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Don’t have a communications strategy?

Not sure how to develop one?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Responses to the Communications Strategy Survey continue to pour in, and it’s clear that one of the biggest barriers to developing a better communications strategy many people have is they just aren’t sure how to develop one.

So many organizations skip developing strategy and jump right into tactics – that is doing the day-to-day communications tasks. But as Sun Tzu wrote:

Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. -Sun Tzu

May 21, 2013 9:13 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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Avoid defeat! Develop a communications strategy!

I’ve tried to prune the process down to its basic elements. I give you…

Communications Strategy in 6 Words

1) Why?

Why are we communicating? We can break that down further by asking some additional questions…

• Why does our organization exist? (Hint it’s in your mission/vision statement)
• What are the goals and objectives of our communications? (They should align with your mission/vision statement)

2) Who?

This question has two parts:

• Who are we? What is our brand? Our message? Our culture? What is it that makes our organization unique?
• Who are our target audiences? Who are we trying to reach? Who are our existing customers/members/students? What are their demographics? What do they like? What do they think about? What communications platforms are they already using?

3) What?

What do our target audiences have need of? What can we provide to them? You might start with the products or services you provide, but think deeper than that. What do those things provide? Security? Significance? A community of love and acceptance? A deeper connection with God?

Now what do our target audiences have need of from a communications perspective to experience those benefits? An invitation to visit our community of faith? Regular reminders of opportunities for spiritual growth? Notices of opportunities to try a product or service that will lead to better productivity, relationships, leadership or fulfillment? An online community for sharing ideas & discussing challenges?

4) How?

Now that we know what our audiences need, how can we best deliver that to them? This is where we finally get to talk tactics.

• What platforms should we use for each audience?
• What content will we publish to each platform?
• What’s the content schedule going to be?
• Who is going to do what?
• What systems, processes and policies will we use?

5) ¿Cuántos?

That’s “how many?” for you gringos To keep the theme of one-word questions I had to mix in a little Spanish lingo. Once we’ve determined our tactics, we need to decide what we’re going to measure so we can evaluate our success. What metrics are we going to track? What are our numerical goals?

Note that tactical metrics are useful (e.g. number of Facebook shares each month), but the most important metrics are those used to evaluate whether our objectives (our why) is being achieved. How many people visited our church, bought our product, or signed up for our ministry newsletter after first hearing about us on Facebook? Twitter? Google search?

6) Where?

Where do we go from here? What is our process for reviewing our metrics, adjusting our tactics and revising our strategy?

Strategic thinking will never be simple or easy, but I hope these 6 words help give clarity to the strategic planning process. And I hope that clarity inspires you to do the hard work of developing a great communications strategy!

Discussion

• What comments or questions do you have about this approach to developing a communications strategy?
• What would you add, remove or change?
• Which of these questions do you need to address in your organization’s communications strategy?

Also see: 4 Common Barriers to Developing a Good Communications Strategy (and How to Overcome Them)

“Most people don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.”

That’s what I wrote in yesterday’s post, What Is a Communications Strategy? because the sad truth is most organizations don’t have a communications strategy.

We want to better understand how well all types of organizations – businesses, nonprofits, schools and churches – do at developing a strategy for their communications and where they need the most help. So, we created the Communications Strategy Survey.

Your Survey, Your Results

I will first share the results of the survey in the breakout session I’m leading June 5 at the Biola Digital Conference.

The following week, we’ll publish more extensive analysis in a blog post here. Our hope is the insights gained will serve as a springboard to discuss how, together, we can improve our own strategic thinking and create resources to help organizations develop better communications strategies.

We want this to be a collaborative effort. So, if you want to slice and dice the raw data yourself, we’ll even make that available (excluding the email addresses of participants, of course).

Go!

Please take 2 minutes to complete Communications Strategy Survey.

Then please share this post on Facebook, Twitter, G+, email, smoke signals, maybe a tattoo.

Hey, why wait for the survey results to start the discussion. Post a comment…

• How do you feel about your organization’s communications strategy?
• What is the biggest barrier to an effective communications strategy?
• What strategic communications resources would be most helpful to you?

I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be leading a breakout session at this year’s Biola Digital conference June 4-6 at Biola University near Los Angeles. As the conference website states…

The biola.digital conference is designed to empower individuals with the vision, knowledge, and relationships necessary to be thoughtful stewards of digital technologies for the cause of Christ.

Join us as we gather together like-minded people around one primary goal: to understand how we can use digital technologies to accomplish the missions of our organizations. The conference will be organized around three tracks: Education, Strategy, and Theology.

There will be a slew of great speakers and sessions including keynote speaker Michael Hyatt.

My Session: Grand Central

In the last decade, the number of communications platforms has exploded. In addition to print and mass media, we now have websites, blogs, enewsletters, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ plus dozens of other smaller social networks and private social networks. What could be great new opportunities to connect people with your organization often becomes an overwhelming mess of chaos.

In my session titled, Grand Central: Making Your Website a Powerful Hub of Communication, Connection & Growth, I’m going to:

• Show you how to strategically organize all your organization’s communications channels so they all work together to help your organization achieve its mission.
• Teach you how to evaluate any communications platform (even those that haven’t been invented yet) to determine whether your organization should be using it or not.
• Provide you with the key elements of a successful website that attracts new people and inspires them towards ever-increasing levels of engagement.

It starts here, now

In the weeks leading up to the conference, I’ll be blogging about communications strategy and…

• Launching a survey so we can all get a better idea of what organizations are doing well, where they’re struggling and the most pressing communications strategy issues.
• Sharing some of the concepts I’ll be presenting in my session.
• Using your feedback and comments to refine my presentation, including possibly citing quotes and stories you post in comments.

So, what do you think of the conference? Will I see you there?

And what do you think of my topic? Does it resonate with you? Does it sound like it provides a compelling solution to a problem you’re struggling with?

Internet Evangelism Day is April 21. That’s just 2 days away.  If your organization has not done anything to prepare, don’t worry, it’s not too late.  IED is all about letting the folks in your organization know about the great opportunities we have to share our faith online and encouraging them to make the most of those opportunities.

So even if this is the first you’re hearing about it, you can write a blog post about sharing your faith online, tweet/share someone else’s post about it, or start a conversation in social media  by asking a question like, “What do you think about sharing your faith online? Have you done that? How did it go?”

Evangelism… Yes, There’s an App for That

A lot of people are apprehensive about trying to explain their faith to their friends.  ”What if it comes out all jumbled?”  ”What if I sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about?” “What if my friend asks me a question I don’t know the answer to?”

Intervarsity Christian Fellowship has developed the New World Gospel Presentation mobile app to help with that.

Based on material from True Story by James Choung, this free app helps you illustrate the main points of the gospel message by drawing four “worlds” on your screen.

Suggested dialogue and Scripture references are included for each world to help you explain the gospel as you draw.

The opportunity to make a decision for Jesus Christ and join his mission to heal the world is presented at the end; a suggested prayer is included.

Features 

• Draw each world by tracing its outline as you explain each step.
• Save or erase your drawings.
• Flip each of your drawings over for suggested dialogue and Scripture references.
• Offer a suggested prayer to Jesus for those who want to commit their lives to Christ.
• Email a PDF recap of the New World Gospel Presentation to follow-up after your discussion.

The app is available for iOS (iPhone, iPod, iPad) and Android.

What do you think?  Could this app help you share your faith more easily? Could it help your friends or the people in your church or ministry share their faith?

Digital media have transformed the world in the last 15 years. We have entered a new ‘digital communication culture’ where all the rules for effective communication have changed. Even offline!

There are 2+ billion web users, and over 5 billion people use mobile phones (increasingly these are web-equipped). The Web is not just another means of communication, but a hyper-medium that subsumes, links together, and enhances all previous media.

It’s in this context that Internet Evangelism Day takes place this Sunday, April 21.

Internet Evangelism Day is…

… NOT a single day in which Christians are encouraged to share their faith online – we should be sharing our faith online every day.  Rather it is an awareness day in which churches, schools and other Christian organizations make a concerted effort to inform their people about the myriad of opportunities and resources available to help in the sharing of our faith online as well as challenge and inspire each other to be more intentional about making the most of these opportunities and resources.

We at OurChurch.Com have blogged a lot about IEDay and ways to share our faith online in the past.  Here are some links to some great ideas!

• 20 Ways to Share Your Faith Online
• 14 digital ideas to share with your church
• 12 Ways to Share Your Faith Online with Instagram

What are some ways that you’ve shared your faith online?

Is your church or ministry doing anything to raise awareness about sharing our faith online on Internet Evangelism?

If not, there is still time.  And at the very least, you can champion the importance of sharing our faith online by blogging about it and sharing stories and ideas in social media.  You can do that, right?

This month we’re posting an SEO FAQs blog series (that’s Search Engine Optimization Frequently Asked Questions) to share with you everything you ever wanted to know about SEO!

The series is designed for the leaders and communications directors of Christian churches, schools ministries and business who know having good search rankings is important but are not SEO experts.  The series is designed to help you understand what SEO is, why its important, what questions to ask an SEO company and how to evaluate SEO companies and services so that you can select the option will best help you achieve your mission online.

As we publish new videos & blog posts to this series, we’ll add to the list of links below.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About SEO 

1. 3 Ways to Achieve Your Organization’s Mission Through SEO
2. What Does It Take to Rank Well for My Keywords?
3. Should SEO Companies Have Guarantees?
4. Should I Do Adwords or SEO?
5. 3 Things You Need to Know Before Contacting a SEO Company
6. Info You Can Find About SEO Companies to Narrow Down the Field
7. Is SEO really that important?
8. Don’t Be Fooled! SEO Services Are Not All The Same
9. How Long Should it Take for Me to Rank Well for My Keywords?
10. How to Get Into Google and Bing
11. Is Search Engine Optimization an Investment or an Expense?
12. Search Engines: The Gift That Just Keeps Giving
13. The 5 Essential Elements of Local SEO
14. Before Hiring a SEO Company You Need to Ask These 6 Questions
15. How to Stay on the Right Side of Google
16. So, What is SEO, Anyway?

What questions do you have about SEO?

Hi Everyone, today I have the pleasure of introducing the newest member of the OCC team, Calen Fretts.  Calen is our new web developer / IT guy.

Since two of my 2013 communications resolutions are to make better use of video and Google Plus, I thought I’d introduce Calen by interviewing him in a Google Plus hangout.

From a communications strategy point of view, many of you who are web hosting and custom design clients will have the opportunity to interact with Calen.  My hope is that through this video, you get to know and trust Calen a bit, so that when you work with him you already feel a bit of a connection.

If you’ve got any comments or questions for Calen or just want to say hi and welcome him to the team, please do so in a comment below.  Thanks!

Continuing our series on web hosting FAQs, in this video I talk about the benefits of working with a Christian web hosting company.

Read the full transcript: Web Hosting FAQs: Why a Christian web hosting company?

While there are probably other benefits to working with a Christian web hosting company, the two that stand out to me are:

1) Shared Mission

I can’t speak for all Christian-led companies, but we at OurChurch.Com view our clients more as ministry partners because when all is said and done, we share the same mission – to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and see His kingdom advanced. Our ultimate goal is not to provide our clients with a service we can provide as profitably as possible, but to help you achieve your God-given mission.

2) Shared Understanding

Again, I can’t speak for other Christian web hosting companies, but every one of the people on our team at OurChurch.Com is a Christ-follower and an active part of a local Christian church. We are a part of Christian schools, para-church ministries, and have led missions trips.  We understand how communications, websites, boards, budgets and approval processes work (and often don’t work We can recommend and provide solutions that secular  companies simply don’t get.

What do you think?  Do you think there’s value in working with a Christian organization for your website and web hosting? Why or why not? Are there other benefits you see in it?

Continuing our video series on Web Hosting FAQs, in this video I answer the question, how much does web hosting cost?  However, there may bigger costs that are often overlooked?

Read the full transcript: Web Hosting FAQs: How much does web hosting cost?

The simple answer is that web hosting can be anywhere from free to $30 a month.  There are lots of web hosting companies that charge about $5 a month for a web hosting account.

Unseen costs?

Since we’re talking about a difference of only a few dollars a month from one web hosting company to the next, the biggest cost you may experience may not be the monthly fee.  Consider the following…

Disabled accounts: If your web hosting company promises “unlimited” bandwidth and disk space, but then right when you are experiencing a big surge in traffic they shut your account down for “excessive use,” how much will that cost you in terms of lost visitors, customers or ministry opportunities?

Poor support: If you have a problem with your website but can’t get any help for 2 days because the web hosting company has outsourced and scaled back its support, how much will that cost you?

Un-Christian values: If you pay GoDaddy for your web hosting or domains, during last night’s Super Bowl, you got another reminder of what your money is funding.

The bottom line is that when there’s only a few dollars a month difference in price between various services, price is probably not the most important factor in the buying decision.

What do you think?

How important is price vs reliability, support, values or other factors in your web hosting decisions?

Continuing our series on Web Hosting FAQs, in this video I explain what bandwidth is and why you should be wary of web hosting companies who offer “unlimited” bandwidth.

Read the full transcript: Web Hosting FAQs: What is bandwidth? Unlimited Bandwidth?

Many web hosting companies these days promise unlimited bandwidth with their web hosting services. The fact of the matter is that’s just not true.

If YouTube came to them and said, “Hey we want an account with you for five bucks a month, so we can do unlimited transfer of all of our videos.” They’re obviously not going to be able to do that.

There’s no such thing as unlimited bandwidth

Every web hosting company that promises unlimited bandwidth has a limit, they’re just not willing to tell you what it is. At some point if you use too much bandwidth (or disk space or CPU processing power), they’re either going to slow down your connection or they’re going to cut you off and discontinue your account.

At OurChurch.Com we’re up front with you about how much bandwidth you get with each web hosting package, and we don’t offer “unlimited” bandwidth.

What do you think about companies that offer web hosting accounts with “unlimited” bandwidth?  Have you ever gone with one of them only to find out otherwise later on?