Effective Church Communications
Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission
We all need inspiration and this week I got a catalog in the mail that greatly inspired me with new designs and color combinations. I decided the best way to tell you about it (it is about visual design after all) was to do a little video, which I did and which is below.
Below the video are links to the websites I reference in the video.
Enjoy!
https://www.flor.com/area-rugs/show-all
https://glowsly.com/pantone-fall-2019-colors-trends/
When your church hosts special events this should be the start of a relationship, not simply a one-time visit. But to make that happen you need to get your visitor's contact information. Following is a process you can use to get that information, samples of communications that will do it and follow-up cards after the events. There is a generic one and also examples for fall outreach and one for Christmas.
One of the best ways we've found to do that is to have a drawing for a special prize related to your event and ask people to register for it. You can be very upfront that you will be using the information to contact them and that, if at any time they want to be removed from your mailing list, it isn't a problem. You don't want to hide your purpose and most people don't mind when you let them know the details upfront. [Read more...]
Hundreds of children will be coming to your doors this Halloween—why not take this opportunity to invite them to church? Below are some cards that can help you do this.
I'm making this file FREE for everyone because it's exciting to think about what might happen if many of you make up hundreds of these cards and give them to the children of all ages who come to your homes on Halloween.
PLEASE share this with friends, other churches, people who go to your church. [Read more...]
Fall outreach events typically get large turnouts from your community and here is a tool that will help bring them back to church after the event.
More than a connection card, which people have little reason to fill out at a fun, outreach event, this card is a REGISTRATION for a DOOR PRIZE.
For fall you might fill a big pumpkin with lots of candy and other goodies or a basket of local treats. Do something that is colorful and impressive and have it at a table as people come in, consider using eye-catching table runners, at CV Linens you can find table liners cheap products. Invite them to fill out the card for a drawing. Don't make them have to stay for it if you are doing the drawing at the end of the event and you'll get more cards filled out.
The content on the card is designed for unchurched people and here is what it says:
We are so glad you’re here! Please take a minute to fill out this card so you can be entered into our door-prize drawing and so that we have a record of your attendance and a way to contact you about future events for your family. Be assured this information will not be shared or used outside the church office and you can have your names removed from the list at any time by calling the church office.
It lets them know you will be contacting them again, assures them it is for church use only and lets them know they can have their name removed from your list at any time. At the same time you get all the information you need to follow up with social media or postcards.
Below are a set of designs FREE and are ready to download, print, and use.
The ZIP file below contains a ready-to-print PDFs, editable MS Publisher files and jpeg files of each design. If you aren't a Member of Effective Church Communications, you won't be able to see the download. CLICK HERE for Membership Information or to sign up.
CLICK the link following to download the ZIP FILE for Fall Registration Cards: Fall Event Registration Cards
Just like we often clean the house before a special event, we also want our digital church home to be tidy. With your website and social media, going into fall is a good time to make certain that essential house-keeping tasks are taken care of for your website. Though not as exciting as creating special materials for special events, these tasks are essential for a church to have the most basic credibility. Some of these for social media overall include:
People want to know who your leaders are their background, education, why they do what they do. In an age when almost all business leaders have Facebook pages, blogs, Twitter accounts and almost everything else you can imagine for maximum exposure, for your church leaders to not have at least an updated and complete bio on your website does not communicate a positive image of your staff.
Visitors today expect to get to know church leaders through social media. If the church leader is not able to do this for him or herself, as is often the case when the leader is a baby-boomer who went to seminary before the days of the personal computer, assign a "web buddy" or editor, or co-writer to update or create this content. This is a wonderful expression of how we can serve and support one another in the church. It is important to be honest about this. This is also a good time to drop links if the staff person isn't using them.
Yes, it's very nice to have pictures of your latest fun event, but if you don't also have some commentary about what's going on, why you do what you do, and have comments that make it clear the material is for people outside the church, your church Facebook page will look like an insider photo album only for the people already attending. In the same way that you need captions for pictures for them to make sense to anyone besides the person who takes them, you need captions on the Facebook images you share.
Your website also needs some house-keeping and following are some suggestions for that:
