Clutter Free - part 1

Remember these aren't supposed to be the normal ways to get the word out about something. If everyone did it, it wouldn't be clutter free. I also agree with Mark Batterson when it comes to marketing and the church: we have the greatest message to tell and therefor we should have the greatest marketing.

Clutter Free Ideas for getting the word out about your church:
1. Door hangers, car windshields, personal invite cards. I know these are pretty common, but if what you put on them stands out they can get some mind-share.
2. Put on the items from #1 an incentive to go to your website. I saw one church planter that put a coupon for Starbucks on their handouts. You hand to register on the website to get a validation code. That gave the church contact info (at least an email address). That leads to:
3. Targeted email. I know most would say that spammers have cluttered up our email, but sending a validation code for starbucks would get noticed. This gives you three touch points for one marketing piece... not bad. I haven't checked with starbucks yet to see what kind of rate they will give me, but it would probably be worth it. I've also thought that a Chic-fill-a sandwich might be a good substitute. They might even donate the chicken for their own advertising. Is chicken a strong enough draw to get someone to register on your website? Not sure. Might work well on a college campus. I would do just about anything for free food in college.
4. Here's another idea I saw, have you church members write on their car windows with those white markers. When I was in school we used white shoe polish, but now they have actual markers for this kind of thing. It's a great way to promote a church launch or special event.
5. Servant evangelism. Doing good for goodness sake is a good thing and will influence the fat man in a red suit to bring you gifts next month, but it also a form of clutter free marketing. Jesus drew huge crowds when he met people's needs. I can hear the question now, "would you do a servant evangelism project for marketing reasons?". YES!!! Before you throw the stone with your mouse click hear me out. Isn't our mission as a church to share the gospel with as many people as possible? Well it just so happens that we do that every week at our church. So yes I would do an event that serves our community and intentionally try to get them to come to church. I believe that church is an essential part of everyone's life whether they know God or not. And yes I would also do events simply for the sake of serving people. We have been doing them at our church for years. But we also do strategic service events to intentionally influence people to come to church.