“Help. Our church needs better communications but I’m not sure where to start with our limited budgets”, said a Pastor at a recent conference. Church communications is a hot topic!
I’ve just finished speaking at several national church conferences and people want to know where to start. Or continue.
Budgets. The mere mention sets church leaders to cringing. However if you have all the money in the world, but don’t have enough time to use it properly, then your money is useless. So, what would we recommend? Even if you have varying slices of the church budget pie?
These recommendations combine money and time budgets (ie. small means: a small monetary amount with a limited amount of time — or a small team):
Small Budget: You need to get fast results with huge impact. Usually churches with small budgets are still trying to please everyone, have a reliance on printed materials, and struggle with a weak website. So create a communications’ strategy that starts reducing the print hub to allow for money savings (and sets a structure to tier communications). Add the found income to your budget so you can invest in a better website. At the least, consider better content, and effective website organization. Then focus on social media. Grow your online social audience so you can engage with them. Need help? May I suggest a powerful consultation tool: Our website analysis.
Medium Budget: You need to strengthen your communications by focusing it. People don’t have a lot of time, so you need to segment your audience so you can develop relevant, shorter tiered messages. Your communications’ strategy will require a very good digital hub. Improve your website (sitemap, design and edited content), an effective social media strategy, and a brand-ready email campaign tool. Create a strategy to reach your main audiences with the most important messages. May I suggest looking at our process for steps to accomplishing this.
Bigger Budget: Use dollars wisely so leadership and your congregation starts to seamlessly engage with church programs. The message reaches the right people on-time, every time. A communication strategy that segments and tiers the audience and message, then refresh (or build) a state-of-the art digital hub. Everything rests on the website ability. Make sure your content is consistent between your website, your social media, and email campaign structure. This describes our full process — so if you need help, it’ll save time to have us work with you. Contact us to get pricing.
