I wrote about using YouTube and viral marketing last November to advertise your church — and now a church in Boston is putting this into practice (not claiming any influence on their decision at all – just saying).
Greater Boston Vineyard is encouraging folks to make promotional videos for their fall kickoff, which takes place on Sept. 9 (encounter’s 3 year anniversary – woot!).
Folks are then encouraged to post their video to YouTube and get as many people to view and rate the videos as possible. The winning video (top rated) gets $500.
From the church:
We thought it might be fun to experiment with some new, grass-roots, technology-enhanced “word-of-mouth” advertising techniques. Thus… we’re having a “Cheesy YouTube Video Contest” for our fall kick-off this year. This year’s fall kick-off is happening September 9th at both sites.
Here’s how it works:
Make a video that promotes the Vineyard’s September 9th service in some way.
Submit your video to our YouTube group: www.youtube.com/group/vineyardvideocontest
Get lots and lots of people you know to watch and rate your video (YouTube has a built in rating system of 1 to 5 stars).
This is a REAL contest with REAL prize money! If your video winds up with the highest rating, then you could win $500!
How would you advertise your church? Come on – bust out your video camera and start making your own commercial. Or if you’re a Flash genius, do like this guy did and make your own Flash ad. And if nothing else, get out and make something with MS Paint or your favorite graphic software. Make a banner for your website, email, Myspace or whatever then show us what you got.
Here’s the viral iPod video made by George Masters’ that’s mentioned in the Wired article above:
