Do you want to make your kids RUN to the mail box everyday? I can tell you how:
One of our annual recruitment tools is the recruitment mailer. Through the years, we have mailed all kinds of things to students to advertise the opening day of choir for the Fall. It is gratifying when the kids start anticipating the arrival of the opening night invitation and speculating what might be mailed this time.
We have mailed frisbees, pop-up flyers, confetti bombs (only very small explosions), t-shirts, glow in the dark. . .anythings, tiny flashlights, and the list goes on and on.
A side point here, I think that it is great idea to give the kids a break from choir each year. Some years we only get one month off, but I believe that a month is the shortest break, some other years we take more than two months off. The break allows for a sense of “missing choir”.
For the longest time I feared that a break in the schedule would mean that they would let choir slip OUT of their routine, so I kept it going.
Instead, there have been some years, because of a very late choir tour, that we have literally never stopped rehearsals. I regretted that decision later in the fall, as the choir had missed its “sense of beginning again.”
I don’t know WHY that is needed, but I can attest that you will actually have a more meaningful Fall with, as Kahil Gabran says, “some space in your togetherness.”
About 3 weeks prior to the start of rehearsal I send out an “attention grabbing” mailer. There are several companies that specialize in providing different products you can mail to get attention. These items can be as fun as a frisbee or nurd ball, or as practical as a pen or note pad.
I use Robyn Klepper at Jack Nadel- Robyn Klepper [email protected]
They are the ones I go to for more creative projects when you want the kids to literally say, “I had no idea that you could mail THAT!” These tend to be a bit more expensive, but I have found them worthwhile.
Dennis Bevers has more “normal” things, [email protected]
He is a great source for more traditional items like pens, mugs, water bottles, sports bags etc.
The most important thing is to have the choir name (logo) on it with information about “Opening Night”. You know that your choice is a hit when kids start to hear about what is coming and they call the church to ask when theirs will arrive.
Mail the item to every student enrolled at your church, plus any church prospects or other potential choir members. Don’t ever assume that only your church members are real prospects for your choir.
I have discovered that many times families who have visited the church only once have no idea that there is a junior high and high school choir that they can join, so mail the item to everyone—members and church prospects alike.
Most recently we have gone to the four color promotional pieces like you see pictured. These will highlight events from the previous year (or the previous time the choir toured in that country), but the main thing is to give them, as Randy Edwards says, “the meta message that is is going to be a sensational year!”
