Maximizing engagement and followup for your online Christmas church service broadcast

Well, can you believe it? Christmas has come and gone. 

We made it through the final stretch, and all the effort paid off. If your church is like most, you probably had packed Sunday services and a meaningful Christmas Eve gathering. So much time and detail went into planning those moments, and now it’s time to reflect. 

Maybe you welcomed some “ChriEasters” to your church—those who only attend during Christmas and Easter. Whether you call them “CEOs” or “Chrieasterlies,” these were people who engaged with your church for the first time. 

The question now is, how will you continue to connect with them?

Who watched your Christmas service broadcasts?

Christmas is a time of togetherness! Family and friends gather together, exchange gifts and celebrate the past year. Candlelight services are often part of Christmas traditions, where people gather in a dimly lit worship center and Christmas carols. There is power to the physical experience of a Christmas church service. 

Online church broadcasts tend to see a significant boost in viewership during the Christmas season. It makes sense—most people already connected to your church will likely attend in person. Yet, your online audience remains strong. So, who are these viewers tuning in from afar? In my experience, Christmas services online typically attract three distinct groups of people:

Following up after the Christmas service broadcast

Have urgency in connecting

Following up after Christmas services can be difficult and seem unproductive. With Christmas services during the week and New Year the week after, it feels like a couple of weeks before you and your church get back on a regular rhythm. If you’re waiting until after the new year to follow up with someone, there’s a week or so between Christmas Eve services and 2025, so your visitor will forget your service.

That said, there are some things you can do now to maximize follow-up over the holiday.

Connecting doesn’t have to be in person

Let’s dig into this: What do we want people to connect with after the Christmas Online Broadcast? The average church’s response will be “our next physical church service,” which would be ideal. But remember, who watched your church service initially? Typically, online attendees during the holidays are isolated, lonely, or unprepared to attend your Christmas Eve physical service. It is unlikely they could attend eight days later in January 2025.

Instead of driving them to a physical church service, consider doing an online meetup or open office, where you jump on a Zoom or a Google Meet call for an hour or so and talk to whoever enters the office. Set the bar very, very low for first time visitors to re-engage with your church. Make the event digital, and use the event to continue to build relationships with the people. Remember those ringers from before? Invite them to be part of the open office, just to be another friendly voice or face.

Create a drip campaign that will drive visitors to come again

Use email applications like Mailchimp or your Church’s Management Software to create a series of emails that will automatically be sent. This “drip campaign” will send emails over two weeks to your visitors and online attendees. Ideally, you want to immediately send that first email, right when the service ends. Then, send several other emails between Christmas and the next church service you want them to attend.

Use the emails to “warm the relationship.” Use your voice, not the corporate/brand voice. Make the emails feel personal and relatable. Talk about what’s going on at this point in the holidays (turkey leftovers, Christmas coma, college football, etc.). A drip campaign will connect the dots between Christmas Eve services and early 2025, and hopefully warm up the relationship, allowing people to be more comfortable meeting you and connecting more with the church.

The best part of drip campaigns is that you do most of the work in advance, as in right now! You can write those emails today, well before the Christmas services, and get everything loaded into the system. The only work that needs to be done is loading the names and email addresses into the system that’s sending the emails, which to be honest can be done in the second half of the sermon that will be preached! There’s no reason you can’t engage in a drip campaign to build relationships.

Texting is a good thing, but too much of a good thing is bad

Using SMS or Text Messages is a great way to connect with people, but this is a tool you don’t want to overuse. Some Drip Campaign software mix email and texting, or you may have to write the texts separately. But I would only send maybe two text messages in this scenario:

Texting is a great way to reconnect with people who don’t use email or send “urgent” messages to get someone’s attention. While using it too much would typically not be wise, a few times would go a long way toward building relationships with ChriEasters online.