Have you ever been talking to a church member and mentioned an upcoming event only to have them respond with, “Oh, I didn’t know about that!”
You’ve had to work hard not to roll your eyes or look shocked because that event has been on the church calendar for weeks, mentioned in the announcements during services multiple times, and featured prominently on social media.
To make it worse, when you asked how they didn’t know, they told you that they don’t actually pay attention to the slides, look at your church app, or read the weekly email newsletter.
It can be frustrating to spend so much time and effort communicating with your congregation, yet your people still don’t know what’s happening in your church’s life.
What’s happening? Why does it seem like your announcements, posts, and messages fall on deaf ears?
You may be over-communicating.
That’s right – over-communicating.
Imagine a company sent you 15 emails in a month, but only 2 of them actually contained information that was relevant to you and your family. Eventually, you’d stop reading any of their emails because you’ve gotten overwhelmed with content that you don’t care about.
The same thing happens when your congregation is continually flooded with information that may or may not matter to them. An empty nester probably doesn’t want several messages each month about the youth and children’s ministry activities, just like a new mom probably doesn’t want multiple reminders about the senior adult banquet.
So what do you do? How can you get your members to pay attention to the messages you’re sending, reduce time and resources spent on communications your congregants won’t look at, and increase connectivity within your church?
You must have a strategy.
You may be thinking, “But we have a strategy. We make slides for all of our big events, including all of the things that are happening in our weekly newsletter, send push notifications about mission projects, and…”
And that’s the problem. If your strategy is to communicate with your congregation in every possible way with no additional planning or targeting, then you don’t have a strategy.
But you can!
Step #1: Make a List
The first thing you need to do is make a list. Jot down all of the ways you’re currently communicating with your congregation.
- Emails
- Texts
- Phone calls
- App messages
- Newsletters
- Social media posts
- Flyers or signs
- Billboards or banners on campus
- Postcards
- Slides during service
- Announcements from the stage
Take a few minutes to note how often you use each method of communication. Are you sending emails weekly? Pushing notifications through your app every day? Updating the slides each Sunday?
Step #2: Take a Survey
Ask your congregants to complete a short survey on church communications. Give them a voice in how you communicate and genuinely listen to their feedback. Ask them:
- How do you want to receive church communications? (Include a dropdown list of your current methods and have an option for them to write in additional suggestions.)
- What methods of communication do you not like or actively avoid using?
- What information do you care about receiving from our church? (List the various ministry areas in your church and any recurring content you regularly share, like a message from your pastor or weekly readings that tie into the sermon.)
- How frequently do you want to receive communications from us, outside of any communications during a service or physical signage around the church campus? (Give options that match the frequency you noted in Step #1 as well as other, less frequent choices.)
You don’t need responses from every single member to get an accurate picture of your congregation’s communication preferences.
For congregations with less than 1,000 members, you should aim for completed surveys from at least 30% of your members. For larger congregations, 10% is an accurate sample size (cap the survey at 1,000 responses if your congregation exceeds 10,000 weekly attendees for the best results).
Make sure the demographic makeup of those who complete your survey matches the demographics of your church as closely as possible. Stress the importance of this survey in helping your members get the information they need without overwhelming them with extra material.
Step #3: Tailor Your Methods
Based on the survey responses, look for the top three ways your congregants want to receive communications from you and the top three ways they don’t.
Reprioritize the methods that resonate the most. Focus most of your effort on messaging that aligns with your congregation’s preferences.
As you evaluate your communications, look carefully at how much time you’re committing to the least-desired communication methods. You don’t have to completely cut out the ways your members rate lowest, but you should designate the majority of your time and resources to the most effective approaches.
For example, many of your congregants might not notice the slides before and after your service, but for those who do, they are extremely beneficial. Since slides are generally easy to make and don’t require a significant amount of effort, you can continue to utilize them even if they’re lower on the ranking of how to communicate.
The objective here is simply to make sure you’re tailoring your methods to give your congregation the information they need in the ways that they want.
Step #4: Personalize Your Communication
Personalization may seem like something that takes more time and effort than it’s worth, especially if you have a large congregation. But if it’s done right, personalizing your communications can be the boost you need to have an informed and engaged congregation.
More than 80% of people say it’s important for communication to make them feel like a person rather than a number, and the best way to do that is to segment.
Often used as a marketing tool, segmentation involves breaking down your target audience into smaller groups based on common needs, interests, or characteristics. This helps ensure that the right people are getting the messaging that is most important to them.
Start by asking your members to “sign up” for the ministry areas or other recurring content they want to receive communications about. Then, using your original results from Step #2 or additional survey responses collected later, create segmented lists for emails, app messages, and text threads.
They’ll still receive any church-wide messages, but any additional communications will be about things they’ve specifically expressed interest in receiving.
If you’re using a program like MinistryPlatform, you already have the ability to build segmented contact lists and even add each person’s name to the messages they receive. Studies show that emails are 26% more likely to be opened if they contain personalized subject lines, so any time you can use someone’s name, do it!
PocketPlatform, the accompanying app for MinistryPlatform, allows you to utilize segmented lists built in MinistryPlatform to target specific audiences with messages in your app, making it easy to personalize the congregant app experience.
Your tangible methods of communication (e.g., flyers, banners, slides, etc.) may be more challenging to personalize, but it is possible if you get creative! So while you can’t make a flyer for an upcoming event unique to each person, you can be strategic in where you hang them.
For example, make sure the flyers you put up in your children’s wing are relevant to families with young kids. If your senior adults are hosting an event, you probably don’t need to put the flyers in your children’s hallway, but you should put them in the small group classrooms where your older members meet.
You will have to commit some time initially to building out your segmentation and setting up personalization processes, but it will be well worth it when you see the results of effectively communicating with your congregation.
Conclusion
Over-communication is one of those issues that most people don’t even realize they have.
You aren’t trying to clog up your congregants’ inboxes or overwhelm them with too much information. You’re simply doing everything you can to try to keep your members connected to the life of your church.
But without a strategy, it’s easy to drift from helpful messaging to content that hinders growth simply because it’s too much.
With some intentionality and preparation, you have the ability to create strategic and effective communications for your church.
The solution to your communication problem is just four steps away!
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