How to Make This Your Biggest Christmas Season Yet With Push Notifications

The Christmas season can be a source of anxiety for a lot of churches—especially if their previous year was a success. You want to do something new, different, and exciting, but mostly, you want to make sure that you have an even better turnout.

This can be a struggle, especially if you’re seeing diminishing returns in your typical communication channels. Maybe you’re noticing a dip in your email opens, or your Facebook posts aren’t generating the interest that they used to.

How can you give your promotions a healthy pick-me-up in time for Christmas?

If you have a church app, you’ll find that push notifications might be just what you need to keep your church top-of-mind. They give you the ability to send messages to people who have downloaded your app but don’t have it open. And when a majority of people have their smartphone on them at all times, a push notification is a simple way to reach them.

Here are five ways you can use push notifications to increase your publicity:

1. Event reminders

The Christmas season is full of fundraisers, dinners, services, parties, and gatherings. You can have a well-managed calendar, but it doesn’t work if people neglect to use it. That’s where push notifications come in handy. They allow you to remind people of important events—even when they forget to open your app!

Use them to send out that last reminder about your Christmas Eve service or the gift wrapping outreach at the local mall.

2. Volunteer requests

On top of all the internal ministry needs this holiday, you probably have some outreach projects planned, too. That’s going to require all hands on deck. But let’s be honest, getting people to volunteer isn’t easy. It takes repeated requests—and push notifications can help avoid having to make multiple requests.

Need more volunteers to put away tables after tonight’s formal Christmas dinner? Send out a notification to everyone. They’re sure to respond.

3. Giving reminder

People are always more charitable during the Christmas season. In fact, nearly one-third of all charitable giving happens in the month of December. Push notifications allow you to make tasteful reminders about giving opportunities and year-end goals. And when you factor in their ability to simply open your app and give in seconds, you improve the likelihood of seeing a bump in year-end donations.

4. Calls to follow live media

Not everyone can make it to every service or ministry gathering, so hopefully, you’re taking advantage of streaming technology so people can catch your events live—or even watch it later. Imagine if you could let people know that your Christmas Eve service will be live in 15 minutes. With push notifications, you can. Increase the turnout for events without worrying about whether you have room in the sanctuary!

All it takes is a quick notification that says, “You don’t have to miss the First Baptist Church Christmas Eve service. Watch it from home with your family on Facebook Live in 10 minutes!”

5. Special announcements

Push notifications can be used to make a special announcement or offer specific prompts. Maybe you want to send out a reminder that parents need to have kids at the church an hour early for a final Christmas pageant run through, or you want to let everyone know that a special brunch will be served in the fellowship hall after the service. Notifications can give people the info they need but might forget.

Push Notifications Help

The nice thing about push notifications is that they don’t take the place of your other communication channels. They help drive people to those channels. You can use them to get people into your app or encourage them to check you out on social media. From there, you can share important next steps. If your church doesn’t have a full-featured, native church app, it’s not as difficult or cost prohibitive as you might imagine. Talk to an expert today!