Essential Communications Strategies for Small to Midsize Churches

The goal of this post is not to tell you what exactly your communications strategy should be. I can’t tell you that because I don’t know your church. But I can tell you it will be unique to your church, culture, gifts, resources, and a bunch of other factors.

Instead, the goal of this chapter is to provide helpful guidelines around how to create your strategy and what are some key factors it should include. Once you know what your strategy is, you’ll then be able to make better decisions around things like rebranding, platform choice, marketing, and more.

Keep it realistic

If you’ve been in ministry longer than a few years, you’ve no doubt encountered various connecting, announcements, marketing, and assimilating strategies from other churches and church networks/denominations. They are usually very detailed and demonstrate step-by-step the processes that should take place for any given communications pathway.

While exploring these resources can certainly be helpful, you’ve probably noticed that it doesn’t work to just copy and paste their strategy into your church.

There are many reasons for this but I believe the top reason is because many of these strategies were created with unrealistic expectations.

In a perfect world, you would be able to create an airtight plan to turn a first time visitor into a fully engaged member of the church. Unfortunately, it usually doesn’t work out this way. 

What if a first time visitor doesn’t fill out a connection card? What if they don’t leave their email address? What if the leader in charge of connecting with the visitor is out for the summer or just drops the ball?

This is why it’s so important to keep all of your church communications strategies realistic. That means you need to keep them practical, flexible, and relatively simple. 

Create a relational + automated hybrid

It’s tempting to create communications strategies that are very technical and automated. What I mean by this is the desire to create lots of automatic emails, texts, push notifications, and workflows that once initiated, does all of the work for you. 

While these tools are important and should be used thoughtfully (as I’ll talk about in just a bit), I do think it’s critical for small to midsize churches to always infuse a healthy dose of relational connection into any given process.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s look at three strategies for connecting with a new visitor.

Strategy #1: Fully Automated

A new visitor attends your service and during the announcements they are invited to get connected by texting a keyword to a number on the screen. They do so and are prompted to fill out a digital connection card by adding their name and email address. Once they do, this initiates a series of automatic welcome emails that are programmed to send out at various intervals over the next week, culminating in an invitation to return on Sunday and/or get involved in a ministry.

Strategy #2: Fully Relational

A new visitor attends your service and during the announcements, they are invited to hand in a connection card at the welcome table after the service. When they do, they are warmly welcomed and the connection card is placed on the pastor’s desk to call, email, or write to them to invite them to participate in a next step of some kind.

Strategy #3: Relational + Automated Hybrid

A new visitor attends your service and during the announcements they are invited to get connected by either filling out a digital connection card and by stopping by the welcome table afterward to get connected. At the welcome table they are first connected relationally and during that interaction, they are invited to connect digitally. Next, the person’s information is automatically put into your Church Management System, which initiates a notification to the pastor about the new visitor and starts them on a journey that includes both automated emails with helpful information and prompts certain leaders to reach out relationally.

While this third option is obviously the preferred method, I do want to point out a few reasons why.

First, the hybrid model gives the new visitor the option to connect personally or digitally. As you know, some people are more than happy to approach a welcome table and get to know a stranger. However, I would say most people are more hesitant. Providing both options shows you care for the different kinds of people out there.

Second, you’ll notice that both options lead to a digital connection card. If they fill it out during the service then great. If they prefer to meet someone and ask some questions first, or they struggle with technology and need some help, they can do that at the in-person welcome table. Regardless, all submissions move in the same direction and start the same process.

Third, the hybrid model allows you to automate things that don’t require a personal touch and need to be thorough and accurate. If you want to send an email with a list of ministries complete with sign-up links and contact information, then that email needs to be accurate and consistent. If you rely on a person having to read or recall all of that information over the phone, it’s not as effective.

Finally, this hybrid model allows you to include that personal connection that small to midsize churches do so well. Remember, there’s a reason they are visiting your church. They want personal connection. But they also want great communications. The hybrid model allows you to provide both.  

Focus on primary strategies

As you begin to create or clarify your communications strategies, I think it’s important to focus on the primary and priority strategies. The following list is not exhaustive, but they do provide a well-rounded start:

Outreach: How to reach new people who are not currently connect with a church

Welcome: How to get visitors who attend an event or service connected at the church long-term.

Vision: How to get new and existing attendees/members to understand and embody the mission, vision and core values of the church.

Announcement: How to get new and existing attendees/members receiving church announcements and updates.

Engagement: How to get existing attenders/members engaged with upcoming sign-ups, groups, and events.

Each of these strategies are essential to the health and growth of the church. While they may have some overlapping steps, each of them need their own strategy, process, and accountability, because none of them happen by accident.

Before you go any further

It’s tempting to skip the strategy step altogether. Maybe you’re thinking, let’s get our new logo created, since that’s something people see and are asking for now. But how do you create an effective new logo when you haven’t clarified your target audience and how you’re going to reach them? How do you know what order to create your systems and which ones to choose if you don’t know the process these systems will be required to host?

If none of this makes sense to you, I’ll just say it this way: you can’t put the cart ahead of the horse. So before you rebrand, create a new website, build out a church management system, really spend some time thinking through some of the primary strategies and how you want them to work in real time. This process will give you direction and insight that will come in handy for every other step.

Let’s go back to the example I used earlier with the different connecting processes. Let’s say you decide on a hybrid model of connecting with new visitors and you need your communications systems to be able to do x, y, and z. But you’ve already chosen a church management system and it turns out, it doesn’t do x, y, and z. Now you need to either change your strategy or change your ChMS. 

So do yourself a favor. Put in the work. Collaborate with your team and leadership to create your primary communications strategies. Then, use these strategies to guide the rest of your communications development process.

Next Steps

I hope you found this blog helpful and given you the direction you need to take those first steps toward creating and maintaining thriving communications in your church. 

Every year, Clearpath partners with churches just like yours to help them create thriving communications. Here’s a few action steps you can take when you’re ready:

Action Steps:

Learn more about Clearpath: https://clearpath.church/

Download the Church Communications Blueprint: https://clearpath.church/blueprint

Start an Assessment: https://clearpath.church/assessments

Start a conversation: https://clearpath.church/contact