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Advertise Your Course
"Church noticeboards are the most under-utilised advertising space in the country."
Charles Saatchi
How can you get the word out about your Alpha course? After inviting everyone in the congregation, how can you reach people you don't already know?
Find out you can make a big splash for your Alpha course:
- Create visible signposts
- Join the National Advertising Campaign
- Team with your neighbours
- Engage your congregation
- Launch with a bang!
Create visible signposts
Hey! Look over here! Is it obvious to a passerby or visitor to your website you are running an Alpha course? Here are some ideas to try:
- Put up banners and posters
- Create handy invites for your congregation members to give out to their friends
- Update the homepage of your website with an Alpha course advert
- Set up a Facebook event for everyone to invite their friends online
- Regularly Tweet news of when your course is starting
Top Tip: Make sure the date, time, place and contact information are clear on all your communication.
Join the National Advertising Campaign
Every year, countries create national advertising campaigns to raise awareness of the course and make it easier for people to invite their friends. Use the publicity provided to tie in with the campaign so people can instantly recognise your course.
- UK only: Purchase and customise the Alpha banners, posters and invitations
- UK only: Download artwork and promotional videos to customise your publicity
- Time your launch with the national advertising
Top Tip: Registered UK courses receive a free publicity pack every May.
Register your course now.
Example timings (UK):
Throughout the month of e.g: September – National advertising
1st & 2nd week of Sept – (Your) local advertising
2nd week of Sept – Prayer events
3rd week of Sept – Alpha launch events
4th week of Sept / Early Oct – Alpha course starts
Team with your neighbours
More and more courses are getting together in villages, towns and cities to create a bigger splash for Alpha in their area.
Working together means shared resources, shared publicity and loads more people invited to a course. Here are some ways you might do this:
- Invite all the local courses to meet and form a team
- Plan a joint Alpha launch event
- Create a complete listings for courses in your area
- Pool your resources to create publicity and advertising for your courses
Top Tip: If you're working with lots of volunteers from different Alpha courses, separate into teams (e.g: catering, prayer, entertainment, advertising, fund-raising ...) and give everyone a role.
Engage your congregation
"... if only we could get congregation members to invite somebody, what an amazing impact that would be."
Michael Harvey, Back to Church Sunday
Don't just tell your congregation about your plans, inspire them with four easy ways to launch your Alpha course.
Top Tip: Michael Harvey from Back to Church Sunday shares hugely inspring and practical guidance about inviting people to church.
Listen to Michael's talk.
Launch with a bang!
Launch events are the perfect way to introduce potential guests to the Alpha course.
A really good launch event offers fun, food and entertainment. Events also include a short talk (perhaps a celebrity interview or guest speaker) and interviews with past guests.
It's the kind of thing you'd find easy to invite your friends to, because you'll know they'll have a great time (even if they decide not to attend the course).
Top Tip: Consider holding a launch event in a relaxed venue such a pub or a coffee shop; somewhere that people find it easy to invite their friends.
How exactly does a launch work? Check out these great UK examples: