The Final Marketing Push: Promotional Strategies for Strategic Sundays
Promotional strategies for strategic Sundays. From the Build the Church podcast with Josh Roberie.
You’ve seen the clip. A player intercepts the ball, breaks free, and starts celebrating on his way into the end zone — then drops the ball a yard before the line. Or the marathon runner so far ahead that she starts waving to the crowd, only to watch someone sprint past her at the tape.
It’s painful to watch. And in the final weeks before a big Sunday, churches do the exact same thing all the time.
The final marketing push is where you get to capitalize on all the momentum you’ve been building. But so many leaders waste it right at the finish line. They do so much right in the buildup — the praying, the planning, the team recruiting — and then they coast when they should be sprinting.
On this week’s episode of Build the Church, Josh walks through the full checklist for finishing strong. He frames it around a church launch, but every bit of it applies to any target Sunday you’re building toward: the start of the year, Easter, back-to-school, a big series, Christmas. Every one of those is a launch day in its own right.
Here’s the idea to keep in the back of your mind the whole way through: it usually takes about seven touches before someone takes action. For a church, that often means about seven contacts before someone actually walks through your doors.
So your job in the final weeks is simple to say and hard to do: get in front of as many people as often as you can, and make every touch point back to one place — your website. And once they’re there, make it clear that the one thing you want them to do is come on Sunday.
Too many churches use their website like a magazine that describes everything they do. Ask yourself instead: if I could only get a visitor to make one decision, what decision would I want them to make? Point them to that, and reinforce it.
And remember — when you post on social media, less than 10% of your audience will likely ever see it. You are not repeating yourself. For most people, it’s the first time they’re hearing it.
In the episode, Josh walks through real examples from real churches, on screen. Here’s the shape of it:
Start with a personal invite from you. Before any graphic, the single most powerful post you can make is you on camera, looking people in the eye and inviting them to come. Not a logo — a face and a voice. It’s also the perfect post to put promotion behind so it reaches even more people.
Post countdown content every day, starting about ten days out. Mix graphic countdown posts with behind-the-scenes reels of your team setting up. And steal this caption move: don’t just promote the service — invite people to pray for it. It gets people engaged and invested in what God is about to do, and you can rotate what you ask them to pray for each day.
Give people a preview of your setup. A setup video or a POV walkthrough — from the parking lot to kids check-in to a seat in the auditorium — builds trust before anyone walks in the room. First-time guests don’t know what to expect, and showing them removes the fears that cause hesitation. If you want families to come, show the kids’ spaces and smiling volunteers on camera.
Nudge them the day before. It doesn’t need to be a production. One church simply filmed a hand-written sticky note that said “Tomorrow.” That’s it. A personal nudge gets the job done.
Post on the big day — before and after. Every post should create anticipation or FOMO. Announcements don’t build tension; stories do. The morning of, capture your excitement in 30 seconds. Afterward, post the energy in real time: clips of worship, kids ministry, people connecting. One church followed up later in the week with the numbers — hundreds in attendance, dozens of decisions for Jesus — and an invitation to “do it again this Sunday.”
If you’ve been collecting contacts through your buildup, don’t let them sit there. A tool like Hello Church can put those contacts into a nurture sequence starting about four weeks out, steadily moving people toward the big day.
And through it all, remember: you are the CIO of your church — the Chief Invite Officer. You cannot delegate this completely. Send as many personal videos and texts as you can, and follow up afterward to thank people for giving you the most precious commodity they have: their time. Almost nobody does that, which is exactly why it stands out.
If you’re launching, retire the recruiting site and release your real website four to six weeks before launch day. It helps your SEO, and it tells people you’re a legitimate church. On any big push, put your service time, date, and location front and center — and make sure nothing on the site is out of date. Stale information tells a guest they can’t trust anything else on the page.
Don’t bury the essentials: a photo of you and your family (that’s not self-promotion — it’s introducing yourself so people feel comfortable before they ever visit), your kids ministry information, and a clear plan-your-visit path.
Then take care of local SEO. Claim and fill out your Google Business profile, add high-quality photos, and launch “digital missionaries” to leave five-star reviews. People want to know they can trust you because others have. And here’s the test most pastors never run: search for your church in an incognito browser window. Google has been showing you your own church because of your cookies — your neighbors may not be finding you at all. You need to be at the top of the first page, especially close to launch. A Google Ad Grant can help, and a service like REACHRIGHT can manage it.
Mailers still work at a high level — nothing saturates a whole market the same way, and they pay for themselves in families who come back. Empower your team with printed invite cards and random-acts-of-kindness cards. Be visible in your community with simple, mostly free outreach — and capture it all on video, because it becomes both promotion before launch and proof on launch day that your church is already loving the city.
And when the big day ends, the work isn’t over. On Monday, start promoting your second Sunday: take the best photo from launch day and post it with “Did you miss launch Sunday? Don’t worry — you can join us this Sunday.” Launch day is the beginning, not the finish line.
None of this replaces the thing we actually need — God moving in our churches and in the lives of our people. All we’re doing is letting people know about an opportunity where that can happen for them. Church of the Highlands offers free prayer resources for exactly this kind of season.
Listen to the full episode of the Build the Church podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
Follow the show on Instagram at @buildthe.church — every Friday we share a free resource, plus clips and best practices all week.
Watch the full episode below.
Josh Roberie has helped pastors start churches across the country for the last twelve years as part of ARC. Before that, he served in the local church for a decade — from part-time production team member to youth and young adults pastor to the executive team.
Josh Roberie has helped pastors start churches across the country for the last twelve years as part of ARC. Before that, he served in the local church for a decade — from part-time production team member to youth and young adults pastor to the executive team.
