Communications on the Cheap for Churches

The Tech Tech Task Team of the Growth Ministry Council has pulled together a few articles on resources for churches. We hope these will be helpful to you.

These articles are from ChurthTech Today – www.churchtechtoday.com

4 Methods of Increasing Communication with Your Church MembersAre you effective at communicating with the members of your church? How about with the entire community? When you have an important message to relay, you have to make it impactful. And you have to make sure it is making the target.

In today’s world, your congregation and community are being bombarded with a continual stream of information. Some important, most not. Making your messages stand out from all of that noise is the new challenge facing church leaders. To do this you are going to need to reach your targeted audience, make sure that your message is relevant to them and encourages engagement.

Below are four methods to help you increase communication with your church members:

Method 1:  Understand Your Church MembersWho is it that you are trying to reach? For a busy church leader, that may be a youth group today and important community business leaders tomorrow. You have to make sure that your communication strategies are customized to fit the needs of each of these groups. You don’t want to inundate your business community with news about an upcoming youth retreat.

Method 2:  Explore Communication OptionsYour older church members may still love getting their updates from the weekly bulletin, but your busier younger congregates may like the convenience of checking in with you online. Look at your church demographics and determine what types of communication methods will work best when you want to post about church news and events.

This will most likely involve you utilizing a few different systems, such as a website, social media, email and of course that weekly bulletin.

For emergency church updates or as a reminder for upcoming meetings, mass notification using an SMS text message or personalized recording is very effective. Since voice broadcasting providers like DialMyCalls  (http://www.dialmycalls.com/churches/automated-church-calls.html) allow you to organize your calling lists into groups, you can avoid sending out messages that are irrelevant to certain members of your church. This means that when you want to remind parents of the pick-up time after the retreat, other community members won’t receive a message that does not pertain to them.

Method 3:  Offer Inspirational MessagesTake the time to write posts or send emails that also address issues of your faith. To engage your church members, tie your faith messages in with current challenges they may be facing. A mid-week message of hope from you may be just what your attenders need to make it to Sunday.

Method 4:  Encourage Open CommunicationIn all of your communications you should be inviting feedback and making it clear how and when you can be reached. If you send emails, check for responses regularly. Look at your churches web site or social media site daily to check if a visitor has a question or comment for you. Two-way conversation shows that you are interested in your community and value their

participation. The trick is to make you sure that you see it and respond.You are facing new challenges never before seen by the church. While there may be temptation to resist change, if you want to stay close with your community and continue to be perceived as a leader, you need to begin looking at the diversity in your church. Hone your communications to speak to each group directly and you will retain respect and loyalty in your community.

Using Email for Church Communication to Share Your StoryLet’s face it, there is nothing glamorous about email. For many, it is a necessary evil that invades our space with info we’d rather ignore. But, done well, email gives churches a way to tell their story in a user-friendly way that members are already engaged with.

The question is how do we do it well? What steps can we take to keep cost low and deliver a quality email people want to open and read?

We need to understand…The Power of EmailEmail is the communication medium of choice for several reasons.

Low cost Ease of setup It’s personal (goes to the user) It’s part of our everyday lives It’s transactional (people can interact with you) Email has nearly three times as many user accounts as

Facebook and Twitter combined (2.9 billion) statistic from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/email-crushes-social-media/

A look at the total emails sent every day vs the number of social media posts its even more staggering:

With reach far exceeding social media, email has the potential to be a powerful communication tool. If we know how to use it.

Unfortunately, email has some…

ChallengesPersonal email plans, like the kind you get from Yahoo, MSN, or Google, are created to send messages to small groups of people. Try to send a large group message and you run into trouble.

Email providers track every message that passes through their systems. They don’t read them, but they measure…

Number of recipients Percentage of emails opened Number of links clicked

Number of undeliverable emails (bad addresses, typos, etc.)

Number of emails marked spamEach of these areas has a point value assigned to it. Below a specified point value your email goes through. Hit the next level and your emails go into the junk mail folder. Exceed the final level and they label you a spammer and block your account.

If you’ve ever fought to get your account unblocked its not fun. My IT buddy has done it several times and its a long, ugly process.

SolutionsThere are two options to help get around this:Option 1: Church Email

Create a dedicated email address that is only used for church communications

Write your email Format your content Copy and paste names out of your contact list Send the message to a small number of recipients, every

5-10 minutes, until your list is complete. (Every provider has different rules for number of emails and time between matching subject lines.)

Use a tracking service, like Sidekick, to make sure people are opening your emails ($10 a month) Or Streak for Gmail that is free

Track and purge bad addresses from your contact list regularly

Pray you don’t get bannedOption 2: Email Marketing Service

Import your email addresses Pick a template Write your email Send your message

Let the service track:

o openso readso clickso bad addresses

Watch your email analytics to know what is working and what’s not

Contact tech support when you need helpMost likely, Option 1 is a slightly different angle on your current approach. Before you discount Option 2 take a look at the breakdown.

If you have fewer than 2,000 email addresses in your list MailChimp is free. You get access to their basic tools and analytics with options to upgrade if you need extras. They take the headache out of Option 1 and keep your email from getting flagged. And, for the price, you can’t beat it.

Another option that includes great video email marketing solutions is BombBomb for ministry. ChurchTechToday uses BombBomb for it’s email marketing solution; this solution mentioned offers integration with several church management software solutions out there such as Fellowship One, Church Community Builder, IconCMO, and ACS which make keeping contacts in your email marketing system much easier.

Email is the communication medium of choice. While I haven’t addressed the importance of writing engaging content, I hope this post helps you share your story in budget friendly ways and avoid the most common technical issues.

4 Church Website Options for Your Digital Front DoorFor years, the worship service was the front door of your church. The best way to connect people was to have them attend on a Sunday, hope they liked the experience, and want to know more.

The growth of a tech conscience, research minded population has changed that. The church website is the new digital front door of your church. With 85% of people visiting online before they attend in person, you have an average of seven seconds to make an impression. Visitors are looking for clear, conscience and organized information. They expect service times, location, worship style, children’s programs, information about the pastor, church size, and more, to be readily accessible.

So how can we create and maintain a website that embodies the personality of our church and doesn’t break the bank?

1) Plan Before You ActThe tendency with a church website is to treat it like an online version of your bulletin…

Post as much information as possible and let the reader sort it out.Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.Before you ever design a page you need to answer: What is your goal online? (awareness, community

connection, church engagement, information, etc.) Who is your audience? (visitors, attenders, leaders) What will you share? (times, locations, ministry

information, etc) What do you want to include? (social media, sermon audio,

sermon video, event registration, online giving, etc.)2) PrioritizeTime and budget are the biggest challenges you will face as you build your website. Once you know what you want to include prioritize them. If you can’t afford to include something in your website immediately don’t give up on it. Consider making it part of a second phase or future budget year.3) Be RealisticDon’t underestimate the time required for upkeep and maintenance of your website. It requires technical knowledge to manage the site, forethought to work ahead and people skills to track down information from ministry leaders.You spend hours each week planning for Sunday and training volunteers to serve. You wouldn’t dream of putting if off until the last minute or ignoring it for weeks. Your website requires the same type of intentional planning and focus.

You need to know: Who is responsible for managing the website? Do they have the time to do this well? Do they have the ability to do this well?

4) Pick A Website SolutionThe options abound for website creation, management and upkeep. Based on your plan, priorities and budget you can pick a solution to match.

Custom Design

Endlessly customizable based on your needs and ministry desires, mobile integration available Price depends what technology you desire to incorporatePre Packaged Designcustomizable church templates with user support Bridge Element – http://bridgeelement.com

o no setup fee, $29/month for hosting and support ChurchDev – https://www.churchdev.com

o $199 – 499 one-time fee, $29/month for hosting and support

Clover – http://www.cloversites.como $1000 one-time fee, $20/month for hosting and support

Ekklesia 360 – http://www.ekklesia360.como $500 on boarding, training, and setup, $60 – 295/month

for hosting and support faithHighway – http://faithhighway.com/

o pricing is based on your needs and church size Faith Connector – http://www.faithconnector.com/

o $250 design setup and customization fee, $54 – 79/month for hosting and support

ShareFaith – http://www.sharefaith.com/o no setup fee, $41/month for hosting

Site Organic – http://www.siteorganic.como $199 – 500 one-time fee, $29 – 99/month for hosting

and support Elexio – http://elexio.com

o Pricing upon requestWeebly – free (plus pay upgrades)Theme based templates, optimized for mobile devices, Weebly offers easy drag-and-drop functionality in a free web building platform. (The new NACCC website is built on Weebly.)WordPress - freeTheme based template design, high customizable, mobile friendly options, functionality added in pieces based on your needs, a technically minded staff member or volunteer can design and maintain it for you low cost to set up and manage

As you plan your new website or contemplate updating your existing one remember… this is your new front door. It is the way you will be viewed and remembered by a large percentage of your community. Make certain it represents your church and the gospel in a way worth remembering.

DIY Church Graphic ResourcesGraphics are probably more important now than they’ve ever been. Remember when all you had to choose from was the clip art that came with Microsoft Word? Thank goodness those days are long since over.

With Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram just to name a few visually-driven social media network, graphics are a big deal and can have huge ministry impact.While some churches might have a graphics designer on staff, I’m willing to bet that the majority don’t. That’s why I’ve gathered some DIY church graphics resources that can benefit that volunteer, part-time communications volunteer, or even pastor who does everything from soup to nuts.

Design Tools:CanvaCanva is a nearly free graphics design site that give you templates for blog graphics, Facebook headers, social media, presentations, and much more. You can upload your own images or pay $1 for many wonderful images in their system. With templates and plenty of snappy fonts, this site will juice up your ministry. This site allows you to design right on their site and download your files to your computer when you’re done.PixlrPixlr is another great design tool that allows you to add text, change size, and much, much more. You can launch the web app right from their site and be designing like a pro in

minutes. This site also allows you to design right on their site and download your files to your computer when you’re done.

Images:UnsplashUnsplash offers 10 new high quality images every ten days. They have lots of inspiring nature photos and beautiful, pro-quality photos.LightstockLightstock is a newer stock image site that offers photos and videos for the faith market. I love that their images are thoughtful and “cheese” free. They also take requests if you’re looking for shots they don’t have. They offer a free image and video once a week if you sign up for their email list. Images are very affordable and of excellent quality.iStockPhotoIf you can’t find the image you’re looking for for free and you can’t find it on Lightstock, your next move could be to look on iStockPhoto. That’s what we do and we usually find anything and everything on this site. The prices are a bit higher, but it’s easy enough to choose a smaller image for less credits and download for current and future use.Other:CreationSwapCreationSwap is the fastest growing community to find free and stock church media. Thousands of artists come to generously share their work with churches and pastors around the world.

More Free Church Graphics: http://churchrelevance.com/tag/free-church-graphics/