Should churches be using landing pages? That’s certainly a great question and one that I am going to be diving into to provide you with an answer that may very well be different from what you are thinking.
In short, it is a page contained upon a website that is designed to nothing more than collect your personal information. Such things as your name, contact phone number, address, and the list of other items could go on for a while.
I’m almost sure that many of you have seen these as you browse the Internet. Oftentimes you see these when you click on an ad and it takes you to a page on a website to enter in information that they are looking to collect from you.
They most generally are offering something in return for you providing your details, which generally is often collected utilizing a form of some type.
Absolutely. Let’s not forget what our main mission as a church is. That is to bring more people to know and have a person relationship with Jesus.
Years ago most churches relied upon the old fashion method of going door-to-door. While that may still work to some extend in today’s world, it just isn’t as effective as collecting information from individuals via an online contact form.
This gets back to my previous writings and conversations that I have had with many pastors across the country about utilizing the power of the Internet to increase their outreach and bring more people into the church.
Let’s face it, nearly everyone below the age of 40 nowadays is always walking around with their smartphone in hand. Why not take advantage of this by having them fall on one of your landing or lead pages to collect information about them and their family. It’s a quick way for them to reach out to you, and if your collection form is structured right, you can gather information from them about themselves as well as their family.
In allows you time to prepare yourself for that initial visit.
If there is one thing that trips my nerves more than anything else, it is when I fill out an online form and never hear back from anyone. The same is probably going to be true of those who land on a landing page of your church and fills out the form and they don’t hear anything back from you. Would you like to guess what happens when this takes place? You guessed it, they move on to another church.
Even more troubling is the fact that if you don’t make contact with them, chances are they will not give you the time of day again.
If nothing else, your form should be configured to deliver an immediate auto-responder message to the individual who filled out the form ensuring them that you will be in contact soon.
As soon as you receive confirmation of this contact form, you want to mark it on your calendar or to-do list and set a time with them that is convenient for a follow-up call or visit.
This is where so many people miss the boat.
How many of you have people within your church or ministry who have expressed that they want to serve, but don’t know where it is they fit in?
What a powerful way to get some of those people involved in helping with the follow-ups. Regardless of their online prowess, anyone can be taught how to do an online follow-up if that is how the person indicated they would like to be contacted.
Develop a checklist of things you would like to be sent back in the way of an email communication. People love it when you provide them with answers quickly.
It is a proven fact that those who took time to fill out a contact form online, are more likely to show up and visit with you as long as you responded to their online inquiry in a timely fashion.
Absolutely nothing that is ministry related. Remember, this page is about getting to know them and collecting information from the. Don’t try to list all the various ministries that your church has to offer on the landing page.
Remember, this page is basically an informal meet and greet. Don’t try to pack in your 50 different ministries and explain to them why they should be involved with all of the.
In fact if you’re creating the right kind of online contact form, if they choose to continue on to other locations of the website, you can make it easy for them by re-directing them based off of selected criteria they utilized on the form to send them to a page that may be of interest to them.
This basically comes back to AI computing. However, I don’t want to jump off into geek land here.
I am fairly confident that you can see pretty clearly the answer as to whether churches should be using landing pages. The only question left is whether you will begin implementing them across your church or ministry website design.
Brady Shearer, who was in the above video, provides churches with amazing resources and information to help you get a grip with both website design and social networking.
I encourage to keep coming back here for more insightful and useful articles to help you help you better plan out your ministry or church website design.
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