The Why & How Of A Good Ministry / Church Event Flyer

The Why & How Of A Good Ministry / Church Event Flyer

Every event has some kind of promotional piece to advertise the next event. One of the simplest and most economical  way to reach local people are with flyers. The reason to have and hand out flyers isn’t just to remind people that you have a great event coming up. The first point of really any marketing design has to capture the attention of the target audience. Get their attention and they will want to come! So what makes a good flyer?  Well… Let’s start by what makes a bad one.

Some common errors are but not limited to:

• Using too many fonts. Use no more than three different fonts on your flyers. Use one font for your headings and one for your smaller text. If you want you can use one font for the special words like Free Taco, Help Us or Door Prize! No more than that! In most cases Professional designers only use about 2 fonts.
• Using strange looking fonts. people try to get fancy when it comes to the fonts they use on their flyers. Instead, use simple fonts that are easy to read. It helps get your message out there better. If you’re having a theme party find a font that will compliment your attraction.
• Using low quality images or scanned images from a home scanner.
• Not using white space. White space is not your enemy. It helps to make your flyer more readable and easy to look at. Your eyes need areas to rest. It’s similar to how sound needs quiet rests. Imagine if all you heard was blaring drums, guitars, pianos, singers and no one took a breath. Too many things too close do the same to your eyes as the music would do to your ears.
• Putting content too close to the edge of the flyer. Be careful to avoid putting images or words too close to the side of your flyers. Placing anything there will be difficult for the customer to read and may be overlooked entirely.
• Not remembering who the design is for. Personal tastes vary from person to person. Can you imagine designing a flyer for your youth retreat next month and using dull boring colors with pictures of senior citizens playing golf? It wouldn’t be very inviting to your youth.

So how do we fix some of these errors of design?

Think of your flyer as a something that is built, rather than something that is designed. Your first step would be your base or background. I recommend using something light for a few reasons. It will be the largest thing on your page so it will need to be easy on the eyes, easy to incorporate into your design, and if you print black and white it will still be visible. Can’t find an image? Many times I will use Google “Royalty Free Abstract Background” or if I’m developing something for a picnic I will search ” royalty free picnic images.” *(remember, images can and most likely are the property of someone. Please respect peoples copyrighted  images)

Don’t forget to use your organizations logo in all of your designs. The more you use it the more ingrained it becomes. Think Nike, or McDonald’s. They don’t even have a need to use words. A simple shape says it all.Once your base is established your fonts will be the main structure of your design. Think of your fonts as your outside walls. I love to get inspired from looking at fonts.
I think one of the best sources is at http://www.1001freefonts.com. All fonts are free and in categories for easy searching. Pictures and other details can be of great value to a design. Care should be taken when adding images and other “neat” things to your flyer. I usually ask myself the following when adding an image or little do-dads: Does this design add to it? What is the images purpose? Does it make sense? If the answer is no I don’t use it. Some of the best designs don’t have images in the foreground.

We will have more to talk about this in the future but for now happy designing 🙂

Domonic

 

 

 

 

Originally published on http://godpod.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=45&Itemid=78

4 ways to get your website free!

If I asked you to hire me then did nothing how long would you keep me? What if I only cost $50.00 a month?  Hopefully you will agree not long.

Chances are good you are doing just this with your website. Most ministries are paying anywhere between $25 – $250 a month for a website that just stands there.Thinking about your website? What are you paying?  What are you getting from it?  Are there definable goals that are set?

Why not?  If your blood pressure went up you’re not alone.

Websites today are as valuable, if not more valuable than your Greeters and Ushers you have or wished you had. To qualify that statement, Greeters and Ushers are; friendly, warm, inviting, cheerful, courteous and informative. Most Ushers are like the info desk at the mall, they can answer and direct able to direct anyone to anything.

Shouldn’t your website be offering the same service?

So now that we know websites should have a job but don’t. How do we get them to shape up or ship out?

1. Define the job they need to do. look at other local churches website. What do they do or have that you don’t?
2. Write on paper goals you would like. We want more people to sign up online, See the lost find us…..
3. Find a web developer to evaluate your current website. This can allow your strength and weaknesses to be shown.
4. Use free tools like Google analytic s to provide in site and establish definable goals. One of our clients had over 21,000 visitors last year. We know that on average 18% were new visitors. so we know that over the year over 3,000 new people visited and we know that 17,000 people kept coming back! We also know what pages were most viewed and what didn’t work at all! For good or bad we have knowledge and with on paper knowledge we can make better future decisions about our advertising capital.

If you are not happy with your current website or if you want to see if your doing all you can to keep your current population and attract more give Domonic Webster a call for your free website evaluation. Elev8 Web Design is a website and graphic design company in Baltimore, Maryland with extensive work in ministry and nonprofit web design and marketing. See some of the places we have helped http://www.elev8webdesign.com or call 443-986-8461.