Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; Effective Church Communications can help.

Marketing is not inherently evil–and why content makes all the difference

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You don't have to do crazy things to involve people in ministry
You don't have to do crazy things to involve people in ministry and church activities.

Marketing is not inherently evil any more than talking is inherently evil. The content makes all the difference.

We can talk in a way that exaggerates, misleads, and is obnoxious or we can talk in a way that is gentle, kind, and informative.

This morning I received two emails that illustrated this difference and I want to share them here and then comment on their implications from them ministry marketing in our churches.

Editorial clarification: I published this initially a couple of years ago and just found it again and thought it might be useful as so much marketing on the web continues to be of the overly pushy, loud, in-your-face type. This isn't necessary and we shouldn't copy it. I don't know if the obnoxious site still exists, but Lightstock still does wonderful work, check them out.

Here is a short video of both video links and after the video, my commentary on them. Please remember Effective Church Communications does not take advertising or take part in affiliate programs. If I like or dislike something it is my opinion related to ministry usefulness, not to any monetary agenda. Check out the video below and then read the commentary:

 A tacky and obnoxious marketing example

The link below is an example of the now overly popular squeeze or landing page.  If you are not familiar with these communication tools, here is a good definition:

Landing page is pretty much synonymous with sales letter. It's a hard sell page that pitches a product with several calls to action.

from: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.phpf?857520-Squeeze-page-vs-landing-page

The link here is attempting to sell some software that will automatically link content on your websites to various social media sites. There are many problems with this approach including that though automatic linking to social sites can be useful. I use a tool that links the headlines of the articles on this website I write to my Twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/yvonprehn) but that tool is free and bundled in WordPress, the system I use to build my website. Given the skimming nature of Twitter (and I don't check it often and seldom interact through it), I feel like this is an honest representation of the level of involvement I want with it and feel is useful for the ministry at present.

In addition, the basic premise of the pitch for this product is faulty—automatic links, if solely used, come across as phony, automatic links and they often don't make sense.

People aren't stupid and Google isn't stupid. Automatic spamming of anything no matter how efficient, isn't a useful communication tool.

A tasteful and helpful advertisement

This example is from http://www.lightstock.com. I don't have the link to the specific ad because that came to me via email (that's why I did the video above) but here is what I like about this advertisement:

  • No hype, it simply presents what the company has to offer
  • It is beautiful and restful to look at
  • It makes the product offerings clear and links to the products if you want more
  • It both has material that is free and material for sale
  • It respects the viewer—if their product is something the viewer wants, he or she will click-through and buy. If not, they have given the viewer a few minutes of visual inspiration.

If you didn't look at the video, please do visit their site http://www.lightstock.com and take advantage of their free weekly images and video clips.

Ministry communication implications

When you want people to attend an event at your church or take part in any ministry opportunity, don’t feel like you have to pressure them or hard sell them.

Be clear, be concise, be kind, be complete in your message. Do the best you can to tell about the ministry truly and from a Biblical perspective. Having done that, get your message out in as many channels as you can, as many times as you can and trust the Lord to speak to the people He wants to draw to your church.

 

 

 

Church Business/Invitation Cards to use anytime

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Invitation cards are an invaluable outreach ministry tool to help your people's invitations actually get people to church.
Invitation cards are an invaluable outreach ministry tool to help your people's invitations actually get people to church.

One of the most effective ways to ask people to come to church is to pair your verbal invitation with a printed invitation card. Since every member of the church is responsible to do their part to fully fulfill the Great Commission, be sure you always have cards like these available for your congregation.

Invitation cards are essential because we can't assume today, in our post-Christian world, that when you invite someone to church that they know anything about it, where it is, or when it meets. A person may respond very favorably to your invitation, but they may get up on Sunday morning and think: "Now where is that church? And what time does it start? Do they have a place for my kids?"

A printed invitation card can answer all those questions

It can also direct them to your online information (website and social media) that will make certain they actually connect with the church. Without this information, chances are the person will think something like: "I don't want to go at the wrong time and I can't even remember the location. . . . . I hope I run in to that nice person again."

Invitation cards are a tool that take hopeful invitations and wishful thinking to a tangible connection with your church. Below is a set you can download and change on the back with contact information for your church. The invitations are generic and can be used any time. The link to download them is at the end of the article. They are part of a ZIP file that has:

**Ready-to-print PDFs of all the cards
**Editable MS Publisher templates
**JPG images of the cards


[Read more...]

Why a printed bulletin in church is as essential as a menu in a restaurant or a program in a concert hall

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Bulletins are as essential in church as menus are in a cafe
Printed bulletins are as essential in church as menus are in a cafe. In both settings, they tell us what the place is all about.

People's habits don't change that much when they go to church. When we are in a new place or where we don't know ahead of time what is going on, nothing beats a piece of paper in our hands to inform us about what's going on or help us do what we want to do. Though we might use our smart phone for nearly non-stop interactions throughout the day and use our computers for business and school, consider these two situations:

In a restaurant when you sit down to eat

The menu might be on the restaurant website and/or the waiter may have told you about today's specials, but what do most of us do? We look at the menu in our hands and skim it to find the food we want to order. The menu might also tell us about this history of the place and any interesting specials they are known for. We may not want to ask again about specials or strain to look at a scribbled board. We certainly can't remember everything on the website and the social media feeds about what people enjoyed there aren't always what we are hungry for.

We want a menu. Our very own menu. We want it to make sense with accurate descriptions of the food and prices clearly marked.

We don't consider a restaurant out of touch or not with it because they still have a printed menu. We would be highly irritated if they didn't. [Read more...]

Faux code that correctly describes all we should do in digital outreach

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Internet evangelism
Many of us spend lots of time each day communicating digitally. Here are some challenges for how to do it as an effective evangelist.

Tony Whittaker, the founder of Internet Evangelism Day (http://www.internetevangelismday.com) recently sent me this faux code that is a great description of all we should do in digital outreach.

Even if you aren't into computer code, I think the message is clear on what our attitude should be in our Internet outreach. Please read it and then below it, I have some current, practical application challenges.

Finally, if you have ways you currently share your faith online, please share them in the comment section following.

<need digital-evangelists

('writing' = jargon-free;

'tone' = outsider-friendly;

'target' = prioritize-non-seekers; '

condemnation' = off;

'love' = on;  '

preachiness' = off;  '

churchiness' = off; '

cultural-sensitivity' = high;

'contextualization' = high;  '

storytelling-mode' = on;

'empathy' = high;

'popular-culture-parallels' = use;

'felt-needs' = understand;  'sense-of-entitlement'= off;

'politics' = off;

'humor' = use;

'social-media-interaction' = use;

'languages' = multiple;

'location' = worldwide;

'platform-optimization'

= mobile,tablet,pc)>

Current application idea

I was recently talking to a Christian friend who spends a lot of time on Facebook and she was honestly surprised when I mentioned that she could be using those interactions to share her faith.

It's good for all of us to be reminded that the internet provides us with extraordinary opportunities to be salt and light to our world. Particularly in a day when so much online discourse is vile and contentious, we can be gracious, kind, and truthful in all we communicate—in other words to practice the characteristics Tony encouraged us to in the code above.

If you or your church are doing things to actively share your faith or be a witness for Jesus in the online world, (other than church social media announcements or even if you do something special there) please share it in the comments here. It'a an area we all need ideas and encouragement in.