5 Communication Tools
Sunday Morning Announcements are held up as the holy grail of communication. Ministry leaders believe that their event will be a success if it is announced from the front on a Sunday. In the past my church has not had a communication strategy, so many events ‘slipped in’ and got a verbal announcement. Despite being announced from the front, they still didn’t have a deep reach or strong impact. Sunday announcements wasn’t a good tool to use for these events.
Ignore the Obvious and Seek the Best
When our team sits down for our weekly communications meeting, one of the questions we ask is “what is the best outlet to use to get the word out on this event?” Some channels are active and we push the information and some are passive where we make the information available to those who wish to access it. We have identified 5 different ways that we do this at my church.
We do the best job we can to align all 5 of these communication outlets for maximum impact.
Weekly Sunday Program
- View Our Program
- Active communication outlet
- New printing weekly
- Only contains the information that is relevant to the Sunday morning audience
Weekly eNewsletter
- View Our eNewsletter
- Active communication outlet
- New newsletter weekly
- An entry level ‘all-church’ communication option. Many items in the eNewsletter will never be in our Sunday program
- Great for items which require signup online
- Great eNewsletter Resource Article
Monthly Calendar Handout
- View Our Calendar
- Passive communication outlet
- New calendar monthly
- Available in our lobby, at our Guest Center, available for download online
- Contains highlights to events unique to that month, contains notable events, contains a list of all weekly events
- Great way to show your leaders you’ve promoted their item in an all-church way and presented it beautifully in print
Coming Attraction Handout
- View Our Coming Attractions Handout
- Passive communication outlet
- New handout every 6-8 weeks
- Available in our lobby, at our Guest Center, available for download online
- Can be used for any tier event, however, it is primarily for advanced notice events (camps, mission trips) and items which will receive no other communication resources
- Great way to provide an easy handout for low tier events
Church App Sunday Loop
- View Our Sunday Loop
- Download and Interact with Our App
- Passive communication outlet
- Updated weekly
- Available within our church app
- It is a complete collection of everything from our Sunday program, Sunday announcements, weekly eNewsletter
- Great dynamic content for our app
These are 5 of the ways we get the word out. We’re not perfect and we are always tweaking these outlets to make them more effective. Being a church communication leader is about maximizing what you currently have and then seeking ways to improve upon your strategy to accomplish your measures.
