by Patrick Bradley: It’s Saturday morning and your volunteers have showed up to execute your church plant door hanger campaign. Now what?
You’ve already invested the time to design the door hangers as part of a larger campaign. And you’ve paid to have them printed. It would be a shame if the wheels fell off for lack of planning for the delivery phase.
Here are things to do to have a killer delivery day:
Get Organized Ahead of Time
Invite Outside Teams
You really don’t want to use your own Launch Team for putting out the door hangers. Work with a supporting church to get a missions team to come and deliver them. If they’re from out of the area, the church plant door hanger campaign could be one of the things they do when they come for a long weekend.
You could also invite youth groups from area churches and/or supporting churches. Teens have lots of energy, especially when you feed them pizza afterwards.
Prepare Delivery Routes
Before you jump right into creating a map, you’ll need to estimate how many door hangers teams of 2 can put out per hour. There are so many variables involved (including weather and elevation change), but the biggest seems to be the housing density: if you’re delivering to a neighborhood of track homes on postage-stamp-sized lots, you’ll get more out per hour than if it’s a neighborhood where every lot is an acre.
A note on apartments: most apartment complexes will have a ‘no soliciting’ sign or policy. While your church isn’t a commercial enterprise and the door hangers aren’t technically soliciting, they’ll probably be seen that way. So decide ahead of time whether you’ll skip them or fight that PR battle.
Consider using 75 per hour per team of 2 as a baseline for average housing density and flat terrain.
Now you can break down your target area into manageable routes using Google’s My Maps. Set logical rally points where your volunteers can park and divide up into teams of 2 to hit an area.
Lastly, set a firm stop time and place where everyone will reconvene for celebration and debrief. And at least some kind of food or dessert.
Set Up Communication Channels
Know how to get a hold of each volunteer ahead of time and while they’re out delivering. Cell phones are usually a good option since so many of us have them. But you other options are available, like walkie-talkies, etc.
Also consider having teams that have smart phones use one of those jogging tracking apps to record their route and progress.
Here are other helpful ideas to maximize your church plant door hanger campaign.
Just before Delivery Day
Print route maps and pre-bundle the printed door hangers in stacks enough to cover each route. Have a couple of water bottles to hand out to each team, too.
Prep your intercessory pray team to be praying over the volunteers and target homes during the delivery hours.
Plan a brief vision-casting and training session to equip and inspire the volunteers on delivery day. Be prepared to over-explain a bit. Don’t assume things will be common sense, especially if you’re using teens. Give them principles for what to do about:
walking on lawns
gated communities
dogs
gated yards
someone engaging them in conversation
Stay Organized on Delivery Day
Make sure you have a command station somewhere. Everyone needs to have the phone number to text or call in for help. Make sure the command station has everyone’s contact info and copies of all the delivery routes.
Aftermath of the Church Plant Door Hanger Campaign
Be prepared for disgruntled recipients. One of my planters estimated that he got 1-3 angry phone calls per 10,000 hangers his team put out. Have a brief script written in your mind about what you’ll say and how you’ll handle those.
The good news is that the same planter had a guest come to the worship gathering 10 months later with the door hanger in hand. Your church plant door hanger campaign can have long-lasting effects in your community. So take the time to organize the campaign well!
The post How to Organize a Church Plant Door Hanger Campaign appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.