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; we can help.

Effective Easter Outreach: Door-hangers, an invitation you can’t ignore

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Door hanger about hope
A person is usually alone when they read the message on a door hanger.  It can be an effective way to help them consider the meaning of life, Easter, and personal salvation.

You can't ignore a door-hanger—you literally have to do something with it and even if you toss it, chances are you'll glance at the message. One of the most powerful reasons door hangers can be effective Easter outreach is because often the  person reading them is alone and may not be thinking about anything else.

In addition to this quick glance, I recently read an interesting article about the impact of tangible, touchable marketing. It is from a study done by the Centre for experimental Consumer Psychology at Bangor University in the United Kingdom and used MRI brain monitoring to measure response between ads printed on a paper flyer and ads viewed on-screen. Here are their comments:

The ads that could be physically touched as well as viewed stimulated the most activity on the brain. . . By having something physical in front of them, the brain placed more authority and emotional resonance to that ad versus the one the participant could see only via a monitor. The takeaway from this experiment was physical involvement versus just visual involvement equated to a deeper connection. . . . . . It's also an important reminder that effective marketing needs to integrate all faces of the tools available, from print media to email, display ads to social media, and word-of-mouth to influencer marketing campaigns.
http://bit.ly/2ieEhkU

Here is one more reason door hangers can be effective Easter outreach—often the  person reading them is alone and may not be thinking about anything else.

Finally, there isn't anything magical about print or door hangers, but in addition to the reasons above, their low-cost and the ability to involve your congregation when you give them out (discussed in the article here) make them a useful addition to your Easter mix of outreach.

As the following images illustrate, we have a selection of door hangers for you to choose from for Easter. Some have room on them for church information on the front, others you can put it on the second side. One has a message for you about hope and that is below the images illustrated.

Message on the back of the door hanger about hope:

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An inexpensive, easy and effective outreach tool for holidays and church special events—Door-hangers

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Door hangers are great outreach tools!
Door hangers are great outreach tools that are inexpensive and can involve your entire congregation.

When considering community or neighborhood outreach for Easter, Christmas, Fall events, and other special occasions, many churches first think of postcards. Postcards do have many advantages and they are a proven tool for outreach, but there is another tool that can be equally effective and can cost little to produce—that tool is a door-hanger. The article here gives you an overview of how to use them and a resource list, on the TEMPLATES section you can find door hangers for various holidays.

One advantage a door-hanger has it that, unlike a postcard, which can get lost in a large pile of junk mail, a household seldom gets more than one door-hanger at a time. When a person picks it up and carries it inside, chances are that person will read at least some of it.

No postage required—how to get them out to the neighborhood

The distribution of door-hangers is not only cost-effective, because you don’t have to pay postage, but it is a way for your congregation to be involved in outreach. I have described this method in the past as a way to get your congregation involved in outreach to their communities using postcards, but it also works well for door-hanger distribution, here it is: [Read more...]

Effective Church Communications ranks on PAGE 1 of Google Search! and advice for your church to rank well

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ECC on Page one of Google SearchNot only one time, but 3 times!

This morning I decided to check to see where we are in terms of Google Search, so I entered in the generic "church communications" and this is what came up—3 listings on page one! To the left is a screen grab of it.

I was very happy to see that because I don't buy ad space, use paid SEO (search engine optimization) services, or do any of the dubious key word loading and all sorts of things that some recommend to get a site listed in even the first 5 pages of Google search.

What I work very hard to do is to provide church communicators with worthwhile, useful content. Google has stated repeatedly that is what they are honestly looking for when they rank websites.

I trust the results affirm we're doing some things right.

How this applies to your church

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3,000 on your membership list; 350 on Sunday? It may be a problem with your internal marketing

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Don't forget internal marketing in your church
When creating your outreach plans, remember it's just as important to plan INTERNAL marketing for people already attending your church.

A common challenge for many churches today is that they may have 2,000 to 3,000 people listed on the church rolls, but only a fraction of them show up each week.

Though there are many reasons for this, one key reason for is that many churches do little to no internal marketing. If a business never followed up with customers, but simply greeted them warmly when they came in the door, but never contacted them again, never sent a sale flyer or had any other contact with them, the customer would probably not return. A church is not very different.

Most churches put the majority of their church marketing and communication efforts on getting people outside the church to come to the church. Though this is important, we shouldn't stop there and just like the customer above, if a church doesn't work on communicating with current members, they may not see them often.

We also have more reasons to do internal marketing than the local business. Remember, Jesus commanded us to make disciples, not simply worship and special event attendees. We need to learn to use every tool of technology available to get people involved in the activities and ministries of our churches that will take them to the next step of Christian maturity. To do this we need to plan out our internal marketing and it works best if you have a coordinated approach using both social media and print.

Internal marketing defined

Internal marketing includes all the communications you create for people already attending your church to get them involved in the activities of your church or ministry that will help them grow to maturity in their Christian life. Not only is this important when people come to your church after a special event, but it is important on a continuing basis.

Far too often this aspect of marketing and communications does not take place in the church and if it does, it is done in an often haphazard and spotty way. This lack of attention to this aspect of marketing is seldom intentional. It happens because:

  • The church staff does not see the importance of need to do this kind of marketing because of the unspoken assumption that people will automatically attend small groups, training times and other activities of the church.
  • Because it is important to the staff, they think it is important to the congregation, but this is seldom true.
  • Church staff is too stressed out and overworked to do one more thing in communications and marketing than they are already doing.
  • There is no intentional plan for internal marketing and no way to measure the effectiveness of the program.
  • Internal marketing is only done through one channel—if that's social media primarily (as much is today) this doesn't have a an impact on people who prefer print or don't have access to digital channels.

Following are suggestions on how to begin to remedy this situation: [Read more...]

Church Signs, what works and what to be careful about

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Church signs, important tools for ministry
Church signs are important tools for ministry, here are tips to make the most of them.

 

Recently a church communication elder asked me about the effectiveness of electronic church signs.  She sent this link in reference to the sign their church was considering: http://curbappealled.com/. She added that a church member had donated the money for it and asked for my comments on it. I'm always happy to respond to requests from church communicators and though I can't guarantee how quickly I will respond, please send questions or suggestions for content on this site to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

First, I'd like to offer some comments on a sign like this and then on signs overall. If you have any more comments on signs, examples of effective signage, or sources for good ones, please add them to the comments below.

As to my answer whether or not to get a professionally designed electronic sign—the answer to this is easy—go for it! Particularly, if the other businesses in your area have similar signs, you want people to be able to clearly find you as a church. Having said that a sign like this can be very good for your church, following are a few other comments that might be helpful.

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