It's that time of year. A lot of churches have already established their budgets for 2015, and most want to do more with the limited funds that are budgeted.
When it comes to church communications, there are usually two goals for your church:
- Engagement: Let your congregation know what's going on.
- Evangelism: Let your extended unchurched community know that there's something for them at your church (or with God).
It sounds so easy, except there are so many tools to communicate, and each one takes time to create the appropriate content. Plus we all don't use the same method of retrieving information, and we all don't find the same content interesting. If you're trying to reach everyone in the ways they all like, it becomes expensive.
Here are two ways to stretch your church communications budget in the new year:
1. Focus on your website
Your communication tools should point to the center of your digital hub; your website. Make sure you love your website — the content, the structure, the design. If not, you'll end up having separate messages on various sources rather than pointing links to the Web content.
Focus on getting the website effective and everything starts to fall into place. It may cost a large portion of your budget, but it'll quickly be worth it if it's done properly.
2. Focus on SEO
Get Google to work for you. Optimizing all of your communication content so that the search engines become your evangelist saves the promotions budget. We're all geared to open Google, Yahoo or Bing to find anything we're looking for. If we get them to point people to you, it saves huge amounts of money.
Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't rocket science. Simply have focused content around certain words (keywords) that people in your audience would be regularly searching for. Look for unique words that state the concerns or pains that are solved in your church, then use those words (or solution words) in everything you do.
Another benefit? It helps your church become known for something that's useful and needed. Those keywords need to be added to your website's metatags and used regularly on almost every page.
These two focus points set a foundation for a communication strategy that will keep your congregation engaged while reaching the community for Christ. All within your budget!
If these are established properly, everything builds on them, and you'll keep saving money in future budgets as well.
