Effective Church Communications

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators. 

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators.
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How to create online polls with Poll Daddy, Webinar On-Demand

5 April, 2010 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Online Polls are a useful and fun addition to any website. This video shows you how to create them quickly and easily using the free Poll Daddy software. Poll Daddy Software is free and it allows you to create a variety of polls and surveys.


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POLL DADDY Handouts IMAGE

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Filed Under: Planning and Managing, Website Creation Tagged With: Church Websites, Communications, yvon prehn, yvon prehn video

What’s the best channel to use to communicate the church’s message? Print? Multi-media? Web?

12 August, 2008 By Yvon Prehn

Church communicators today are faced with a challenging choice of communication channels.

In print, bulletins, newsletters, brochures, flyers, and postcards continue to be produced. In addition, most churches today have entered the digital world and PowerPoint presentations, websites, email, and video are also an expected part of the communication ministry. What is essential, what works best, where churches should put their time and money, are questions I'm often asked.

There are no simple or easy answers to these questions, but this article discusses some of the important issues every church communicator needs to consider when putting together an effective church communication program.

We live in a time of multi-channel communication

Print and digital communications, in all of their various forms, make up current communication channels and it is first essential to understand that one communication channel is not more important than any other. It would be so much easier if we could say, "All we need is a website" or "Email is THE way to get across the church schedule" or "If it isn't in print on the refrigerator, it isn't happening" but we can't narrow our communication efforts to one or two channels today. All are needed to fully accomplish the communication ministries of any church.

It's natural to want to make the process simple, to focus on only one or two communication projects and then to ignore the rest. But we can't do that if we really want to reach people. What is important is not the communication channel itself, but how and when and in what way it reaches people with your message.

Examples of how various communication channels work

Various communication channels, even if they contain similar content, e.g. what's going on in the church this week, touch people, are taken in, make and impact, and are remembered and responded to in different ways. Following are some examples:

Printed church bulletin: It's touchable, tangible, and though often ignored by members who assume they already know everything in it, it is often closely read by visitors trying to figure out what is going on. For visitors especially, it's "the program" for the church service. As such it should clearly help people understand what is going on during worship and briefly inform them of upcoming events. For everyone, its greatest value is as a guide to what is happening now.

Though bulletin inserts  may be kept, most church goers don't keep their bulletins; they are usually placed in the trash after the service or tossed by midweek at the latest. It doesn't matter how much white space or how incredible your graphic design, these are throw-away publications.

Practical application: Though much emphasis is often placed on the looks of the bulletin to impress visitors with what a great church they are visiting, a more important channel for impressing visitors is your people.

Few visitors return to a church because the bulletin greatly impressed them, but the kindness, friendliness, and interaction of people is the most powerful Sunday morning communication channel.

The bulletin should not get in the way of understanding, but it should explain and welcome. People come back for the message and the people, not to see what great graphic design will be in the bulletin for the coming week.

PowerPoint presentations: most useful for immediate, visual, emotional impact. Most powerfully used for worship, meditation, or to illustrate an application or lesson. Also, helps focus people on the sermon if notes are being taken. Not helpful for lasting memory of details.

Practical application: PowerPoint presentations are not adequate substitutes for written announcements. People might remember the cute picture of their kids on the screen, but they won't remember the time, location, cost, and program content of the special event coming up at the end of the week from a PowerPoint slide alone. As a one-time exposure to an event, they are fine, but they must be used in conjunction with additional channels of communication (bulletin, inserts, website entries, email) that provide specific event details.

Websites: information sources for both immediate impressions and for in-depth research. If not constantly updated, they lose much usefulness. Multi-media impact varies widely on the ability of the audience to receive it.

Practical applications: Survey your church to see how many people access it and how they use it. Do they use it at all and do they have the bandwidth to access multi-media feature such as video, streaming audio, etc.? Do you ever update them know what is on the website and how to use it? That would be a useful Sunday morning use for PowerPoint.

Don't forget that many unchurched people check out church websites before visiting-does your home page speak to them? Search engines enable people to jump into your website without visiting the home page and there are two practical applications to people coming to your site via a search engine: 1) remember that the web is not a linear communication channel. People can jump in any way and go to any section, so don't create a website as you would a book or article. 2) With this in mind, do people always know where they are wherever they might enter your website? Can they easily return to the home page or to other sections of interest? Does every page make sense even if people don't know what comes before or after it?

Email publications: great for those who have and check email regularly, of no use to those who don't.

Practical application: contrary to what those of us assume who work in the church and with computers, not everyone checks their email continuously. Not everyone has email. Of those who have web access, a minority have broadband access. A recent (July 2007) report from the Pew Research group showed that broadband internet access is available to less than half of those with computers (more on this later in the article).

Refrigerator Reminders: these can be in a variety of formats: postcards, flyers, bulletin inserts, any communication that is designed to end up on what is defacto the communication central for every home today-the refrigerator. These communication pieces are essential links to actually getting people to events when they contain the actual details of time, location, cost and availability of child care because they can be immediately accessed without having to turn on a computer or look for another publication.

Practical application: these communication pieces aren't as exciting to create as a website or video, a multimedia PowerPoint presentation or a colorful bulletin cover, but these pieces are vital if we really want people to show up for events that can change their lives.

The listing of communication channels and sub-channels within them could go on, but the most important point thing to remember first, is that there is no one communication channel or piece that can do it all; no one is "better" than any other. All are needed. In addition, you need a variety of high-tech and low tech.

For example, in a recent seminar, the communication team approached me before the seminar began and shared their great frustration because as they said, "We have a website, the bulletin, which is beautifully done, and we put the newsletter in a PDF email format and still nobody comes to our events and they say they don't know what is going on."

Though I sympathized with their situation, I knew immediately what was happening. Though I'll explain this more in detail below what was going on is that they were putting out communications in the channels they preferred (primarily web and PDF email newsletter), but they were not the channels easily accessible to or preferred by many people. Few folks will wait for a large PDF to download with a dial-up connection or will go on to the website to hunt for details of where to go for a youth activity. A postcard or bulletin insert on the refrigerator with scheduling details for church activities that week would have been much more useful. If most of the youth group members have cell phones a text message would be useful.

Be aware of the inherent preferences of communication creators

In my seminars I remind church leaders of the "church office bubble," the world those of us who work in the church live in and for us, when we are in it is so easy to forget what life is like for those who do not live in our familiar bubble. We know understanding and overcoming our tendency to use jargon and talk to ourselves is foundational to outreach communication success, but it is also important that we are aware of our unconscious preferences in communication channels and how these affect the communication of our message.

The issue in choice of communication channels is that those who create communications, by their natures and jobs, are often "early adaptors." We love the technology; we want to try all the latest and greatest tools. Not only do we love it personally, but there is often subtle peer pressure to learn and create with the latest technology. These tendencies are understandable, but we have to be careful that they do not negatively influence our communications.

For example, I recently discovered YouTube and put up my channel on it (www.youtube.com/yvonprehn). I had great fun and was so excited about it, but fortunately, in the midst of my excitement, I followed some of my advice wherein I am always telling people to survey, to test, to actually ask their audience if what you are doing to communicate actually works for your people. So I did, I asked my email newsletter subscribers for their opinion on my YouTube offerings.

Many people loved them-some for some reasons I wouldn't have expected. In addition to simply being able to "see" what I was teaching, a number of people said they liked hearing my voice, that it made the teaching more human. An even larger number of respondents however, said that they couldn't access YouTube because they didn't have a high-speed connection and others said that though they liked it, that it really helped when I also wrote out articles that they could download and give to church staff people to read.

The issue of bandwidth is something those of us "early adaptors" and professional communication creators like to forget about. We have it; we have the RAM; we have the computers that make streaming video and complex graphics fun to create and view. But the majority of the people in our congregations still don't.

According to a recent study (July 2007) by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, broadband adoption by home computer users is actually slowing, down to a modest 12 percent over the last year, from a 40 percent increase the year before. Currently 47 percent of the general population has broadband at home and in rural areas it is down to 31 percent. When you factor in how many people in your church still do not have computers at home (and more than you imagine don't), even under ideal conditions, if they want to and take time to look at your web offerings, far less than half of your audience will receive them.

Bottom line: create what you love because some of your audience will love it also, but in addition, love your church audience enough to create more communication channels so that the people with the slowest computers and those without computers will also hear and have the opportunity to respond to the communications from your church.

Biblical considerations in multi-channel communications

Technology aside, we must always remember that those who name Jesus as Lord, must always keep our eyes on Jesus and his Word as our guide for every aspect of our communications.

One theme woven throughout the fabric of the Bible is the concern of our Creator for the poor. There will always be inequalities (in everything from finances to bandwidth) in our fallen world and there is always the temptation of those who have much to ignore those who have little. There is always the temptation for those who minds work quickly to be impatient with those who learn slowly; for those who love the new to disdain those who fear it.

If Jesus is Lord, we may create an incredible multi-media website and full-color email blasts; but we make sure there are also postcards, large-print bulletins, and handouts and personal phone calls for those more comfortable with these channels of communication.

Remember, doing this sort of servant work for "the least of these" is doing communication work for Jesus. He who created and named all the stars is not impressed with our technical abilities; but when we pour our hearts out in communication projects both complex and simple to make sure everyone is informed and shown love by the time-intensive work required-those channels of communication merit his favor.

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Filed Under: Multi-Channel Communications, Website Creation Tagged With: communication channels, Communications, media, yvon prehn

Don't hide your PR materials on your website

7 July, 2008 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

One of the attendees at my seminar asked me to look at her online newsletter and website.

The website was attractive and welcoming, but there were no links to a "newsletter." However, because I see the publications from hundreds of churches each year, I suspected that the label "Messanger" was probably the newsletter. I clicked on it and it was.

I emailed her back and let her know that though both the website and newsletter were well-done and very seeker friendly, this was a good lesson for all of us--when we know and love certain publications in our church, we need to remember that unchurched folks visiting a website might not know the favorite name that we have for the publications.

A church newsletter is a great way to introduce your church to potential visitors who may be checking out your site to see if they want to attend your church--but if they don't know the name of your newsletter they may not be able to find it.

Application: make it easy for people to find things. Use their generic name: church newsletter (not The Messanger), children's ministry (not PromiseLand), single adult ministry (not OASIS) and so on.

Make it easy for people to connect, come visit and get involved.

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Filed Under: Church Outreach and Marketing, Website Creation Tagged With: church marketing

Don't launch a website too soon

15 February, 2008 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

People go to church websites for information.

I constantly emphasize that in my seminars—they are not going to your church website for their multi-media thrill of the week. A flash intro, moving parts, great graphics—these do not equate to a great church.

I was reminded of these lessons, when this week, I was looking at a new church website. This church was very excited about finally having the money to do a really "professional" website and they paid a bucket of money for it, as I discovered when I clicked on the link at the bottom of the page that took me to the company that made it. It had a great opening page, lots of moving parts, and color and excitement.

But I really wondered about the integrity of the company that created it and the wisdom of the folks at the church who ordered it because many of the placeholders for content, e.g. bios of the staff, including the senior pastor, schedules, photo albums, details about the various ministries in the church,  were all empty.

The place-holders were there, but little content was behind the initial click.

As a potential visitor or seeker, if I was checking out a church I don't think I'd be very impressed with one that had a fancy opening page, but didn't tell me a thing about the senior pastor or any of the other staff.

PLEASE, put content on your church websites and don't launch until you have all the sections with something in them. You don't have to have a deep and extensive website at the beginning, but the basics, such as who is the pastor, and the basics about core ministries are really essential.

Without content, it's worse than no website at all—it says this church didn't plan ahead, this church cares more about show than substance. This is definitely not the kind of information you want people to get from your website.

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Filed Under: Church Outreach and Marketing, Website Creation Tagged With: Church Websites, Communications, multi-channel communication, yvon prehn

Do we really want to serve others with our church communications?

28 January, 2008 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

If asked, "Are you serving yourself or your people with your church communications?" of course I'd answer "My people." But this morning I read an email newsletter that challenged my assumptions.

The newsletter is from Gerry McGovern, a secular web guru and consultant, who consistently provides thought-provoking materials that have useful application in church communications. Today in his newsletter he had an article, “WEB PROFESSIONAL: ARE YOU READY TO SERVE?”

Those of us who do communications work in churches like to think that we are motivated by service, but are we really? Read the extended quote below and replace his work “customers” with those you are trying to reach and grow in Jesus. {+}

"It is impossible to create a website with excellent service if there is not a culture of service within the web team that manages the website. All great web teams are founded on a philosophy of service. They like and are interested in their customers. They are constantly thinking about their customers' needs. They want and like to serve.

Many web teams are unfortunately filled with people who have little interest in serving. In fact, many web teams don't even accept that their primary job is to serve customers.

Some web teams think that their job is to manage technology. They spend their time thinking about technology. They get excited by talk of content management systems, search engines, portals, RSS feedback and mobile computing.

Some web teams think about traditional communications. They have all this content to put up. They think that their job ends after they have written the content. The want to communicate at, rather than to, customers, and they expect customers to listen.

Some web teams are excited by things like branding and graphic design. They often change a website because they're bored with the old one. They secretly long for Flash Intros and sometimes create website designs more for their peers to admire than for customers to do stuff on.

Web teams tend to be isolated from customers, and because of this isolation a culture of service rarely exists. In some organizations, web teams are not even allowed to talk to customers! It is simply impossible to design an effective self-service website without a deep understanding of, and ongoing interaction with, customers.

Great web teams constantly talk about the needs of their customers. The technology, the content, and the graphics only exist in the context of creating a more effective self-service environment.

From: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/ Content management solutions by Gerry McGovern,
Note: I strongly recommend that you go to the website and sign up for his newsletter, great ideas, challenges and insights that you can apply to church communications.

Let me repeat his last paragraph:

It is simply impossible to design an effective self-service website without a deep understanding of, and ongoing interaction with, customers. Great web teams constantly talk about the needs of their customers. The technology, the content, and the graphics only exist in the context of creating a more effective self-service environment.

In not only our websites, but in all our church communications it is so easy to talk at people instead of listening to then, to get overwhelmed by technology, or to work to please our peers instead of constantly seeking to meet the needs of those we serve in the church.

Dealing with technology—the latest web graphic or whatever, is often much more fun than figuring out why the youth group volunteers don’t understand how to use your new interactive calendar or appreciate the innovative graphics you are using.

But if we do these things we aren't serving—and serving is never easy. Jesus took off his robes, wrapped himself in towel and washed the disciple’s feet—and then he told us to do likewise. We need to strip off anything in our communications work that keeps us from serving the people Jesus has given to us. We need to constantly think about their needs; we need to be thinking about how to meet them, and praying for the strength and wisdom to do that.

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Filed Under: Leading & Managing, Website Creation Tagged With: Church Websites, Communications, yvon prehn

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