Photo Caption (above):  Communio designs and runs custom multi-channel outreach campaigns on behalf of churches helping them to invite people in the community to their new Full-Circle Relationship Ministries®. Above are examples of ad creative from two unique church campaigns in Denver and Texas.
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The Senior Pastor at this one church in Texas reported that at least 50 percent of those in attendance at his recent Outreach Event were brand new to his church!

All this means is the fall outreach season is well underway for Communio-supported churches.

And, with the worst of COVID in the rear view, our partner churches are now leveraging a brand-new suite of data, marketing, and outreach services developed by Communio’s marketing team to reach more people than ever before – maximizing attendance in new relationship and marriage ministry.

So far, churches leveraging these new tools are seeing an explosion of activity and results.  More on some of those exciting developments in a moment.

But first…

• Beyond just social media campaigns, Communio now helps churches design and run multi-channel outreach campaigns, including email prospecting, person-to-person texting, direct mail, and social media, to invite those in their community not already connected with the church into their new Full-Circle Relationship Ministries®.  Below are some actual examples of creative developed by our team for these kinds of church campaigns.
• Meanwhile, Communio developed and just launched its own data platform – Communio Insights®.  Acting as a managed service, our team generates and activates custom ministry audiences to be used in targeted outreach campaigns within a 2-5 mile radius of the church’s physical plant. The platform includes commercially available consumer and demographic data as well as proprietary data models and filters relevant to ministry, including those experiencing marital hardship, cohabitating couples, those most likely to get married soon, and many more.

This kind of tech and marketing service has only been available to those in the commercial and political sectors. Now, as a full-service marketing and ministry consultancy, Communio brings these tools into the service of the Church to help them spread the gospel through relationship ministry.

At Communio, we are amidst a six-month sprint to execute a tidal wave of fully customized outreach campaigns on behalf of churches by the end of this year.  So far, 39 churches (with more to come) have scheduled or authorized major outreaches into their communities – many are going beyond just our social media marketing services and leveraging Communio’s new multi-channel campaign services.

In each case, our marketing team develops creative for each channel of the campaign for the church to review and approve and then runs the campaign on their behalf.  Let’s consider just two different churches in two very different parts of the country:

• Crosspoint Church, a Church of Christ church in the Fort Worth suburbs, and
• Holy Ghost, a Catholic parish in downtown Denver.

First, at Crosspoint…

Their team just wrapped up a major community-oriented outreach – a Couples Comedy Date Night. In the three weeks before the event, Communio designed and ran a three-pronged social media, email, and person-to-person texting campaign.

For this small church plant made by a larger Baptist church in town, Crosspoint’s Senior Pastor Tim Hall tells us that of the more than 150 people in attendance, at least 50 percent of them were new to the church thanks to Communio’s marketing support and ministry consultation.

“Communio has been an incredible asset to us as a church reaching our neighborhood in ways we could not,” said Pastor Tim. “We connected with multiple families at our first event that had never been to our church, even though they lived a few blocks of us. Communio really helped us get off to a great start for a new approach to reaching families.”

These new couples are now being invited back to the church’s ongoing engagement next month – a family-oriented Trunk or Treat. There, couples will be invited to join the church’s weekly growth journey on Wednesdays, where Pastor Tim facilitates relationship enrichment content developed by marriage practitioners Les and Leslie Parrott.

Below are actual examples of social, email, and text creative designed and deployed by Communio on behalf of Crosspoint. Each of these channels linked guests to a Communio-developed landing page, branded for the church, with event details and registration (view page by clicking here).

Social Media:

Email and Text:

Meanwhile, at Holy Ghost in downtown Denver…

Communio helped this parish re-tool its annual Oktoberfest into a major Outreach Event for the community. In this case, Communio equipped the church to run an integrated social media and person-to-person texting campaign focused on reaching young couples within a 2-mile radius of the parish.

Incredibly, two-thirds of the 320 total registrants came from the multi-channel outreach campaign Communio designed and ran on behalf of the parish. Moreover, our post-event analysis indicates that the addition of a text message channel generated a likely 30 percent lift in attendance.

One parishioner jokingly shared her excitement about all the new faces she saw with our local Communio Consultant, Jo Holt:

“Some people thought this was a fundraiser, but it was actually a ‘friend-raiser’ because of all the new people we were able to meet and the community we created.”

Another parishioner said:

“The event was fun! I saw my son’s teacher there with her friends, which I didn’t expect since she doesn’t belong to our parish.”

Below are actual examples of social media and text creative designed for Holy Ghost. Both channels linked guests to a Communio-developed landing page, branded for the church, with event details and registration (view page by clicking here).

Social Media:

Text:

The parish already has its ongoing engagement locked in for next month – Brushes and Beer – which is being hosted by an active dad at the parish as follow up to the Oktoberfest. The event is his take on the “paint-and-sip” concept, where couples come together for a group painting class and drinks, but designed in a way to attract younger married guys. He’ll be cooking up fried chicken and bringing in a good variety of local craft beers. During the event, couples will be invited to a day-long marriage retreat later this year, which serves as the growth journey rung of the parish’s Ministry Engagement Ladder®.

What’s happening at Crosspoint and Holy Ghost is a microcosm of what’s happening in Communio-supported churches across the country.

Consider that 85 percent of churches in America report spending 0 percent of their budget on marriage ministry and just 28 percent have something approximating a substantive marriage ministry.

Yet, Communio now supports church leadership at more than 100 different church locations from Boston to Denver to Spokane to Southern California.  And our partnering churches are leading a sea-change in American churches by investing substantially in encouraging new marriages and strengthening existing ones.