Great Church Guest Givewaway Offers: Booklets, Part 2

In Part 1 of this series — Great Church Guest Giveaway Offers: Booklets [Read all four posts of this series here: 1, 2, 3, 4] — I gave 6 reasons for using booklets for free offers … summarizing them, they are:

1. They’re cheap
2. They beat the ol’ standard pen or mug giveaway
3. They appeal to felt needs
4. They give value
5. You can track requests and manage follow up better
6. They help you evaluate the offer’s effectiveness

Here’s one more reason to use a booklet giveaway — I’ve seen it work brilliantly.

As the communications director at my former place of employment [a seminary], I helped produce a short booklet (42 pages or so) that was titled “Answering the Call: Understanding God’s Call to Vocational Ministry.

The booklet included articles on how to discern God’s calling to ministry, reasons why a “called” person should attend seminary, what a student learns at seminary, etc. etc. I wrote one article — “10 Reasons to Come to Midwestern” — and asked the dean [on seminary studies], our theology prof [on discerning a call], and VP for student services [why they should come to seminary] to write the others.

For the cover, I purchased this incredible (and inspirational) stock photo from AlaskaStock.com for a VERY reasonable price. [I just love to look around that site to take in God’s beautiful creation!]

We initially printed 2,000 booklets and ran out within a couple of months. A story [press release] on our online denominational news service generated roughly 100 requests in the first day.

In two years, we sent out 1,600 copies directly [printing roughly 7,500 in total] to those who requested them through our Web site form.

Half of those 1,6000 requests came straight from the Web site promo alone (I had no idea the number of people surfing our site, but the booklet allowed us to make a personal contact with them). The other half roughly came from our print advertisements, placed in our denomination’s state newspapers.

Cost per booklet: About 75 cents!

[My printing contact for the booklet? Steve at The Covington Group. Great prices, great quality, outstanding service.]

THE BOOKLET’S IMPACT

Our recruiting department loved them … the balance of those 7,500 printed were given out at conventions, recruiting events, to prospective students who made campus visits, their pastors, our denominational leaders, etc.

Our administration loved them … they could take that to donor meetings, trustee meetings.

But most importantly — the recipients, from best I could tell, loved them and appreciated the wisdom and counsel they received from them.

Not all of the booklet recipients came to the seminary — not even close — but we got our money’s worth in PR, publicity, and … ministry.

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NEXT SERIES POST: Part 3: Ideas for Your Own Church Booklet Giveaway

COMING UP in the “Great Guest Givewaway Ideas: Booklet” Series:
Part 4: Designing an Online Request Form

Read all four posts of this series here: 1, 2, 3, 4

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September 5, 2006 · Filed Under Church Marketing, Giveaways, Guests

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