Here are a couple of booklet ideas:

• Rick Warren’s “What on Earth Am I Here For?”– This booklet is based on the first seven chapters of Rick Warren’s bestselling “Purpose Driven Life” book.

• Andy Stanley’s “How Good Is Good Enough?”

• Create your own booklet – Have you preached a good sermon series on the family, parenting or marriage? Using your notes as a guide, have someone transcribe your audio sermons, edit the draft down into a readable form, divide into chapters, then format it into a booklet templates and have them printed at Lulu, CafePress, or email my friend Steve [steve@covingtongroup.net] at the Covington Group in Kansas City (he printed the seminary booklet and offers great prices with quality).

***

If you enjoyed this post, sign up for the FREE Church Communications Pro Email Newsletter.

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

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.

” type=”text/javascript” charset=”utf-8″>

***

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

***

If you REALLY enjoyed this post and want to get FUTURE SNEAK PEAK POSTS IN ADVANCE, sign up for the FREE Church Communications Pro Email Newsletter.

Tags: Church Marketing | Church Communications | Church Incentives | Giveaways | Church

Great Church Guest Giveaway Ideas: Booklets, Part 1

[A while back I wrote a PDF report on free offers or giveaways, but thought I needed to elaborate and focus in on the subject again. This will end up being about a four-part series of posts, so tune in.]

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

In a nutshell, booklets are a great guest giveaway for churches – and in particular, an excellent response mechanism to track guests on your church Web site, or in your newspaper or Yellow Book ads.

Most churches don’t realize the number of guests that may visit their site [or advertisements] and leave no trace they were there or saw your ad.

[If you haven’t noticed, it’s harder to track a site guest on the Web and through an ad, than it is when they come in your sanctuary!]

Just looking at my church’s Web site statistics over the past couple of weeks, I realize a lot of our site guests are likely church members … but as I begin to promote our new church site [see the 20 lessons I learned from that redesign] I hope to increase the percentage of non-members that make an Internet visit, or at a minimum steer potential guests to the site first to take a test-drive of our services, ministries, etc. I mean, isn’t that one of the vital job functions of a church Web site?

THE FREE BOOKLET GIVEAWAY OFFER

Here are six reasons I’m really quite fond of booklet giveaways versus other ideas …

1. They cost less – you can get bundles of booklets for about a buck or less
2. They beat the typical mug and pen giveaway
3. They appeal to felt needs and communicates the Gospel
4. They add value to the receipient because they request it
5. They allow you to track requests and manage follow up
6. They give you statistics to evaluate the effectiveness of your Web site and promotions easier

***

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

NEXT SERIES POST: Part 2 — My Personal Experience with Booklet Giveaways

COMING UP in the “Great Guest Givewaway Ideas: Booklet” Series:
Part 2: My Personal Experience with Booklet Giveaways
Part 3: Ideas for Your Own Church Booklet Giveaway
Part 4: Designing an Online Request Form

***

If you REALLY enjoyed this post and want to get FUTURE SNEAK PEAK POSTS IN ADVANCE, sign up for the FREE Church Communications Pro Email Newsletter.

Tags: Church Marketing | Church Communications | Church Incentives | Giveaways | Church

← Previous Page