in a tent

A shout out to a church that launched in a tent! My Church in Columbus, Ga. launched in a tent because the building wasn’t big enough to handle the crowd.

Lesson: Have a catchy name and do something unique for your launch.

Best Give A Ways: Church Of The Highlands

Pens, binders, Cds. magnets,  T-shirts, Christmas ornaments, ice cream sandwiches, Coke, popcorn, coffee mugs, coffee, shoes.

Lesson: Give good stuff.

That was the best now here are the worst

Worst Marketing Mistake: making billboards your sole solution

A church planter with a limited budget decided to spend every marketing dollar he had on billboards. No road signs. No bulk mail. The limited approach had only one result: the church quickly shut down. Many experts say it takes five to seven touches for someone to remember you.

Lesson: Multiple touchpoints.

Worst Website: Where? When? How?

They had all the information you didn’t want to know. The church plant left off the time, direction and meeting place for the first service. The only place to find info was on the giving page. The only people who knew where to go were the givers. (Maybe they planned it that way.)

Lesson: Cover the basics on your site: a meeting time, directions and a Contact Us page.

Idea from: Best and Worst Marketing Ideas by Entrepreneur Magazine