Chuck Scoggins | Web + Print + Video Design

Want to get more volunteers for your ministry? You could put an article in your weekly handout, monthly newsletter, email newsletter, etc. You could have a big “volunteer fair” or some other big serving campaign. You could guilt people in to volunteering. But I think there’s a better way.

Do you currently have people serving in your ministry area? Would you like to double that number? Why not pick up the phone and ask every volunteer to bring a friend to serve along with them. The benefits should be obvious:

• If every existing volunteer recruits one more volunteer, you double your workforce. Think about what would happen if each one brings two. Think about what happens when the second generation of recruiting takes place.
• It builds in a value of “recruitment” to the DNA of your ministry.
• If friends serve with friends, your existing volunteers and new have a more enjoyable serving experience.
• People who are already serving probably know how best to recruit people that are perfect for the job!

Yesterday I saw this quote in a post about search engine optimization:

It’s not about getting as many people as possible to quickly visit your page. It’s about getting the page in front of the people who are likely to be interested in what’s there.

This was in the context of page rank and other SEO, but it got me to thinking about our role as communications professionals. Often, we view our job to be the person who gets the message(s) of our organization out to as many people as possible. However, this is a misguided approach that creates unnecessary noise and stress in people’s lives. Our goal should not be to get our organization’s message out to as many people as possible; it should, rather, be to get it out to as many of the right people as possible.

An Example From the Church World

As Communications Director, there was a constant reliance on the weekly service handout (most churches call this their bulletin) to provide all the information for all the ministries to all the people of the church. Most of the time, however, the individual pieces in the handout only applied to a handfull of people that were receiving the document. For example, if we were promoting a women’s ministry event in that publication, roughly half of the people who received it (the men) were not the target audience. Asking the men to sift through the women’s ministry content is asking them to ignore all the content. And 50% is a best case scenario…the number drastically drops when you start promoting smaller ministries, support groups, niche groups, etc.

A much more effective use of the weekly handout would be to cast vision and point larger groups of people toward larger next steps and toward larger church-wide initiatives. Then, use targeted and specific methods to reach the smaller groups with their own interest-content. Examples of these targeted methods might include Facebook groups, direct mailers, email newsletters, etc. This approach gets the right information in front of the right people. It’s a value-added, relationship-driven model (more on that later).

The Buffet Is The Blanket

In my experience, the push-back was always, “well, what if there’s someone out there who is not on our mailing list or that we don’t already know about who might be interested in this information? Shouldn’t we throw a blanket out over the entire large group to make sure those people get the information about the small ministry?”

I would emphatically say, “NO!” Blasting everyone with messages that they might or might not be interested in is lazy and irresponsible. As the quote above implies, we should only put messages in front of people that those people are interested in hearing. And it’s you’re responsibility, not theirs, to figure out those messages.

One thing that is important to do is provide a highly-organized, user-friendly, buffet for people to access when they do want more. For most organizations, the website is the best place for this hub of information. In fact, the best approach is to build a massive wealth of information on your website and use your blanket messages to encourage people to go find info about their interest topic there.

Relationship-Driven

All of this is part of a larger approach to communications philosophy that I’m calling “relationship-driven.” In essence, today’s world is hyper-connected and the currency for ministries, non-profits, and even commercial entities is relationships. In actuality relationships have always been the most important part of our transactions (I think about how my grandfather went to the same pharmacy because the pharmacist knew his name and his drug history off the top of his head), but now more than ever we have the tools to connect with people of like-minds. Church staffers (and non-profit staffers and corporate leaders and everyone) need to figure out how to use these tools to leverage their personal networks for the purposes of communication. The need for the church bulletin, the ad in the Sunday paper, and even commercials on TV is becoming more and more scarce as people look to personal connections and recommendations as the primary informer in decision-making.

A relationship-driven approach to communications is harder. It’s harder to develop a network and work through a web of people connections than it is to take out an ad. But, the return-on-investment is much greater. It’s time to change our thinking, get out of our offices, and be amongst the people (literally and virtually/digitally).

One last thought…if you agree that the buffet is the blanket, start thinking about a progressive dinner!

Here is another kinetic video I just finished up. This one is pretty simple, but I think it has a good message. It could be used as a message opener, as a worship intro, or stand alone. It also has a pretty good Christmas flavor to it. If you want to purchase a copy, it’s available on SermonSpice.com. If you’d like a customized version of it, hit me up. Enjoy…

I just finished up this little kinetic text video. Let me know what you think.

What Is Christmas? from Chuck Scoggins on Vimeo.

You can purchase it (along with several other videos I’ve produced) over at Sermon Spice.

Occasionally on Tuesdays I give you my thoughts, unfiltered and off the top of my head. Here’s a special Thanksgiving video edition…

Occasionally on Tuesdays I give you my thoughts, unfiltered and off the top of my head. Here’s what I’m thinking about today…

• I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships & the communications implications lately. My friend, Justin Wiseposted this stat on his blog today:
  

  92% of Jesus’s time in the Gospels was spent in the martketplace amongst people. Not holed up in a church building. (And yes, I realize churches and synagogues are different. Hopefully you get the point). 

  I think it’s time we start depending less on our programs, bulletins, newsletters, etc. to get people to church and more on our relationships with others being the church. Thoughts? Push back? (side note: a conversation is happening here)

• I did a guest post over on MediaSalt.com (I love those guys) about Netflix and the church. Let me know what you think about it.
• Have you taken advantage of the Church Marketing Lab? It’s a great way to get feedback on your ideas and to add value to others design ideas as well. The collective wisdom of the group is better than the individual, right?
• I’ve been working on building my design business. It’s hard work! Here is a screen grab from one Christmas After Effects project I’ve been working on.
  
  Lots of layers going on there!
  If there is anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to let me know! 
• I updated my blog theme from a Woo Theme to Standard Theme and I’ve already seen a spike in traffic. And, I feel like the design is cleaner. What do you think about the new look?

That’s all from me…what’s going on in your world? 

Often, we dive into a project like a Christmas outreach or Christmas services without thinking about how it fits in with everything around it.

• How does it affect the ongoing activities of the church?
• How does it impact the public perception (brand) of the church?
• How can the momentum be leveraged to help boost the church in January?
• How does the energy and finances spent on Christmas yield positive returns?

Our holiday checklists become so busy that we often jump in and work hard to get the thing done. I’ve been there…trust me, I get it.

In my design concepts classes at Lindenwood University, I teach my students about a process to help them work through their designs from start to finish. It looks something like this:

1. Target Audience – Who are we trying to reach?
2. Message / Theme / Concept – What message or theme will reach them?
3. Composition – How can we compose our design in such a way to deliver the message or accomplish the theme?
4. Components – What elements do we need to use to achieve our desired composition?
5. Tools – What are the best tools (software in this case) to use for our design?

We’ve already examined how this applies to planning christmas with finding our target audience and looking at our message / theme / concept. Now it’s time to think about how our Christmas design (outreach, programming, services, etc) should be composed in relationship to the rest of what our church does.

In design composition, we consider placement, divisions, harmony, unity, alignment, and flow. If we use our imagination, I think these might help us in our Christmas planning as well.

Placement

How does the time, location, and arrangement of our Christmas services, outreaches, and events help or hurt the overall mission and direction of our church during this season.

Divisions
How can we use divisions, or differences from our normal programming, to give emphasis to the Christmas effort?

Harmony & Unity
How can we leverage our Christmas event to bring unity to our congregation? How can we rally our people around a common cause?

Alignment
How does what we’re planning for Christmas align with our mission and purpose? How can we plan it in a way that it causes the community to align with what we’re doing (as opposed to adding noise and complexity to this already-busy season)?

Flow
Again, how does our Christmas emphasis flow from what we’ve done throughout the past year to what we’re doing next year?

The process of planning for Christmas at our church is similar to planning a design project. By thinking about “composition,” we can make sure that our efforts in December aren’t an interruption to the mission, goals, vision, and calling of our church, but rather a part of the composed whole.

Next time we will look at some of the communications components that will help us reach our planning christmas goals. Until then, what are the things you’re doing to make sure your “composition” works for Christmas? Leave a comment…

Occasionally on Tuesdays I give you my thoughts, unfiltered and off the top of my head. Here’s what I’m thinking about today…

I read this post by Steven Furtick this morning before paying my bills for the week. I hate paying bills, but it is good to think of the blessings behind them. For example, it stinks having to pay the house payment…but it sure is a blessing to have a roof over my head. Paying the car insurance bill: not fun. But having a car to get around town in sure is nice. Often times it is a matter of perspective, right?

Speaking of perspective, it has been an interesting few weeks for the Scoggins household since I lost my job at Calvary Church (read about it here). However, it has been absolutely amazing to see God work though the process. Projects have been springing up from the most unexpected places to help pay the bills. I’ve been able to do some things that I’ve been wanting to do like writing posts for MediaSalt and doing some work at the Center for Church Communication. I’ve been freed up to do some things that I haven’t been able to do before, such as go on my kids school field trips and attend their Halloween parties at school. God is so good!

As I’ve been considering “what’s next” for me, I feel a calling to partner up with churches, non-profits, and small businesses that might need help with communications, media, or technology. If that is you, we should definitely talk! Shoot me an email or give me a call!

I’m thinking about writing an eBook on the topic of relationship-driven communications in churches. It would have some philosophy, some strategy, and some practical tips for implementing a relationship-based model. Would that be something that interests you? Let me know…if there is enough interest, I’ll take the next steps.

That’s all from me…what’s on your mind today?

Once we’ve determined your target audience, we can then begin thinking about what theme, concept, and/or message would be most likely to connect with that audience.

Theme

In design, there are a multitude of themes that we utilize to reach various audiences. To name a few:

• grunge
• graffiti
• clean
• minimalist
• dark
• organic

Similarly, depending on our target audience, we can choose a theme for our Christmas services or outreach. Are we going to have a family carnival theme? Perhaps a warm and traditional theme? Do we want to do something modern and technical? Some themes will work better than others in various contexts.

Concept

We can develop a concept once we know our theme. For example if we’re going with the carnival theme, we might choose to do an entirely outdoor experience with hayrides through christmas lights, petting zoos, a live nativity, games for children, etc. Or, we might want to go with an indoor puppet show, craft areas, and carnival-type foods. If  our theme is more of a modern approach, we might do something similar to Grace Church’s Little Drummer Boy program or Church on the Move’s Thriller/Grinch production:

Message

Ultimately our concept and theme will all need to work together in order to convey the message, brand, and image that we want guests (and regular attenders) to walk away with at Christmas. It goes without saying that we want them to hear the message of the birth of Christ, but are there other messages we want them to walk away with as well? How about the message of hope or peace? How about a message of avoiding consumerism or materialism. How about messages about our church such as, “we value the arts,” or “we are all about families here?” All of these factors are important to consider before we launch into the busyness of pulling off the concept.

The point is, we need to think about our audience first, then our theme, concept and message.

Christmas is a very unique time for churches in that it is the one time of year where people are most open to visiting a church or responding to an outreach effort. I’ve done my share of Christmas planning over the past 10 years in church communications. I know first-hand how crazy the season is for church workers and how important it is for us to think strategically about this time of year. As we approach the holiday season, here is the first of five areas we should be thinking about as we plan (as a side note, these are the same 5 big-picture design areas I teach through in my Design Concepts class at Lindenwood University):

Target Audience

If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time. – Zig Ziglar

There is a temptation as church communicators to skip the difficult step of thinking through exactly who it is you are trying to reach. The churchy answer is, “we want to reach everyone in our community.” It is a noble goal to try to be all things to all people, but it is not practical and not helpful as we do our outreach planning. Different age groups, people groups, and culture groups within our communities require different methodologies. For example, if the goal is to reach families at Christmas, we should have a different approach than if the primary audience is artists.

Questions To Ask:
1. Who is the group of people in our community that will go unreached if our church doesn’t reach out to them?
2. Who is it that we can reach that 1,000 other churches wouldn’t be able to reach?
3. What is the DNA of our church and, based on that, who are we best suited to reach?
4. What unique calling has God given our church in terms of outreach.

Our effectiveness in planning and execution will be much greater if we do a the hard work of selecting our target audience. Chances are good that by selecting a group to go after that we will attract those on the fringe and even outside of the target group as well. Don’t be afraid to target a specific audience.