Even before the pandemic, many churches had begun to add Livestream to their church websites.
The question that begs an answer is, “why is this necessary?” This is exactly what we want to answer in this post.
Church communication requires a lot of money, energy, and time. This is the case for adding Livestream to your church website. However, when you consider the benefits that you will enjoy, it is worth every bit of effort put in. Without further ado, here are the benefits of inserting Livestream to your church website.
Benefits of Inserting Livestream to your Church Website
One of the best things that you can do for your church is to insert Livestream on your website. Why is this so? Here are some reasons:
Engages First Time Visitors
Before now, the church had just a physical front door. Times have changed and you now have a new front door online. This front door is your website and is likely where most first-time visitors will find you first.
Google Trends reveals that many people search for churches more on Sundays. This is probably because they need to attend service and would prefer to do so from the comfort of their homes. So when they search for you, they expect to find a Livestream on your website.
Most churches drop a link to their services streams on YouTube or Facebook. However, these visitors don’t always want to click extra links. You’d engage them better if you have the service stream directly on your website. This helps you to retain more visitors and even convert them to church members.
Consistent Call-To-Action
Human beings like consistency, at least to a considerable level. If you have your service stream embedded on your website, it is easy to create a consistent call-to-action. How?
First of all, visitors can directly go to your website and just click on the “Livestream” button. You don’t have to keep changing the YouTube or Facebook links for every service. Such inconsistency might through people off.
Also, embedding your Livestream on your website makes it easier to share the link. You don’t need to create a new link. Simply edit your messages with the same link and send them out. This saves time and effort while achieving great results with your Church communication.
Expand your reach
A study reveals that some church leaders believe that using Livestream will affect physical church service attendance. Interestingly, the opposite is the case. This is because the same study reveals that about 30% of people who engage in Livestreams attend in person afterward. What this means is that one way to increase your attendance and expand your reach is by live streaming.
When you embed Livestream to your church website you are creating a platform for a whole new community. As such, you open your doors to a set of people who prefer to fellowship with you online. Most of these people don’t want to feel any pressure before they commit to your church. Others seem to feel intimidated by others in a physical service so they prefer to join online. Gradually, they will begin to integrate themselves with your services and will soon start attending physically.
Connect better with youth
It is no secret that today, many young people are easily distracted. They would rather want to connect with service from their homes so that they could multitask. As such, many of them end up searching for churches that they can join up with online.
Have you been looking for a way to connect better with the youth at your church and in your community? Embed Livestream to your church website. They will not only feel connected, but they will also feel a sense of support and belonging.
According to recent surveys, about 63% of all people aged between 18 and 34 watch Livestream content regularly. The numbers are getting higher by the day. You can take advantage of this to build a community of young people who love the Lord online.
Capture services for your archive
Inserting Livestream to your church website allows you to capture your services for archival purposes. Because of this, people who didn’t get a chance to attend your live service have access to the video on demand.
You can also create custom playlists to curate different aspects of each service or certain special occasions. Doing this can help you raise funds for church when members of your online community request such playlists. People can order these playlists or specific messages and you can share them with them for a token.
Bonus: Cost-effectiveness
There is a very common myth about Livestreams that they are very costly. When you consider the idea closely, you’d see that it is the direct opposite of the truth. All you need for a Livestream is some basic equipment and a few hands to help out.
How then is live streaming cost-effective? Try comparing the cost of streaming your services to the cost of in-person services. You will notice that you end up spending a lot more on the latter. When you now consider the fact that you can make some extra money from your live streams, it is totally worth it.
Setting Up Your Livestream
Inserting your Livestream to your website isn’t rocket science. With a few simple steps, you will achieve this goal. The first thing you should do is copy the unique Livestream HTML embed code and paste it on your website.
If you don’t make use of a scheduled Livestream, you will have to update your website with the embed code each time. This will be after you start the Livestream and it isn’t exactly ideal. After the Livestream, simply replace the code with a link to the sermon archive. This way, people can visit your archive to watch services that they missed.
Conclusion
Now you know why inserting Livestream into your church website is important. We have also explained briefly how to set up your Livestream on your website.
