8 Tips for Better Church Announcements

by: Rich Birch

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When “announcements” are done well they help move the community to be more engaged in the vision your church. When they are done poorly they drag on the service and make everyone wish they would just stop! The difference between these two extremes is often really simple things. Here are a handful of quick tips to consider next time you (or someone at your church) is getting ready to lead this part of the service.

• Narrow the Focus // As the person actually standing up and “giving announcements” your job should be to focus in on the 1 (or maybe 2) things that are most important at this point in your life of church. Reduce don’t expand. Avoid the temptation to add to the list!
• Rehearse It! // Michael Jordan threw 500 free-throw balls every morning. U2 still practices daily. You can rehearse your announcements for this weekend a few times before you get up there! Bonus points if you rehearse in front of someone who will give you critical feedback!
• It’s About Connecting. // The goal of this time in the service is to draw people into your community not to “advertise stuff”. What does your “audience” need at this point? Think about that … not what the ministry leaders want advertised. How can you help people take the next steps into community?
• Check the Mic // Test every piece of technology that you will be relying on. Make sure the batteries are changed in that snappy wireless mic. Ensure that whoever is running the video stuff (if you’re using it) is in the room with you at some point before the service to make sure it all works.
• Take a Deep Breath // People need you to be relaxed … take a deep breath before you go onto stage. Don’t worry if you fumble over a few words … smile and move on. If you get stressed … your audience will be stressed. Relax … you’re among friends.
• It’s not about You. (or Your Stuff.) // How can I say this nicely? You aren’t the main deal. What you are doing is important but it’s not the reason people came to church. Set the stage for what’s happening in your community and then get out of the way. Don’t try to make it about you.
• Be Visual // Show and tell was interesting when you were a kid because we’re visual thinkers. That’s even more the case now. If you don’t have some sort of visual to back up your points … don’t talk about it. (Really.)
• Thank Before Ask // You should be publicly thanking at least as much as your are publicly asking. Make sure to thank people for financially giving to your church … thank them for volunteering … be a thanking machine! Keep this ratio right and people will gladly listen to you.

Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Rich Birch

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7 Alternatives to Sunday Morning Announcements

by: Rich Birch

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Ministry leaders think if they just get their event or program “promoted from the stage” people will flood into it. Church communications people are peppered with requests all the time for people wanting to get “their deal” in the announcements. The urgency from those leaders leans towards desperate. However, the more you talk about on a Sunday morning the less effective the messaging for everything is. You need some solid ways to say “no” to other ministry leaders by providing alternative communication channels.

• Direct Emails // Each of your ministry areas needs to cultivate an email list of people who are interested in their area. This is a critical skill for communication today. We recently sent three emails (over three weeks) to a targeted list to promote an event before we “went public” through Sunday morning … we have 200 people sign up through the pre-registration emails and only 50 through Sunday morning.
• Cause Foyer Chaos // Church is fun … right? How could you bring a little piece of the event you are promoting to the foyer on the weekend? Taking the students on a Camping Trip? What if you figured out how to serve smores to guests? (And then hand them an info sheet on the event.) Is your small group ministry launching off for the fall? What if you brought a living room into the middle of the foyer?
• Social Media // How can you engage your people to get “talking” about the ministry program through social media channels? The goal here isn’t just to “call to action” but to create content that spreads dialogue about the ministry initiative.  Ask some questions related to the topic on Facebook. Take some pictures of your team prepping and post them on Instagram. Think conversations not signups.
• Information Cards // As people are leaving the service have your ushers hand out a small printed piece that has all the information you are attempting to communicate as well as a compelling ask to join. Make sure to train your ushers to be friendly and to ask your people if they would like the cards.
• Call People // Have you seen this new technology called “the telephone”?  It’s amazing … it’s kinda like Twitter but with audio. You can speak into it and then people on the other end can respond right away. It’s quick, basically free and ubiquitous. Why not order some pizza and pull together a group of volunteers to call people from the church to ask them about your upcoming event?
• Snail Mail // People just get bills and junk mail in their mailbox at home. What if your ministry area came up with a clever piece to send to people? It will stand out in the desert of people’s inbox.
• Kill It // If the ministry specific area is unwilling to put in the work to promote the event … then you should probably kill it. If the leadership is looking for someone else to “market” the event but they don’t do some work to generate a crowd than that is an indicator of a program that needs to go away. Less is more.

Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Rich Birch, Sunday morning announcements

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Hype, Hope, or Help: Writing Sermon Series Promotions

by: Rich Birch

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When promoting an upcoming series of messages at your church you need to think carefully about the language you use to promote it. The right promotional copy can encourage your people invite friends while if you get it wrong it can actually repel people from your church. Here is a simple three part test I use when I think about the copy we use to promote upcoming messages:

• Hype? // Does the promotion of this series over-promise on what you plan on delivering? Are you using cultural references just to draw people in but you know you aren’t going to actually deal with them during the series? Does the copy of the promotional material sound like it was written by the guy who advertises Monster Truck shows on the radio?? It’s tempting to use hype when promoting an upcoming series … don’t do it! First time guests will see through it … and your people will lose trust with you!
• Hope? // When you promote an upcoming series do you offer hope for a preferred future? Would you describe this series as inspirational and aspirational in nature?Do you use language that gives people a sense that the series will give a path to follow towards something better for them? Hope is at the core of the message of Jesus. Often we get into ministry because we want to offer hope to this generation. My caution from a communications point of view is use it sparingly. If all your series sound like you are “selling hope” people may lose trust that you are connected to the here and now.
• Help? // When people read your promotional material do they get a clear sense of how this series will make their life better? Is the copy written with obvious statements of what’s in the series for them? Can you clearly articulate the outcome for your people at the end of the series? People are drawn to solving the problems they perceive they have. Start with understanding the issues your people have and build your series around those. The Bible is a treasure of resources to help people … it’s ancient wisdom for today! Helping people is a great model of ministry.

Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Rich Birch

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What Your Church Should Measure on Social Media

by: Anthony Coppedge

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In the Facebook and Twitter social circles, adding more ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ is a popular and accepted measurement of reach. It is assumed that the greater the reach, the greater the influence. However, social media often produces “false positives” based on numbers alone, so what should a church or ministry measure when engaging in social media?

FACEBOOK

A simple rule of thumb about your church and ministry Facebook Fan Pages:

“‘Likes’ are good. ‘Comments’ are better. ‘Shares’ are best.”

• When someone ’likes’ your page, it means your wall content can show up in their News feed. This means you have a chance of them seeing what you’re sharing without them coming directly to your Facebook page.
• When a person ‘comments’ on your page, it means they have chosen to verbally respond and engage in dialogue. Note: it’s a good idea to respond to their comment by name if a response is warranted.
• When someone ‘shares’ your wall post, they’ve found enough value that they believe what you shared is worth sharing with their friends, too. This is the beginning of something ‘going viral’ (gaining momentum) in social media, and increases your reach to include those not in your ‘friends’ list to those in your friend’s friends list.

TWITTER

This 140-character, short status update service has put a lot of emphasis on the number of ‘followers’ you have. Early on (and still to this day), it was easy to gain thousands of followers by simply following people and hope they follow you back out of consideration or obligation. In fact, there are services that will allow you to mass-follow people by the tens of thousands. Some people have auto-follow features that reciprocate your follow, while others feel the obligation of courtesy to follow-back. What you end up with is a whole lot of followers, but very few people you actually influence.

Without a relationship of value, having a zillion followers on Twitter is insignificant.

When people choose to follow you, they find what you share to have value, which means you have some level of influence in their lives.

WHAT TO MEASURE?

These social media truths beg the question: What should churches measure with social media? The answer is simple, but gaining the answer is highly intentional and somewhat complex:

Your metrics should only consist of that which you value and track.

Good metrics are measurements against your goals. Any other kind of measurement is potentially true, but irrelevant. Build social media metrics from existing references of data. In other words, find a correlation & track it because the metrics you gather are only as useful as the insights you can apply from them. Metrics are indicators; over time, they reveal trends.

Obviously, this means that each local church will track and measure different aspects of their social media activities because the context of their church, vision and ministry is unique. No two churches should measure the same things for the same reason in the same order of priority. 

How is your church measuring your effectiveness and Return On Ministry in the social stratosphere? What values and goals match your church’s unique vision that you find valuable to track, measure and evaluate? Based on these truths, what will you begin to measure differently?

Read more from Anthony here.

Tags: Anthony Coppedge, Attention, Awareness, Brand, Social Media

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To Grow Disciples, Start by Rethinking Your Church Communication

by: Len Wilson

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Are you familiar with the well-known website, church marketing sucks? Or, if you’re put off, perhaps church marketing stinks? I’ve always loved the blunt challenge the domain presents against the dominant framework most local congregations bring to the idea of church communication. Like the site’s owners, I am against misunderstanding church communication as a mere tool to share information. I am very much for using church communication to strategically shape a church’s story and create a covenantal community.

Unfortunately, most churches define the role of communication as the tactical execution of messages designed by other church leaders. It is a support position, like clip art on a desktop publishing PC. A popular post defines it well, here.

There’s a reason for this poor understanding of church communication, and it is killing efforts to grow churches and make disciples of Jesus Christ.

20th century advertising was defined by “features and benefits,” or information about the attributes of a product. Features provided the point of view of the producer – what the product offers. Benefits provide the point of view of the customer – how the product helps their life. Both angles assume the person on the other end of the transaction is a consumer. This is precisely the problem with most communication in churches – it adopts a strategic assumption that is consumer-driven and transactional. It treats the “seeker”, or the person coming to church, as a consumer, to receive spiritual goods and services, and it makes the relationship transactional in nature, when biblically speaking it should be covenantal.

Now, I don’t think this is all the church’s fault. It is the default mode of our society, and the person coming to church will, without thinking, approach their spiritual life in the same way they approach everything else. We have to teach people what it means to be covenantal rather than transactional.

The newer advertising philosophy, which I have advocated in my ministry, is experiential. Rather than thinking about a product’s features and benefits, it attempts to create an environment for finding meaning. Most major campaigns now do this. Advertisers are exploring how to create what is essentially a more covenantal approach to their craft – they desire to create brand promises with their customers and forge long-term relationships. Of course their goal is still to sell products, but we can learn from this. Many church leaders still operate, I think by default, in a features and benefits mentality.

This gets at the heart of the dichotomy between “attractional” and “missional,” as I discussed earlier. The debate on whether a church should be “missional” or “attractional” is a false dichotomy. It is both/and, not either/or. As friend Mike Slaughter says, “The gospel is offensive. We’re just making sure you know you’ve been offended.”

Obviously, clear communication is vitally important. How a church presents its identity both in its core story and in its ongoing daily messages determines what audience it engages. A church that finds its core story in relating to people “burnt by church” is going to present itself, or tell its story, differently than a church of people who have found great personal benefit in the combination of church and society (like many of the churches in Dallas I used to work with). This also means you must know your audience, which is a future topic for this blog.

In the meantime, if you want to grow disciples in your church, re-thinking church communication is a great place to start.

Read more from Len here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Church Communication, Len Wilson

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Good Organizations are Storytellers. Great Organizations are Storydoers.

by: Ty Montague

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Discussions about story and storytelling are pretty fashionable today. On the one hand, as a lifelong advocate for the power of story, I find this very encouraging. For all organizations, having a story and knowing that story are crucial steps to achieving success. On the other hand, I’m worried that too many organizations think that telling their story through advertising is enough. It’s not.

In fact, those that think this way do so at their own risk because there is a new kind of organization on the rise that uses story in a more powerful way — and they are run more efficiently and profitably as a result.

In my new book, True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business, I call these new organizations storydoing organizations because they advance their narrative through action, not communication. Storydoing organizations — Red Bull and TOMS shoes, for example — emphasize the creation of compelling and useful experiences — new products, new services, and new tools that advance their narrative by lighting up the medium of people. What I mean by this is that when people encounter a storydoing organization they often want to tell all their friends about it. Storydoing organizations create fierce loyalty and evangelism in their customers. Their stories are told primarily via word of mouth, and are amplified by social media tools.

So how do you know a storydoing organization when you see one? These are the primary characteristics:

1. They have a story
2. The story is about a larger ambition to make the world or people’s lives better
3. The story is understood and cared about by senior leadership outside of marketing
4. That story is being used to drive tangible action throughout the company: product development, HR policies, compensation, etc.
5. These actions add back up to a cohesive whole
6. Customers and partners are motivated to engage with the story and are actively using it to advance their own stories

Storydoing organizations have a feeling of authenticity and humanity about them that is lost in many traditional organizations today. It makes them magnetic.

Storydoing organizations are on to something very compelling. Storydoing can be learned. And once learned, it can be replicated and spread from one part of your organization to another.

Are you a storydoing organization? Here’s a tool that will help you discover that answer.

Read the original article by Ty Montague here.

Read more about storydoing here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Story, Storydoing, Ty Montague

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Vision is Always Visual: Illustrate the Process

by: Eric Geiger

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Illustrating your church’s process is vital. The simple process is more likely to resonate with each person if it is visual. People are more likely to remember it. Consequently, people are more likely to experience the reality of the process if they can recall it.

Recollection increases movement. It increases the likelihood that people will progress through the stages of commitment. People will not live out something they cannot remember.

The process must be the vision for discipleship in a local church. The process says, in essence, “This is the kind of people we believe God is calling us to be, and here is how He is going to transform us into that type of person.” It is personal. It is something each person can internalize and own. The process can become the personal vision for each person in the church.

And vision is always visual.

People are able to live out the vision if they can see it. If there is a visual illustration for the process, people know where they are in the process and where they have yet to go. If they can attach the process to something that is etched in their minds, they are more likely to embrace it.

The process must become etched in the minds of your people.

A visual illustration increases clarity; therefore, church leaders should use one. The visual illustration may be a diagram, or it may be a metaphor that gives people a mental picture.

Choose a visual illustration for your process. Get some wise and creative people around a table and come up with one. Or borrow (steal) one from another church. However you do it, just be sure your visual illustration has the following components:

1. The illustration should be reflective of your process. The illustration must fit. If your process has three steps, then your illustration should reflect that. If your process has four steps, your illustration should reflect that. Ensure that the illustration is an expression of the reality of your process.
2. The illustration should show progression. Remember the simple process is about moving people toward greater commitment. The genius in the baseball diamond illustration started by Rick Warren is that the diamond shows movement from base to base.
3. The illustration should help simplify. Don’t choose an illustration that makes your process seem complicated. Here is the rule: If you have to explain a lot of symbols and hidden meanings in your illustration, it is too complicated. The point of your visual illustration is to help people grasp the reality.

Adapted from Simple Church (B&H Publishing Group, 2006).

Read more from Eric here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Eric Geiger

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The One Social Network Every Church Leader Needs to Use Regularly – for Now

by: Rich Birch

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If you could only be on one social media network as a church leader which one would it be? If you wanted to focus your efforts on a single network for simplicity sake where should your energy go? Where should you start your social media work as a church?

Facebook

In the current state of the social web Facebook represents the best place for church leaders to invest their time. Over 1.1 billion people are currently on the network [1]. 23 percent of Facebook’s users check their account 5 or more times daily [2]. A recent study showed that 77 percent of consumer focused companies and 43 percent of “business to business” focused companies have acquired customers through Facebook [3]. Users spend over 400 minutes every month on Facebook [4].  All those statistics add up to the fact that the people you are currently working with and the people you are trying to reach are on Facebook.

Your Social Media Strategy Needs to Start With Facebook. But Wait … there’s more to the story.

Social networks follow social lines. (Shocker!) There is evidence that people’s “offline” friends impact the social networks that people connect with “online”. So if people in your community start getting interested in Instagram or Google+ the value of those networks goes up for your people and might make it more popular than Facebook in your community. This is called “the network effect” … as more people connect to a social network it becomes more valuable because more people are connected to it. It’s a virtuous cycle that spreads social networks. You need to do a little investigation to see what “other” networks might be popular within your community.

The “network effect” works in reverse as well. As people start leaving a network it becomes less valuable to the people on it. As people leave and stop interacting more people leave and stop interacting. It becomes a vicious circle. This is how Friendster was displace by MySpace … which was displaced by Facebook. Just because Facebook sits on top of the social media world today … doesn’t mean it always will. As church leaders we need to keep an eye on this trend as we look to the future. The skills you develop on Facebook today will be transferred to whatever network will replace it in the future. Social Media is here to stay as a vital communications channel but the specific networks will come and go.

Which network have you seen the most engagement with as a church?

Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Social Media

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Church Signage, Part 1: Exterior Signs

by: Erin Williams

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Besides the building itself, a church’s primary sign is its first impression. It’s our first chance to tell the community who we are, what we value, and what we do. It’s also one of our best shots at inviting people to join us. Here are some things to keep in mind when you think about your church’s primary sign:

• Make it big, but not too big.
• Place it in your most visible location.
• Make sure it fits with the overall look of your church.
• Make it durable.
• Make it clear.
• Give information.
• Marquee or not?

Sometimes you only have one chance to advertise. When people go by your church, what are you saying to them?

Read the full article here.

Read more from Erin here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Erin Williams, Wayfinding

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5 Types of Social Media Content Your Audience Really Wants

by: Jon Thomas

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Why do we follow brands? What’s the point? They’re not our friends. We’re not going to make plans with them on a Friday night or invite them to our birthday parties (though some we would if we could). Why do we let them into a world where we’re sharing and consuming content from the people closest to us?

Social media has provided a unique opportunity for consumers and brands to connect on a level much deeper than that of a monetary transaction. It may sound obvious, but it’s worth noting that historically, a true fan of a brand didn’t have many options for celebrating his fandom. I could watch my favorite show, but I couldn’t get behind-the-scenes content (unless that too was on television). I could purchase a shirt bearing the logo of my favorite team, but if I wore it in a special place (say I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in it), how would they know? I’d have to mail them a picture, and even if they received it, where would they share it? The relationship was one-way, aside from the moment when I handed over my money and they handed me the product, or when I sat down and tuned in to my show.

There’s no single reason we follow brands, but it’s certainly rooted in the idea that we as consumers, supporters and fans want to have a deeper relationship with them. But just because a fan wants to follow your brand doesn’t mean you’re entitled to provide them with any content you wish. On the contrary, a fan can opt out of receiving your brand’s content with a single click, so it’s imperative that they’re receiving the type of content that’s valuable to them.

To that end, we’ve put together a list of 5 things your audience really wants from your social presence.

1. Fan Content

Have you ever been to a concert and just wished that the singer would pull you onto the stage with them? Of course, that rarely happens at concerts, and chances are that if it does, you’re not the one who’s pulled up there. And just like a stage, social media is a platform that overlooks a large audience (often much larger than a concert audience!). The ultimate thank-you, which takes little time and hardly any money, is to celebrate the content created by fans. It’s not that fans necessarily want to see content from other fans (though often they do), but that they want to know there’s a possibility that their content will be shared.

2. Behind-the-Scenes Content

The casual fan may be content with the limited interaction they have with a brand. Simply buying and wearing the hat, eating the candy or watching the show is enough for them. But the true fans want to go deeper. They want to look behind the curtain to a place only a certain number of people can see. They want the unreleased footage, the photos of the actors on set and the outtakes, like this cool photo set of actors laughing in between takes.

3. Shareable Content

I used to wonder why Facebook pages like “WTF Crazy Videos” and Twitter profiles that just post quotations existed. But as spammy as they seem (I mean, with no real brand to promote, what is the page/profile manager getting out of it?), people do follow them because they provide users with content to share. I’m not suggesting that your brand start auto-scheduling quotations or scouring Reddit for the latest #fail video, but when determining your content plan, think about this: Where’s the content that audiences will want to share with their audiences? Is the content you’re creating actually worth sharing?

4. Exclusive Content

Why would a fan follow your brand’s content if everything you post there is accessible elsewhere? If you’re just posting your readily available commercials on YouTube or links to your products on Facebook and Twitter, there’s no value in actually subscribing to, liking or following your brand’s accounts. Consider releasing content only on a specific channel. This can be anything from video blogs to sneak previews to coupons to presale codes, but make sure fans can’t get it anywhere else. The Boston Celtics made more than $200 off me recently when they sent a special presale code for playoff tickets to their email newsletter list. I hadn’t planned on going to a game, but when the code provided me with great seats before most other people, my plans were set. It ended up being one of the greatest games (and days) of my life.

5. Participatory Content

Most of our personal social-media activity is passive stalking…I mean monitoring. But this doesn’t mean that social media users aren’t up for a good game or contest! One of my favorite examples is from the WGN America (a Story client) How I Met Your Mother Facebook page, where WGNA has created albums of its fans suiting up (an homage to Neil Patrick Harris’s character, Barney Stinson) as part of a yearly “International Suit Up Day.” Giving your fans a way to participate (especially if prizes are involved) is a great means of activating them, and in turn they’ll be on the lookout for your content.

Every brand is different, so not all this content is applicable to every brand; but try to be open to sharing new types of content. It not only solidifies the relationship between your brand and its fans, but also gives your fans a reason to follow it.

Read more from Jon here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Jon Thomas, Social Media

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