Hello, If this question/post isn’t on the correct topic feel free to move it.
How far out in advance do events at your church get placed on social media/announced so the public/congregation can invte ppl?
For example, if we have an event in April say the 7th-the 9th, when do you guys start posting flyers and putting them on your website?
We have a flyer ready now and just posted it to the website. It’s the earliest we’ve ever done an event usually the events have been 3 wks notice and we post a flyer up or share it on a fb page.
Who does the flyers for your church events?
Is it in-house non-paid members who volunteer to make flyers or is it paid church staff or a paid graphic designer?
There’s a lot of variables that go into this, and one of the most important is your church’s culture. Sometimes staff members make the artwork. Sometimes we outsource (and pay) professionals. Sometimes members who are professionals volunteer. But, that depends on the project. For example, we have one particular volunteer who always does Christmas (and does a great job), so Christmas is just always hers now.
For a relatively high profile event, we shoot for (but rarely achieve) the following schedule:
90 days ahead: Finalize descriptive language and define the vision for artwork. Send artist specifications.
70 days ahead: Artwork due from artist. Post on website. Create event on Facebook.
60 days ahead: Start including in verbal announcements on Sunday, and as a minor item in the weekly church email.
40 days ahead: Start including in bulletin and make a feature in the weekly church email.
35 days ahead: Posters on campus (particularly in the spaces where people hang out between services)
2 weeks ahead: Emphasis in verbal announcements.
week before: Post a video with the featured speaker (or equivalent) on social media and link to it in the weekly email and the website.
We only have about eight events on that level each year, and they’re spaced out to avoid cannibalizing each other. Lesser events get a subset of these items and it’s spread across less time.
Thanks for the detailed reply. Its appreciated. We are a small church of about 20 ppl. I am the one that does the flyers (not a professional graphic designer, a volunteer and amateur with designing but looking at getting better). This is the earliest we’ve posted or announced an event was 2/26/23 for an event on 4/7/23-4/9/23. I was informed about the flyer on 2/25/23 and created the flyer that day, 2/25/23. It got approved that day, and uploaded to the site 2/27/23. Flyer was requested to be adjusted 3/2/23, approved and uploaded to the site on 3/5/23.
Generally we have about 1 month to 2 weeks before announcing an event and making a flyer, so I am glad that we have tried to get ahead of the game.
I was very curious to see how other churches plan out events etc. We have about 5-6 events a year that we try do flyers for.