It's the day after Thanksgiving.

Let's talk Christmas!

Christmas is less than 4 weeks away. Maybe you don't have a graphic made, a landing page or spot on your events page, postcards printed, flyers made, the list goes on... and you're feeling behind...

I have an idea for you!

Have you and I talked about Meta Lead Ads to Instant Forms?

This ad type...

• ...Does not require that you have a landing page on your website
• ...Does not require a gigantic budget (though gigantic is subjective, I suppose)
• ...Brings in real names and phone numbers or email addresses (that you own forever — no algorithm can take them away)

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Here's how they work:

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I set these up for every church I helped launch in 2025, including my own. I've been able to meet real humans who responded to this ad... it amazes me every. time.

I'm setting them up for Christmas Eve & Christmas-related events across the country and seeing a similar, if not even greater initial response as I continue to learn how to improve my process.

I never like to make promises in this line of work. However, I can almost promise you that, if you set them up right, these ads will work to connect you with new people.

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I'm not in the business of gatekeeping information that I learned for free on the internet. That's been a value of mine since day one: I want to educate you!

So, here is a 30-minute tutorial video demonstrating my real-time, step-by-step process. I simply turned my zoom recording ON while I set up a client's ads.

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This video comes with a warning label:

This is a lot of work. It can also be very frustrating work. You'll spend a couple hours on your video (which HAS to be good in order to capture peoples' attention), undoubtedly run into Meta errors and roadblocks, and your ad copy might take some tweaking before it's firing on all cylinders.

Finally, you have to have a plan for the numbers and emails that you collect. That's another big undertaking.

I've been doing this for years. I know what will resonate with people, how to position your "offer", how to encourage action, and how to follow up in a non-weird way.

If you don't have past experience advertising, consider hiring someone else to do this for you.

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If you do have experience advertising (or are an adventurous & confident first-timer), my tutorial video should be enough to get you up and running — but you may still have questions!

I do not want you to throw money away on a bad video ad, incorrect setup, or poor targeting. If you're concerned about any of the above, but still want to try this campaign, reply to this email. 😊

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A final disclaimer & encouragement:

The best "marketing" is to encourage your people to personally invite their friends and neighbors to learn about their Savior, born in a manger. Exhaust that option first.

If your people don't seem to have friends (which is not unusual in the current day and age), only have friends from church, or don't really talk with their neighbors (a different problem), work on that next.

While both of the above tasks are going on, consider running just a few hundred dollars in Lead Ads. They provide a personal invite (via text message) at scale, which is actually pretty well-aligned with our mission as small-to-medium sized congregations who value relationships.

All the best to you as you spread the word regarding your Christmas happenings.

Until next week,