A Heartfelt Campaign For A Community-centered Church

Central’s communities had been impacted by both the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing social trends. In Janesville, they struggled to raise awareness of the church without an initial physical location — on their other campuses, concerns about illness and demanding work schedules kept their congregations from gathering.

The Central team decided to host a Homecoming event in early September across all of their communities, hoping to re-energize their existing church members and bring new connections together.

Our short-term goal was to drive interest and attendance of Homecoming with a campaign concept that could be customized to each audience. Our long-term goal was to create greater awareness of Central’s four locations and encourage eventual retention of more members.

After a series of discovery workshops and congregation research, our team poured their talents into devising heartfelt campaign messaging and attention-grabbing visuals. Underscoring our entire process was a commitment to telling Central’s story — and highlighting their commitment to inclusion — as authentically as possible.

Our tagline (Find what you need at Central) and imagery fueled traditional, digital, and earned media including:

• Radio spots
• Direct mail invitations
• Placements in local publications
• A website landing page
• Paid social media and Google advertising
• Organic social media posts

New Life
New Life’s attendance had averaged under 60 for the months leading up to Homecoming. On the day of the event, they had over 250 people show up. They had to go buy new food and even hosted an extra service outside because of the overflow!

Janesville
Janesville had seen a steady increase in attendance since moving locations in August — but on Homecoming weekend, they nearly doubled their visitors from 100 to 200 with many new faces.

Iglesia
Unfortunately, Iglesia was hit hard by COVID-19 in the weeks leading up to Homecoming. Their pastor was unable to attend, and around 50 members called to say they wouldn’t be coming either due to the pandemic. Despite that, the campus still had a normal attendance level on Homecoming weekend because they brought in enough new people to close the gap.