A few people have mentioned this to me, so I simply had to investigate...

Have you gotten ads for Church Candy?

Church Candy was started by a man who built an ad agency in a different field. He pivoted and decided to use his skills within the church.

He promises that he can get new visitors into your church using online ads. How does he do this?

• His team will run ads for you on Facebook & Instagram with the primary goal of gathering leads. What's a lead? A lead is someone who sees your ad and submits their information with the intent of getting more information.
• His team sets up the ads so that anyone who views it will get targeted with it again. A quote from his site: "You’ll have new visitors say things like, 'I knew the Holy Spirit was calling me to this church, because everytime I turned around on Instagram I kept seeing you guys!'"
• When someone submits their contact information, he has an automated funnel that kicks off. According to him, this includes personalized texts, voicemail drops, and selfie videos that encourage the recipient to visit.

I downloaded his ebook (which is pretty good, by the way) and got this text a few minutes later:

He definitely knows what he's doing — kudos!

This is very similar to the strategy that I employed at Academia Cristo & the TELL Network: Cast a wide net with online ads on Meta, Google Search, and YouTube, direct people to a personalized WhatsApp automation, then funnel students through the program. (That's not me spilling company secrets, that's something their teams talk about a lot!)

This is digital marketing at its most basic: follow people around the internet until they give you their information, provide value to them over time, then "sell" to them.

He charges 4 figures per month to run his system. There's some sticker shock there, of course, but you have to remember that ChurchCandy costs a lot because, well, it costs a lot to do this (in both money and time). It also requires a relatively advanced understanding of advertising and retargeting. This isn't really a Do-It-Yourself type of project.

Is there a way to try out a similar strategy with a little less money and a little less engineering?

An example might be the lead ads I ran for a few recent church launches.

Over 21 days with $500, this lead ad brought in 64 email addresses. The pastor subscribed them to a very short daily email devotion.

Over 13 days with $350, this lead ad brought in 77 phone numbers. The pastor texted all of them the day before his launch service with a selfie video invitation.

As you consider if this type of ad could work for you, ask yourself these questions:

• Do I already have a well-rounded digital presence? Is my website updated? Is it well-organized and welcoming? Is my social media page active?
• Do I have all of the following?
  • Between 30,000 and 50,000 people to advertise to
  • A crystal clear, concrete offer "Find out more ❌ vs. Sign up for this thing that you want ✅"
  • A video ad that communicates that offer in the first second
  • A thorough follow-up plan
• Do you have a person with an understanding of advertising to either consult with or run the ad for you?

It's also incredibly important to reiterate what we all know, but can tend to forget during these conversations: there is no silver bullet. Well, there is, but it's nothing I can control from my MacBook Air: it's the Holy Spirit working on peoples' hearts.

This is simply a conversation about new ways to come into contact with more people as the Holy Spirit's work continues.

What are your thoughts? Would you be interested in giving this a try? Let's talk!

Until next week,