Capture Guest Information and Use It

Pastors, you are working hard to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to your members and the world. You are live streaming each week. Guests are tuning in. Are you capturing their contact information? If not, why not? If so, what are you doing with it?

I watch live stream church services each weekend. Rarely do I hear anyone acknowledge the presence of guests on the live stream. Never have I heard anyone ask for guest information. I can understand why pastors might not do this. But if you are to grow your ministry during this mandatory social distancing season, you must attract new people and help them begin a relationship with you. This demands you know who the guests are and how you can contact them.

Here are two options for comfortably acquiring guest information.

Members should be inviting people to join your services. If this is so, perhaps it would help to have the member ask their guest if they have permission to share the fact they are present and what their name and email address are. If the guest does not want their email exposed in the chat, maybe they would allow the member to share it with the clerk so a “thank you for joining us” email can be sent after the service, preferably with a gift. Here is how it could look in the chat: “#Guest John Brown.” Then, someone should acknowledge the presence of John Brown and any other guest and thank them for tuning in. The follow-up email should be sent as soon as possible after the live stream.

A second way this could be done is for the pastor to ask guests during the live stream to identify themselves by posting “#Guest” and their name in the chat. If they do not mind receiving a “thank you for joining us” email with a gift (maybe a gift card), the pastor could offer the choice of putting the email in the chat or giving them an email address where they can send their email information to receive the gift card. This should be posted in the lower third several times during the live stream to capture as many guest names and, hopefully, email addresses as possible. Near the end of the live stream, someone could once again acknowledge the presence of guests and thank them verbally for joining the service.

Make sure you are attracting new people and capturing contact information. This will help you grow your ministry.

For more tips, please register for the automated webinar, Attract New People to Grow Your Ministry here.