In the year 2005, Daybreak kicked off the ministry year with a series entitled “Sunday Ticket” and focused on the goals of attracting men with free Super Bowl Tickets.

The Series Concept
A football metaphor was used to articulate the theme of spiritual development. Topics included basic spiritual formation concepts designed for new believers and spiritual seekers. The book Seismic Shifts by Kevin Harney was used as a resource tool and study guide. Messages and themes followed the content of Seismic Shifts.

Series Objectives:
• Increase Sunday morning attendance by 20%.
• Conduct a spiritual development series.
• Reach unbelievers and connect them to the church.
• Emphasize content that will appeal to men.

Marketing Initiatives:
• Program
• Web Graphics
• Presentation Graphics
• Promotion and Marketing Plan for Sunday Ticket
• What to Expect From Marketing

Program
Our programs at Daybreak Church are all printed on a 12” x 18” DI press and for budget reasons they are printed 2up.

The Sunday Ticket program was a quad panel, gate-fold format with a finished size of 5.5” x 4.25”. The last panel was perforated for use as a guest profile card or invitation for current members to hand out. Contrast is a design element that we always consider when designing our programs. For this program the exterior was saturated in blues and the interior was more clean and white.

The fonts chosen for this series were Rockwell and Eurostile Condensed. Rockwell is a strong, block serif font that has an athletic feeling and Eurostile is one of our current Identity system fonts. The condensed version was used to fit more text in small spaces. (Note: Always use fonts at their full scale, never condense or extend using your program’s features. Invest in the properly condensed or extended version.)

Fun sports language was used to reinforce the football theme. For the Seismic Shift weekly reading schedule and daily scriptures, we used the title “Training Schedule.” Other language included “Today’s Lineup, Try Out a Team and Your Stats.”

Web Graphics
Our web graphic process includes creating two images for each week with updated information. The homepage image is typically larger and communicates the series title, date and message topic. The second image is located on our Sunday page and includes the service times along with the series title.

We use Photoshop’s “Save for Web” feature under the file menu to prep our graphics for the web site. Sunday Ticket was very photographic in style, so we used a JPEG format for the web files.

Presentation Graphics
For this series, we had the luxury of a little more planning time, because it was the first series in the fall. A volunteer photographer, Kevin Waite, was asked to take images of football fields to be used as backgrounds for lyrics and message slides.

He was given detailed direction to take dramatic angles at different times of day and both wide and closeup compositions.

Our approach to presentation graphics is to group them into four design categories: titles, message, song titles and lyrics. Our title slides typically emulate the series graphics and program design very closely for consistency of imagery and are used for “welcomes,” introducing speakers, and announcements.
Message slides often emulate the program theme or subject matter. Lyric backgrounds generally follow the style or theme but not always. They are designed at the beginning of a series and have an accompanying look to them. Song titles deviate from the series style the most and focus more on illustrating the song mood, lyrics or message with an occasional touch of the original recording artists’ graphic style or treatment.

Promotion and Marketing Plan for Sunday Ticket
The goal of any marketing plan is to get the attention of a target audience, motivate them to action, then bring them back for more. Daybreak used an aggressive marketing plan to promote the 2005 fall series titled “Sunday Ticket”. Many forms of media were used to gain awareness for this series—direct mail, outdoor advertising, press releases and a celebrity speaker. The marketing materials all focused on one main attention-grabber—a chance to win two tickets to Super Bowl XL In Detroit. The ticket giveaway was the main headline on all the marketing pieces and gave a consistent message through all forms of media. The goal for the series was to increase attendance in September 2005 by 20%—a goal that was reached and maintained for three months and counting!

Marketing Goals
1. Every TV network and paper will cover the series with a major story
2. At least 200 new people will attend because of the mailer
3. At least 50 people will attend because of the door-to-door campaign
4. At least 50 people will attend because a friend invites them
5. Name recognition for Daybreak and Pastor Wes Dupin

The Big Giveaway: Two tickets to Super Bowl XL in Detroit.
To register for the tickets, you had to be a first-time attendee to Daybreak or invite a first-time attendee. The tickets were an incentive for people to try out Daybreak. They became a tangible item to get people in the door—once there, it was up to the message and the program to keep them coming back. Registrants had to be present to win the tickets, so this would ensure they come back for the final service of the series. Pictured above are Nick and Kerri Jenison, the winners of the Ultimate Superbowl Challenge. (Note: The tickets were a donation to Daybreak.)

Logo
A logo was developed for the series and a local photographer donated time and images of football for use on screen graphics. All print and video materials carried the consistent message and imagery to create a unified look of all the marketing pieces.

Invitations
To make it easy to invite people, invitations designed to look like sports tickets were given to all Daybreak attendees to pass out to friends. An e-card was also available on the web site.

Flyer
To reach the community, a flyer was distributed to 20,000 households via the Grand Rapids Press.

A door-to-door blitz was organized to distribute 2,000 flyers to all households within a two-mile radius of Daybreak. Teams of two people were assigned specific neighborhoods to drive through and distribute flyers. Organizers felt it was important to reach the many college campuses around Daybreak and get the young adults to try out the church. A college blitz of four local campuses was organized with flyers and ticket invites distributed by groups of volunteers.

Press Releases
Media coverage of the kickoff Sunday helped to draw attention to the new series. Press releases were sent to all local media—TV, radio and newspaper. In an effort to broaden the media coverage of the series, editors as well as the sports anchors/writers were sent the release.

In Fall 2005, Daybreak was named the second most innovative ministry in the country by Terry Storch & Tony Morgan. They had defined innovation as “the introduction of new, fresh and creative ideas and practices which are intended to be used for reaching people for Christ.” The Sunday Ticket series continued this spirit of innovation and reached over 200 new people who continue to be consistent attendees.

Door-to-Door Blitz
Flyers were distributed to neighborhoods in a 2-mile radius of the church through a door-to-door blitz. It was conducted the Saturday prior to the fall kick-off Sunday. Blitz teams consisted of 2 people (a driver and a flyer distributor who put the flyers in newspaper boxes at each house). Every team is given a detailed map with specific streets to target, assuring that there wouldn’t be overlap in distribution.

Outdoor
A 24’ x 8’ billboard was placed on the Daybreak property facing a main, busy street. The billboard was hand-painted by volunteers. The sign featured the Sunday Ticket logo and the message about winning Super Bowl tickets. (Note: Check your local zoning ordinances regarding billboards.)

Tailgate Party
An innovative idea to get the community involved in the series was a tailgate party held in the parking lot. It was a fun time of sharing fun, food and family, while adding to the total game day experience. Small Groups were each given a truck to decorate and were asked to “cater” their truck with food for the party, and the grills were set up on the front lawn.

Video
The video promotions leading up to the series, as well as videos during the series, featured Wes Dupin actually trying out for the New York Dragons arena football team. Wes took a leap of faith by trying out and shared the play-by-play action of his experiences. Wes reflected on taking risks and living life to the fullest in his weekly messages.

Celebrity Speaker
The kickoff Sunday featured the New York Dragons star quarterback, Aaron Garcia. Aaron shared his testimony during the services and was available during the tailgate party to sign autographs.

What to expect from Marketing?
DID YOUR CAMPAIGN SEND A FLOOD OF NEW FIRST-TIME VISITORS? Whether the answer to this question is yes or no, we have a responsibility as Christ-followers to take advantage of any opportunities where we can help spiritual seekers find a home. Any campaign will help raise the awareness and visibility of your church and/or denomination and provide a fertile field where your members can do the real evangelism work. It is much easier to start a conversation with…“hey, did you see that billboard on Main Street? That’s my church”…than if they have never heard of your church in the first place.

ARE WE PREPARED TO DO THE WORK? Campaigns will go nowhere if we sit at home and do nothing. Challenge your members to ask ten friends to church at the beginning of a new series and bring one person every week. Give them fun tools to use, like well-designed postcards, fake “tickets,” e-postcards on your web site, t-shirts to buy and wear around the mall, bumper stickers, whatever you can afford.

Although potential visitors may have their curiosity piqued through marketing and advertising, people will respond more to the enthusiasm and invitation of a friend. A successful church identity campaign needs to focus on creating a bolder witness of current members.

We have to engage the world and light a spark for each person searching for spiritual answers. We can’t just sit around and expect that people are going to find us any other way.

MEASURE AND RECORD. Measuring and tracking your results is an important step even if it’s just a “blip” on the radar. Have newcomers and visitors fill out profile slips for a free gift and on the questionnaire, ask them how they heard about your church? Include a quick survey on your web site or take a poll in a newcomer meeting and/or class. It’s important to know what’s working and what’s not so you can allocate the right dollars for the best impact in your budget.