The disappointing results when you jump into church communications without planning and how to change them

We have extraordinary tools available to create church communications and to wow people with our multi-media technology creations. Churches of every size can create can challenge members with video, media-rich websites and colorful print graphics. Dedicated church communication teams work hard to turn church leadership vision into reality. So what happens when we create these great communication pieces, but few people show up or volunteer for our ministry event?

Often the reason we don’t get the results we want is because we rushed to PR communication creation without doing the planning needed to assure that the PR communication we were able to create would result in concrete ministry results. This article shares two true stories of situation like this and follows them with suggested solutions to make certain your ministry goals are accomplished.

Two sad, but true stories that illustrate what happens when you jump into church communications production without taking the time to plan:

Story One – PR Communications to get volunteers to sign up to help at Vacation Bible School

The pastor announced at a staff meeting that the church needed a significant number of volunteers to help with the upcoming and expanded Vacation Bible School Program. After some brainstorming, some young interns proposed creating a video to show the congregation to recruit volunteers. The staff agreed it would be an exciting, cutting-edge communication that was sure to impress the congregation.

Communications Team then created an upbeat, colorful video about the upcoming VBS program. The video took lots of time to shoot, edit, and produce. Included in the video were humorous, yet impassioned pleas to sign up and help with the program. To do that people were directed to a VBS table in the lobby to sign up after the church service. When presented to the church it received a rousing round of applause. The staff was thrilled with the congregational response.

For the people wanting to volunteer, frustration followed initial excitement. On the Sunday the video was shown, there was no VBS sign-up table in the lobby for volunteers. The bulletin listed the participants in the video, but no details were given about the VBS program itself or who to contact in the church bulletin. The church website had the dates and location of the VBS program and a rather long, sign-up form to print off and fill out for children wanting to attend. Nowhere on the website was a name or contact information if you wanted to volunteer to help. There was no description of jobs, responsibilities or training for volunteers or additional information on the website. A sign-up table for helpers never appeared in the church lobby; no brochure was created for the literature rack about the program or need for volunteers. The video was not repeated on Sunday morning.

Results:

The church had very few people help with the VBS program. So few in fact, that the pastor was recruited to be one of the teachers. He wondered, after the amount of time and money spent on the video and people’s obviously positive response to it, why it didn’t result in more volunteers.

Not only did they not get the needed volunteers, but one potential volunteer was so frustrated in trying to find out how to sign up to help after not finding anyone at the promised table and no written information in the bulletin or on the website that she ending up leaving an angry message on the church answering machine and vowed never to try to help again. She was probably not alone in her response.

Story two -- Communication to increase participation in the small group ministry of the church

The Communications Team, following the request of the pastor to create communications that would get people into small groups, created banners that were put all over the church to remind people of the importance of small groups. A Small Group section with colorful graphics of upbeat people was added to the website. The pastor frequently mentioned small groups in his sermons and encouraged people to join one.

The bulletin proclaimed: "Small groups are very important at our church!" It also said there were a variety of groups available, but didn’t tell you what they were, when they met, or any contact information about the leaders. None of this information was on the website either, but it did have a lengthy form to fill in and email to the church if you were interested in joining a small group. The name of a person to call at the church if you were interested in small groups was in small print at the bottom of the page in the bulletin.

Results:

The pastor’s message was persuasive. A previously uninvolved church member became convicted of the need to be part of a small group. After his conviction, he didn’t know what to do next. There was no list or contact information specifically about small groups in the bulletin, at the Welcome Center or on the website. He filled out the email form on the website and sent it in. He also sent a personal email to the church asking for information on the men’s small groups. He checked his email every day for a response. He never received a response. He never joined a group and his church attendance has become sporadic at best.

What is going on?

Obviously in both situations, what the pastor thought was being communicated did not accomplish the primary task of church communications which is to enable people to take action that will either help them along their journey to come to know Jesus as Savior or grow in Christian maturity. The ultimate goal of the church to fully fulfill the Great Commission starts with actions connecting people to specific ministry events. Our communications must make the connections.

Sadly, I have many, many more stories similar to the two true stories included here. To prevent the disappointment of not having people respond to what you thought you communicated, let’s break down the process into detailed steps and then see what could have changed. This process is also illustrated in the training videos on planning.

Typical ministry event process without intentional planning

1. The pastor or other church leadership decides a ministry needs to be communicated or marketed more effectively to get more people involved.
2. That desire is passed on to either a communications team or a person whose job is to create the communications and marketing to get people involved.
3. The church communicators create the communications and marketing pieces using the latest and greatest tools they have and the newest, most exciting ideas. The emphasis is on something that will "get people’s attention," something eye-catching and appealing to today’s visually-oriented audience. The communication piece is launched with great excitement.
4. People don’t sign up or show up at the event or get involved in the ministry.
5. In frustration the communications team often concludes if they just spent more money, had a more flashy website or video announcements or maybe created their bulletin using InDesign instead of MS Publisher, or many other technological or artistic options, they were get a better turnout.

As frustrating as this situation can be to a communication team and church leadership, they are looking in the wrong place for an answer to their dilemma.

PLANNING both for communications production and ACCOUNTABILITY could have made all the difference

For a church message to be successful and for it to result in a completed action, you need to approach it from a different direction than one or two attention-getting communication pieces and working primarily on them. A careful PLANNING procedure such as the one outlined below will make a huge difference. The difference as you will see is that you build in ACCOUNTABILITY into every step of the planning process and you plan from the start to evaluate the success of your communication efforts.

1. Decide upfront what you want the communication to accomplish. This needs to be a measureable action you want people to take. Put a clear goal and number to it, e.g. "We want to have 20 people sign up as helpers in VBS." "We want to get 50% of our church involved in small groups." Note, the videos in this series and the book:  A new way to plan, measure and evaluate church communications, Big is busted! Try tiny, will show you forms to use to help you do this.
2. Next comes the most important thing: You need to look at the final ACTION (note it is ACTION) that people need to take for you to accomplish your communication goal. For example: "The volunteer would have to fill out a sign-up sheet and talk to Miss Amy." "The person has to show up to a small group and get involved consistently with it."
3. Now work backwards from that final action and determine what the church needs to have available in terms of people and places for the person to complete this action. If you are going to advertise a sign-up table for VBS after the church service, be sure the communication team talks to the person who will do it and double checks before the video is shown that the table is set up and ready to welcome volunteers.
4. Next, note what concrete communications need to be in place for people to take the action required. This is the part that is almost always ignored because many of the communication pieces that need to be created seem really boring to put together. This step includes providing complete information about the ministry communicated in print, on the web, in a brochure, in the bulletin. This includes things such as the listing of job descriptions, who to contact, responsibilities and training in the case of the VBS volunteers and lists of small groups, study topics, leaders, contact information and if there is a cost involved for small groups. This is the really hard part because these pieces are often boring to create, but they are the ones that actually connect people to the church ministry.
5. After all the nuts and bolts and support pieces are in place, then and only then should the flashy, overall PR to advertise the ministry or to get attention be created.

Follow through to make certain that your communications result in action

A word to church leaders—please be sure when you want communications and marketing to take place to grow your people and your church that:

• You follow through to make certain that all the communication steps take place that assure people not only know about the ministry, but that they are enabled to take the concrete actions that will enable them to connect to the ministry.
• Also, be sure you give your communications team the time and resources to create not only the flashy, fun communications creations, but also the sometimes detail-oriented, difficult-to-produce and a-challenge-to-keep-updated communication pieces that are essential that enable people to link with a ministry and by so doing grow in their faith.
• That you measure these goals, track results, make notes for the next time you do these processes. Again, the forms that go along with the Planning course will help you in this.

It’s a lot more work to make sure all the pieces are created to make a church communications about a ministry successful, but though demanding, when it is all over, you will have the satisfaction of successful ministry growth instead of communication frustration.

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This is an excerpt from the book: Book: Church Communications Planning, Measuring, Evaluating done a new way—big is busted, try tiny! It is available as an immediate download by CLICKING HERE.

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For all of Yvon Prehn books in both KINDLE and Print formats, CLICK HERE.