At Playlister, we believe every Sunday counts. Kid pastors from around the country are creating a new video experience for families at home. This new way of doing things will become standard in the future. Your church will have to provide instant curriculum for kid's ministry everywhere, instantly. The task of getting your week's lesson ready for your families and kids was a tall task for kids ministry leaders in the past. Now, it's even harder. Church leaders are asked to become Hollywood movie producers overnight and experts in data analysis. With Playlister, our goal is to create a solution for ministry that allows church leaders to develop an instant curriculum experience for their church in minutes. Churches around the world have embraced Playlister to be their solution to this new world moving forward.
Thousands of churches have started using Playlister since the outbreak of COVID-19 to create a video experience for their families at home. Playlister has looked over the data of how families are experiencing Sunday-at-home. Our goal with this data is to help ministries around the world understand how and when families are watching. Our data below represents thousands of churches creating video experiences and the tens of thousands of families watching at home.
Ministry-at-home isn’t just a Sunday activity
One of the fundamental questions ministry leaders are asking, does the new way of the church still happen on Sunday? We looked at the data to see when the most popular day of the week for people watching was. Most current viewing time for families at-home is Sunday-Monday between 6-10 am. Are you not surprised? Well, hold on a second.
Our data shows families are most active at the beginning of the week after that steep decline in viewers. This may not come as a big surprise, given most churches announce new content being online on Sundays. Will this Sunday trend continue? Maybe. We could see an online experience for Kids shifting to a Friday night release date. Why, Friday? Releasing Friday would allow families the weekend to enjoy the experience and attract them to coming to church on Sunday. For example, there was a data set we examined that showed a group of churches had it's most viewers on Thursday and Fridays. Those churches with viewership on Friday also had a high duration of watch time. I believe this shift in strategy to sending your content out Friday to attract people for more on Sunday will gain traction with church leaders. I know personally, I would prefer to get videos for my family to watch a day earlier.
I am the father of a three and 4-year old, and I know we dedicate Saturday morning to watching cartoons. I would gladly invite the notion Saturday is the perfect time to view a video experience from our church (instead of Paw Patrol for the 400th time). This time shift would provide a sneak peek, and potentially get kids excited about traveling with Mom and Dad to see their friends on Sunday. As a family, a shift to Friday/Saturday viewing also gives my wife and me more time to discuss the lessons with our kids and reflect on the message.
Younger families are extremely engaged with ministry-at-home
Younger families watching more may not surprise you, but younger families are the most engaged with ministry at home. Our data shows that the younger a viewer is, the lower their exit rate before completion is. Younger viewers also have higher average times spent watching the playlists. This shows us that ministry-at-home represents a new way to engage with younger families. By offering them flexible ways to connect with your church online, you can ensure that they are getting your message and strengthening their relationship with your church.
Views increase as you stick with ministry-at-home
What other simple data points did we find attractive? Sticking with the new way of ministry is essential. In this new world, many churches are trying new things to connect with families at home. At Playlister, we are providing these analytics on viewership to our customers, and sometimes they are disappointed to see the viewership from their families is lower than anticipated. Don't worry! Views from families at-home pick up over time. Our data shows that over eight weeks, viewership increases with your families. The increase on average over the 8-weeks is 35%. A pretty substantial boost. I encourage church leaders to understand that people are getting used to the change, which would explain this metric. Your leaders are getting used to preparing the video experience for at-home viewing, and your families are getting used to watching it.
Our team has a simple message to church leaders, which is to embrace Sunday-at-home. It is not going away. This will be a new way of doing things. Our goal is to help all our customers with data to lead their ministries into this brave new world. If you are interested in learning more about the analytics at your church for Sunday at home, please reach out to our team.