5 Low-Cost Ways To Promote Your Next Sermon Series

Launching a new sermon series is a big deal. You and your teams have had meetings and brainstorming sessions about topics and ideas to connect your sermons with people in your community.

Your next step is to promote it. But how can you effectively promote that awesome new series if you are working on a limited budget. Traditional advertising like mailers can get pretty expensive.

Over the last 3 years I’ve tried tons of stuff. These 5 have been the best for me and my church. Some are online marketing techniques and some are offline and more personal. I think it is important to have both.

1 – Facebook Ads

Did you know for just $5 you can reach about 6,000 people in your local community on Facebook. Every time you launch that new sermon series simply spending $5 -$10 will go along way to getting your message out there. Creating a simple targeted ad on Facebook is the most cost effective way to promote just about anything!

2 – Build Social Ambassadors

Social Media is great for brands, but the real action comes when someone at your church shares your new sermon series with their online friends. People still love to get recommendations and reviews from people they know. What better way to share your sermon series with the community than by getting your current congregation involved. One practical way we’ve used in the past has been giving a prize to people who share our series on Facebook. We gave away $2 t-shirts to anyone who shared on Facebook. It was easy to track and really created a buzz around what we were doing.

 3 – Business Cards

I use clubflyers.com for just about all of our printing. They do a good job and it’s super cheap. For about $60 you can print about 2,500 business cards. Simply printing up a new sermon series card every 4-6 weeks is a really cost effective way spread the word. You don’t have to be the one passing every single one out. Give them to people as they leave your service or hand them out to your small group leaders. You’d be surprised how fast those 2,500 cards get passed out all around the community! 

4 – Contribute to a local newspaper or newsletter

I know, I know… you’ve heard me rail against newspapers before. Truth is, everything has its place. Just about every local newspaper is looking for content for their publication. Unless your church is in a major metropolitan area, the local newspaper might just be what you are looking for. Instead of paying to advertise in the paper, talk with the area editor and see if they would be interested in an article. Got a parenting series coming up? Writing a simple “10 ways to parent in the snapchat era” article just might land you in front of some eyeballs. Make sure you have a quality writer and that you sneak in the details of your next sermon series!

5 – Become a Resource

This isn’t the 90’s. People don’t come to church because they feel guilty or because it’s what their parents did. Right or wrong, most people come to church when they need something. People are looking for answers when a marriage is falling apart or when they get fired from their job. It’s our job to be ready when people come looking. The best way to market your church and sermon series is to become a resource and THE place people turn when things are falling apart. Having a blog or holding free classes and events will be a great place for your church to start. Once you’ve become a leading resource it’s easy promote your new series as just another tool.