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.

Can your congregation read your newsletter on their mobile phone?

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Make your newsletter mobile phone compatible.
We rely on our mobile phones for so much of our communications today--be sure your website works on them.

You may have noticed that this newsletter came in a new format –and this was much more than a simple design decision. It was a change from a simple layout using a newsletter template to a text-only format and it was from a non-responsive to a responsive format.

I actually feel pretty dumb it took me so long to do this about this because I firmly believe in the present and growing importance of mobile phone communications.

I'm far from the only one who thinks this. According to a recent article in Litmus.com, a site that tracks email effectiveness:

It’s official: mobile now accounts for the majority of email opens, with a 51% share. That’s an increase of three percentage points since the previous record of 48% from September and October. Desktop opens now make up 31% of opens, while webmail has dipped to 18%.

https://litmus.com/blog/mobile-opens-hit-51-percent-android-claims-number-3-spot

In spite of knowing the importance of mobile and working very hard to make my website compatible with mobile phones and tablets, and making it a responsive site, I forgot all about making one very important part of my communication ministry compatible with mobile phones: my newsletter.

Ways to make a newsletter easier to read on your mobile phone

Below I'll share with you what I'm doing to make the newsletter easy to read on a mobile phone. This includes some of the changes I made before this last week.

  • I decided to have my newsletter be a blog broadcast of the latest articles on my website.  What this means is that the newsletter program I use (AWeber) sends the newsletter out automatically.
  • I use AWeber as my newsletter creator because it does blog broadcasts better than the other programs I tried.
  • AWeber has recently created templates for mobile phone newsletters, but to use them, you have to create your newsletter using them. Here is the article about them: http://www.aweber.com/blog/email-marketing/mobile-responsive-email-templates.htm
  • Because I use the automatic blog broadcast, that doesn't work for me.
  • Currently even the templates for the blog broadcast aren't mobile compatible. This is where I made a mistake—when I switched to the blog broadcast, I tested the blog broadcast template I chose on my computer, not my mobile phone. This week I was reading an article about making sure your newsletters are compatible on your mobile phone and I realized I hadn't tested mine on it.
  • When I did, as they say, "my bad!" –I realized how hard it was to read. The template was not responsive. It was a shrunken version of a computer screen-complatible newsletter. It was hard to read and none of us have time to pinch and move the screen around.
  • I went back to AWeber and after trying other templates and modifying them, I realized that the text-only format was the only one that would work.
  • That was fine with me because on a mobile phone, we don't really need graphics for a quick newsletter skimming of topics that go back to your website for longer articles for the complete article. The purpose of most newsletters is information--not to share great artwork and this format does that well.

If you are reading this on your mobile phone, you see the result. If you don't have a mobile phone--borrow one and check it out.

The bottom line is that making our newsletters easier to read on a mobile phone is simply one more tool to help us better share the messages on our websites and ministries that will help people find Jesus and grow to maturity in Him.

How to get any color from the web into MS Publisher

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How to get any color from the web into MS Publisher
The skills in this brief video will help you make exact color matches in your communications.

This video shows you how to solve the challenging problem of when you see a color that you like on the web and want to use it--but how do you get that color into MS Publisher so you can use it? Not a similar color, but the exact same color--how do you do it?

This short, but incredibly helpful video will show you how to download a tool that will identify the color and then will give you the RGB values you can put into MS Publisher to make the color available to you. Don't worry if you don't know what I just meant about "putting RGB values into MS Publisher"--the video shows you how to do that also.

The video is one of our "FREE for 48 hrs" videos and after that it will only be available to Effective Church Communication Members.

Below the video are the step-by-step instructions for what was shown in the video.

How to get any color from the web into MS Publisher

•Process for Firefox Browser
•Download
•It will automatically go into the tools in Firefox
•Open a web page
•Click on Tools—Colorzilla
•The RGB numbers will appear
•Copy and put them into MS Publisher and use as you want!

A grief-ministry free communication resource created by a fire-fighter’s widow

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Families of the Fallen ebook
This well-written and helpful e-book is available by clicking on the image and downloading from the Families of the Fallen website.

Ministry to widows is a ministry dear to our Lord's heart and one that defines us as Christians:

The Christian who is pure and without fault, from God the Father’s point of view, is the one who takes care of orphans and widows, and who remains true to the Lord—not soiled and dirtied by his contacts with the world. James 1:27, NLT

But as important as we know that ministry is, we often struggle with how to make its application practical in our churches. Fortunately a widow of a fire-fighter, Susan VandePol, took her pain and turned it into a beautiful and extremely helpful resource for others. She contacted me via LinkedIn and shared her e-book: Families of the Fallen. You can download the e-book, by going to the website: http://www.familiesofthefallen.net/

There are two versions of the book, one for Firefighter's families and one for churches.

Website is also an excellent communication example of beautiful brevity and impact

The website for the book is a beautiful example of a simple, focused, and extremely useful site. It is a tiny site in terms of size, but it is tasteful, lovely and provides appropriate information.

Many thanks to Susan for sharing and please, if you have materials like this that I can pass on to the readers and members of Effective Church Communications, send them to me at: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

The Lord has given us all different experiences and we can all share and learn from each other.

Colors of the year for 2014 and inspiration on to use them

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Pantone's color of the year 2014
Pantone's color of the year 2014 is Radient Orchid-- a great accent color for church communications.

Using the colors of the year isn't essential, but learning about them is fun and trying them can add a contemporary and timely feel to your communications. Below is a short video tour of the colors of the year from 3 organizations, plus some ideas for how to use them.

As you'll see the various organizations have different opinions on what the most important color is and two of them (you'll see which ones when you watch the video) would work well as accent colors in church communications. For instructions on how to get the colors into MS Publisher, check out this video: How to get any color from the webs into MS Publisher. 

Below the video is a list of direct links for all the resources in the video.

Following are the live links to all of the sites shown in the video above.

This list is for Effective Church Communication Members Only, for information on how to become one, CLICK HERE.
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Links about Pantone's Color of the Year

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/20854181/list/Best-Ways-to-Use-Radiant-Orchid--Pantone-s-Color-of-2014

http://www.pantone.com/pages/index.aspx?pg=21131

Benjamin Moore Color of the year:

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/21212187?utm_source=Houzz&utm_campaign=u415&utm_medium=email&utm_content=gallery4

SHERWIN Williams color of the year

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/21108135

Target Colors

http://www.target.com/c/bath-towels-home/-/N-5xtv9#?lnk=gnav_home_6_3&intc=829636|null

http://www.target.com/p/botanic-blush-collection/-/A-15033149#CollectionItems

Other fun new color inspirations

http://www.zazzle.com/purple_poppy_green_zizzag_chevron_birthday_cards-137997733558768048

http://patternbank.com/autumn-winter-2014-15-print-trend-report-part-1-pdf-download/

A collection of communication trends for 2014 along with links for implementation

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Trends in church communications
We don't know for certain what the future brings, but looking at trends can help us plan.

Following are excerpts of articles about upcoming communication trends. I read through many similar articles and these are representative of what many had to say.

Though lists like these are interesting to read, without application they can be frustrating, so along with the excerpts are comments and links to resources on the Effective Church Communication website that will help you put these materials into practice.

Below the titles are links for the full articles.

Web Design Trends for 2014 By Gavin Richardson

http://www.umcom.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=mrLZJ9PFKmG&b=6084849&ct=13416827

Excerpt of what the author sees as important on websites for the coming year:

Mobile responsive

From 25 to 35 percent of many websites’ total traffic will come through mobile devices. The number of mobile device users is growing. Having a website designed to adapt to each device is critical.

Before this trend began to emerge, you had to build a second website for mobile devices, which created extra work to maintain a second site. Most likely, you just let your site be as it is on a mobile device, which does not provide an optimal user experience.

YP Comments

Responsive websites, a primer
A responsive website is one that adjusts to any device you use to view it--please view this video for basics about them.

Mobile responsiveness for websites is very important and will continue to grow—actually, it probably already has with the thousands of people who got smart phones and tablets for Christmas.  For a site to be mobile responsive means that it will resize automatically to fit whatever device is used to view it—laptop, smart phone, tablet, desktop computer.

The following article and video illustrate and explain what is meant by a responsive site. Unlike many technological innovations, this one is easy to implement because if your church website is based on WordPress (and most are), the newer templates will do this for you automatically.

A primer on responsive websites, what they are and why they are important

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/09/a-primer-on-responsive-websites-what-they-are-and-why-they-are-important/

Excerpt:
The following two trends go together:

Minimalism

Perhaps the biggest change for many church websites is a move toward minimalism. The past practice has been to put as much information as possible in front of your site visitors. This makes for a busy, cluttered and often confusing front-page. Because of the growing use of mobiles for viewing webpages and emerging app culture, this show-everything trend is passé.

With a minimalist design, you remove content and decide what content is most important for users to focus on. The focus might be to share who you are as a congregation or an important event of the church. Possibly, the focus could be to have people follow a call-to-action and sign up for an email list.

Flat design

Trends change frequently. Once, the trend was to have a website with many graphics that had many textures and gradients. The aim was to give depth to the site. The new web design trend is more minimalist in order to be less distracting and drive focus on the content aim of your website.

Flat design can be elegant and aesthetically pleasing when done well. Even with a flat design, your graphic design can give depth to important page elements or calls to action. The level of depth and manipulation of graphics will be significantly less than in the past.

YP comments:

For years I've ranted against excessively complex, graphics heavy web pages (or print and newsletter ones also). One reason is because the content of the Christian faith is what is of primary importance, not simply how we feel about it. Designers tend to love images, but images are not consistent in what they communicate. The following article explains this in more detail:

Why it is incorrect to think that graphic images mean the same thing to everyone who sees them

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/why-it-is-incorrect-to-think-that-graphic-images-mean-the-same-thing-to-everyone-who-sees-them/

5 Top Social Marketing Predictions by  Marija Hamed

http://www.happymarketingclub.com

Excerpt: these are actually her points from a short, but helpful video

#1 Photo Sharing—bigger than ever

#2 Mobile—be conscious of how your material looks on mobile devices

#3 Google+ —recommendation that you need a G+ account for your business

#4  Customer Service—even more will be handled via social media and customers will expect it.

#5 Stats—check them out more to know what is working and what isn't.

YP Comments:

On Photo Sharing: Something to think about: in the past, churches were very careful about who shared what photos, particularly of children and single women on staff. Today every image of everyone is splashed all over Facebook, Instagram, and other sites. It is a little bit shocking to see your image, as has happened to me a number of times, totally without my permission, on church websites or members Facebook pages. I'm not sure what to do about it other than to talk about it—we can't control it. I do think that it would be wise to pray for protection, particularly for our children.

Customer Service—to translate that into the church setting, churches MUST answer emails and other social media requests, comments, questions! I continue to be astounded at the churches that publish email addresses, Facebook, and Twitter contact information and then do not respond or interact with people who try to reach them. Please, don't publish social media contacts that you don't respond to. If a senior pastor or other staff member will not answer his or her own social media (my husband doesn't, he just isn't into that, but is honest about it) designate someone to do it for them.

I'm not recommending Google+ for churches presently, not because it isn't a great tool (probably is, I don't know, haven't gotten into it yet myself), but because so many churches still don't update their basic website or the social media they have. Remember it isn't how many social media icons you have on your site that make it meaningful—it's how quickly, compassionately, and biblically you respond and interact through the channels you have.

Stats—This recommendation is incredibly important. It doesn't matter what a staff members favorite way to communicate is or what is most popular in blogs—what matters is if your people are responding or not to the tools you use. If you don't track it, you won't know. The following book is essential reading to help you in this area.

It is free to Effective Church Communication Members (along with over 30 other books on church communications). After the book link is a link to a video and FREE forms to help you in your evaluation process.

This essential book is important to help you be honest and realistic about the effect of your communications.
This essential book is important to help you be honest and realistic about the effect of your communications.

Book: Church Communications Planning, Measuring, Evaluating done a new way—big is busted, try tiny!

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/book-church-communications-planning-measuring-evaluating-done-a-new-way%E2%80%94big-is-busted-try-tiny/

 

Turn the Other Tweet: Social Media Resolutions for 2014 by Rev. James Martin, S.J.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-james-martin-sj/turn-the-other-tweet-social-media_b_4523963.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Excerpts from a wonderful blog:

1.) I will treat everyone with charity and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. No matter how rude they are. And no matter how many times they post annoying comments that make me want to stop typing, put on my coat, drive to their town, knock on their door and sock them. Because Jesus never did that when he posted stuff online. Jesus told us always to turn the other tweet.

2.) I will avoid posting anything anywhere when I'm so angry that I can barely type--or speak. Especially speak. That's a tip-off.

3.) I will avoid being drawn into an argument with anyone who is apparently (a) crazy; (b) not listening; or (c) both. Even if they call me (a) stupid, (b) a heretic, or my latest favorite insult (which happened the other day) a "poor excuse for a Christian." I will not be drawn into a pointless argument that will be a waste of time. For both of us.

…….

8.) I will look for news and articles and photos that help people see the workings of grace and that spotlight those in need, and will bring them to people's attention.

9.) I will remember that my goal is not followers or likes but to help people like and follow God.

10.) I will post less and pray more.

YP comments:
All wonderful, especially the last three which I pray will be goals for all of us in the coming year and always. I appreciate his gentle tone in all his writings.

Please read the following blog post for a related approach to church communications.

Do not confuse irreverence for relevancy in church communications

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/do-not-confuse-irreverence-for-relevancy-in-church-communications/

Please share if you see other trends that would be useful for churches or your comments on the ones listed above.