Previous Posts

• Ideas from Cru 
• Part 1: Overview of Process
• Part 2: Survey and Results
• Part 3: Promtoional Methods

One of the key things we picked up from Cru in the US was the crazy idea of providing substantial incentives for people doing our O Week surveys. 

Here was the St Louis Cru advice:

• The “giveaway” is what will motivate people to fill out your survey
• Community College: Raffle for a $25 gas card or gift card to Walmart
• 4-Year University: Raffle for something Larger, like an iPod or a bike
• If you have the option, giving away free stuff (like water bottles, highlighters, Bibles, etc) to freshmen is a great idea!

Like many things American there is a bizarre ministry culture shock. Raffle for an iPad? Are you kidding?!

So we ruled out some of these more extreme ideas, espcially those that involve some kind of quasi-gambling, and instead went for: 

• free KeepCup from local hipster cafe (owned by Christians, they donated 100 and gave the rest at cost)
• free coffee voucher from same cafe
• when these ran out, we were given free large pizza vouchers by Dominos (!!) so we used those.

We wanted something easy and portable and non-perishable. And we wanted something with enough WOW factor. In O Week, there is so much free stuff, that students can get entitled and almost ignore some stuff as just part of being at uni. We wanted to stand out.

Not this meant it cost a lot of money. But then, spending money on making new contacts is about as good an expense as any, right? We were able to afford this, because of the grant we received. But having seen its power, we will raise support to make this possible in the future. 

1. The power of incentives

• We weren't prepared for quite how powerful this would be. We were literally swamped with interest, especially on the first few days (everywhere, that is, except for the hyper-suspsicious School of Fine Art).
• What the incentive did, was enable us to 'go viral'. Once word got around that we were giving away free KeepCups, people began telling their friends, and people were lining up to do the survey.
• This meant we were able to make contact with more people in an hour than if we were approaching people, without incentive, one by one.
• I know that some unis have enjoyed a similar efficient this when they have had large give away BBQs at key central hubs: if the line gets long enough to be able to do the surveys in the queue. Others used to do this while students lined up to get student cards... before being stopped from doing this by mollycoddling uni admin.
• The incentive also this made us memorable. We made an impact by giving away something with a Wow factor.
• Free food at campus events are another example of incentives: come for free lunch and short sermon etc. Having been reminded about the power of incentives through this project, we have also renewed our resolve to plan to budget for free food at our mission events.
  • We provided Subway and Sushi at a lunchtime event and it was a real hit.
  • Likewise, those attendeding our evangelistic course could order a hot drink on the Facebook Event and our staff would buy drinks for everyone from the campus cafe that woudl be ready as they arrived.

2. The problem with incentives

• Something feels icky about this. At what point are we compromising or corrupting our ministry through free stuff?
• There are a bunch of potential risks:
• Creating 'rice Christians': people who only come to our stuff, or even claim to be Christian, because of what they get out of it.
• Creating a consumeristic culture: what you convert people WITH is what you convert people TO. If people join our group with the expectation of free stuff, will they then bring that kind of entitlement to their whole invovlemenet with our group? 'What free stuff do I get if I come to MYC?' 'What free stuff do I get if I become a student leader?' etc
• Giving the impression we are tricking people into religion.
• Wasing money.
• Giving things which actually compromise our values: supporting a corrupt business, giving away things that are associated with immorality (free beer!) and so on.
• We might also be careful about encouraging consumerism, materialism and so on.
• Of course we don't feel icky about all sorts of free stuff. Somehow giving away sausages is fine. Why not keep cups? Providing free hot drinks and snacks after church... but not sushi for a lunchtime meeting perhaps. What's the difference?

3. The ethics of incentives and the ethics of evangelism

• From the very beginning of this plan, we talked a lot and thought a lot as a staff team about the ethics involved.
• Here are some of the things we realised:

1. We realised that there is a difference between the ethics of EVANGELISM proper and the ethics of PROMOTION. What you can and can't do as you hand out fliers or do surveys is different to what you can and can't do as you actually evangelise someone. We don't necessarily have to be as 'pure' in broader promotion as we do in evangelism.

• We had a similar converation around our radio ad. Some of our students were concerned that we didn't explain theologically sound reasons and motivations for why we exist and why people should come. But we suggested that you don't need to unpack the atonement in a radio ad. Your obligation for detailed clarity is different in an advert than in a sermon.
• I am not witholding the free thing on the provision that someone responds or converts. It would be one thing to only give the keep cup if someone sais 'YES' to finding out more. Another thing if everyone receives the gift, whether they say yes or no.
• So although there are ethical issues raised in, for example, 1Thessalonians 2 or 2Corinthians 4, these are not all directly applicable to all our promotion.

2. We need to be honest about who we are and what we are wanting to promote. No advertising 'free pizza' events, that hide the fact that there will be prayers or God-talk.

3. Some free stuff is associated directly with hospitality. It is incentive-in-relationship. So free dinners at FOCUS events, or free lunches at mission events are not cheap, 'come and we'll feed you' scams, but rather expressions of hospitality to our guests.

4. However, lavish free hospitality can create patron-client obligations. So if the free hospitality we offer is too impressive, it creates a complicated power dynamic with our guests. So dial it back a bit!

5. The dynamics of the giveaways need to be ethical: so we ruled raffles out, for example.

6. The things being given our need to be ethical: so think carefully about what you are promoting with your incentive. Are you feeding materialism or entitlement or drunkenness or sexual immorality (!)?

7. Sponsorship relationships with businesses need to also be approached with care. Are you simply receiving a donation from the business? Or are you partly helping them advertise? Or are you endorsing them? All three of these MIGHT be fine, but it needs to be thought out clearly. Likewise the degree of exposure the business' logo might get needs thinking through. 

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That's just a beginning list. You might be able to think of others?!

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Previous Posts:

• Ideas from Cru
• Part 1 Overview of Process 
• Part 2 Survey and Results

We used the grant money for this mission to explore a range of promotional methods, to test and see what worked and what didn't, what we'd invest in and what we wouldn't bother:

1. Radio

• You can listen to it here
• I posted about the cost and process here
• This is one we most likely would never have tried if it weren't for the grant money

1.1 Things we learned

• We didn't have a good enough assessment plan in place to really judge its effectiveness. I suspect if we were to really explore its effectiveness we'd have to put a lot more money into it, to try a whole range of different approaches, durations etc.

• The biggest benefit was building a relationship with the Christian radio station. This has opened up all sorts of opportunities for us: they are keen to have us share testimonies on the show, to provide freebie merch for our 2017 O Week showbags, and they helped us gain free stuff from Dominos and Woolworths.
• We didn't meet anyone who first hear about us from the radio. About 50% of our first Citywide Gathering said they had heard the advert.
• Some new students came to our event, excited that they had just heard our ad on the radio.
• I suspect for radio advertising to really make an impact we'd need a longer campaign time than one week.
• I suspect that the best way to really test it would be to tie it to a very concrete action: like a 'deal' they can cash in on if they quote a key word from the ad, maybe?
• We only mentioned the name of our ministry at the start of the ad. If we ever did it again, we'd make sure there was a callback at the end of the ad.
• I drove around during O Week with the two radio stations on my car the whole time and only heard them once. So it's a low likelihood that people will heard it.

1.2 What we'd do next time?

• We wouldn't go for paid advertising again, but instead seek to get interview slots on the radio stations, preferably multiple shows. This is free and probably as effective. It just takes more time.
• We would also explore the uni magazine 'Togatus' and be more proactive there.

2. Facebook

• We set aside a budget of $300 for Facebook advertising and tried a whole bunch of things. This included asking questions, boost pre-existing posts, paying for adverts.
• We also did other things: like posting key Facebook Events on the Facebook Pages of local churches and youth ministries.
• We already had a very active and effective Facebook presence, with lots of 'Likes' and a rich approach to promotions.

2.1 Things we learned

• We got lots of new Likes on the Page, lots of Message enquiries sent to the Page, and lots of people telling us that this is how they first found us. 
• It's important to understand and use Facebook well, to maximise your reach. 
• Videos and photos perform well: especially if you can tag people in them.
• Wait for a post to start performing well 'organically' before 'boosting' it.'
• Develop multiple audiences: target parents and pastors in Australia, or uni students at UTAS. Use things like 'AFES', and 'John Piper' and 'Hillsong' to target to Christians.
• You can target everyone EXCEPT people who already like your Page to reach new people and not waste your advertising on people who already know you.
• Spending more on a short-time frame is better than spreading it out over weeks and weeks. That gets a bigger impact quicker.
• We got a good return even just from $20 stints.
• If you pay for a radio ad you get free Instagram advertising.
• Paid adverts (as opposed to boosted posts) get little interaction so these are more for raising awareness.
• To Boost events, you need to make sure there is a minimal amount of text in the Facebook Event's cover image. This might require extra design to satisfy this.

2.2 What we'd do next time?

• I have been telling everyone who will listen that Facebook paid advertising is a really cost effective way of raising awareness. I was indifferent to it before this experiment, because we did well enough orgaincally. But now I'm sold.

3. Corflute signage

• For about $250 we bought two thick cardboard corflute picket signs to promote our public events.
• Because we use a church building for our Citywide Gathering, right beside the university, it made sense to stick these signs out the front and the Parish Council gave us permission.
• We designed signs that would work for each event for the entire Semester to save money.

• ​This is a pretty low-cost ongoing awareness raiser that we will continue with.

​4. Bulk SMS

• We have been using SMS Global for 6 years as a way to communicate with our group members, along with our bulk email lists and Facebook. I'm not sure if they are the best or cheapest on the market but they have served us just fine.
• Uni students respond really positively to SMS promotions, which surprised me.
• We end all messages with [unsub@ufcutas.org] so that there is an easy way to unsubscribe. We haven't paid for a fixed mobile number up to this point.
• This dovetailed naturally with our larger promotional needs for this O Week Misison.
• We had also moved to Elvanto from Church Community Builder at the end of last year and this has given us convenient integration with SMS Global - so that we don't have to enter the data in two places and we can SMS people straight out of 'People Flows' and stuff.
• In our experience (more of this in future posts), cold phone calling students, even if they have given us their number, is not just unusual, it is actually unwelcome now. So that method of follow up is over. Better to use SMS and Facebook, along with email.

5. Postcard fliers

• We asked a very talented graphic designer to design really attractive postcard fliers for us and we used these throughout O Week, along with a more comprehensive prospectus that we make available at our events and in our O Week showbag for those who want to find out more.
• A local business has recently offered to do extremely cheap, professional-quality colour printing for Not For Profits, so we have seen our printing costs really shrink.
• We did fliering at all the orientation classes, the week before Semester began, but otherwise have done very little fliering or postering.
• We make sure these fliers link to our website and Facebook Page on the reverse side.

 

Perfect example in action

This year we were delighted to meet two girls who received fliers at an orientation event, then looked us up on Facebook, found out about our Pizza Parties and came along. There they heard about our Tuesday morning 'Breakfast Sessions' sermon and our 'Christianity 1A' course and came to those. One of them has now professed faith in Christ and the other is really interested!

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://ift.tt/25KaS79 (NB: to comment go to http://ift.tt/1FyvdLS)