You've followed all of Church Juice's tips for planning a church event. Promotion has begun, logistics have all been organized. There's a real buzz around the church and community, and people are excited about attending.
So what now?
Of course, there are always more details to think about. One thing that’s really important to think about is what happens after the event—this is perhaps even as important as the event itself! But don’t worry, we’re here to help.
Here are some things to help ensure you don’t lose momentum following your event, and you get people engaged with the church.
Remind
People have a lot going on in their lives and it’s easy to move on from one event to the next, even in the church. So we have to remind them of all the fun they had at our event!
Social media and blog posts are a great way to do this. We can share some narrative text summarising what happened - describing the atmosphere - and photos, which serve as a visual reminder.
Pro Tip: Remember to assign a photographer for big events. Here’s a helpful blog post with some tips for taking brilliant church event photos.
Of course, these reminders should be part of your social media strategy; creating engaging, original content that will help to build your online following.
Keeping people engaged through your social channels means that you can follow these next few tips well:
Reinvite
Don't miss the opportunity to plug the next event, or the next step you’d like them to take.
We should do this at the event itself, either from the front or with print publicity. But we can also use the reminders we talked about above. When we post online about the event we've just had, we should include next steps—how can people find out more about your church's activities? What is the next event they can attend? Where can they go for more information?
Reflect
This is such an easy step to miss, as we can get so excited about the next event we want to plan. It's critical to set aside time to reflect. We need to ask ourselves and our teams; what worked well? What didn't go as planned? What did we forget to prepare for?
Thinking back on any goals you created in planning of the event—were these achieved? If they weren’t, consider what may have impacted this.
Refine
After spending time reflecting, it’s time to put in to practice the lessons you learned for your next event!
Learn from the areas that could have gone better. In this way, you can make incremental changes to improve the events for everyone involved. Of course, that includes the attendees, but it also makes the event better for your church event organizers.
