I was feeling really good about where I was with youth group planning for this year.

• I thought ahead and had our "what worked and what didn't" meeting right at the beginning of the summer instead of waiting until the end.
• We had a few outings scattered throughout the summer to keep the friendships going.
• I'd already decided the first meeting date for the fall back in June.

I was set, I thought.

And then the pastor emailed me two weeks ago with a request for something to put in the bulletin about starting back up.

That's weird, I thought. Why does he want it so early?

And I realized in horror that youth group, which I kept telling myself was starting up again in a few months, was starting up in just three weeks.

And I'd done zilch to promote or plan.

(Do what I say not what I do when it comes to planning, folks.)

But in light of that, I wanted to show you what I'm doing to promote the youth group on very limited time (not just because I'm late to the promotion game, but also because the next 8 days involve my daughter starting preschool, a 4-hour road trip, several work projects due, and youth group starting back up).

So whether you're promoting the youth group, altar server program, or any of the plethora of other church activities beginning in the next two weeks, I know we have two commonalities: You want more people and you have little time to get them.

So here's what I'm doing this year in my very limited promotion window to still get new members for the youth group:

Incorporating more photos:

Last year was our first year, so I had to use stock imagery for our flyers. While that worked well enough and was memorable, this year, we have our own teens to use, so those photos are the spotlight of our promotion.

(I also tried to get one of my teens to give me a quote to use. Lacking that, when they show up to help distribute flyers, I'm going to try to get them to do a short testimonial video. I'll take what I can get!)

If you have photos of people participating in whatever you're promoting — USE THEM! Photos of and quotes from real, recognizable people from your parish will win out over stock photos or graphics any time.

Opening "story loops":

A story loop is essentially a story that piques curiosity and gets answered only to open another question. (If you've ever watched basically any drama-based TV show, you're familiar with this as the "cliff-hanger" at the end of the episode to make you binge the next one.)

For our youth group purposes, it will look something like this: From our table display in the narthex, I'll entice them over with a sign that says "Want free nachos?" (which will be at our first meeting).

Once they come over, my plan is to get them to guess some of the saints we talked about last year (our meetings all center on a saint each week), which will be revealed at our first meeting with a prize for whoever gets the answer right. They'll have to attend to find out and win the prize.

Then, at our first meeting, I'm going to tease the saint we'll be learning about at our second meeting, and so on.

You can do the same thing! It just involves thinking about your promotional process as a journey that doesn't end with signing up or even showing up. How can you slowly deepen the relationship with people reading your promotions to take one small next step and invite them into the story of what you do and why?

Letting go of what didn't work and leaning into what did:

Last year, I was super excited to set up an Instagram account for the youth group. After all, I'm a marketer, it's kind of my thing.

And I think I had one teen follow, and the rest were split between adults from other churches interested in our program and weird bot accounts.

So while I had big plans of trying to revitalize the account in time with new strategies, I'm letting that go to focus on the (unsurprising) thing that did work: teen to teen invites.

When I ran our stats for the end of the year, I noticed a trend: Those who joined in the second half of the year and became "regulars" had all been invited by someone already in the group to come check it out.

So while I didn't get my teen quote I was hoping for, I am going to start an incentive program to encourage teens to invite their friends, because that strategy worked better than anything else.

So as we approach the finish line, take a few minutes to actually review the results of your marketing and give yourself permission to ditch what isn't working. Know that the bulletin doesn't net you any volunteers? Don't worry about meeting that deadline. Had huge success with a video on social media? Prioritize that.

And if you don't know that information, make getting it part of your process this year — ask on intake forms where people heard about the event/group, set up some analytics dashboards on your digital platforms, and keep a running list of all the promotions you're doing for each campaign so you can remember for next year (bonus points if you put them all in a folder you can easily find again!).

Alright, I'm off to the store to grab random supplies for both a salty and sweet nacho bar. Prayers for all of us in the trenches of ministry as we dive into a new year!

For His greater glory,

Emily

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