Churches have so much information to share with members during the Easter season — from details like dates, times, and locations of events to inspiring content such as live streams and archived sermons. Each piece of information is unique and vitally important, and the better you can communicate with your church members, the more engagement and involvement you’ll build with your Easter programs this year.
As Easter draws near, here are five steps you can take to streamline your communications (with an extra bonus tip that ties everything together — so make sure you read all the way to the end!):
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Plan, Plan — Then Plan Some More
There’s still time for a final analysis of your communications strategies to determine how you can scale effective components for Easter or create new standards. Especially during a busy and spiritually significant time such as Easter, well thought out plans for what you are communicating about your church, how you’re getting the word out, which messages can be automated, and when your communications will have the most impact can save your church staff time and energize your engagement with church members. (We’re big on planning at e360 — our designs start with dedicated strategic planning to help churches accomplish their goals.) -
Utilize Your Church Data
When you can analyze and understand your church data — including member interests, attendance, giving, and other factors — you can better target key messages to specific audiences, giving your members information that they find relevant, useful, and inspiring. With a strong Church Management Software program (we’re partial to e360 ChMS, as you can imagine), you can create targeted audiences, groups, email and postal mailing lists, and additional segmentations that will help make your communications more targeted, precise, and insightful in the leadup to Easter Sunday and all year long. -
Use Your Church App
Especially during the pandemic, people have developed more trust of mobile apps for their day-to-day lives — from ordering dinner and shopping for groceries to making appointments and paying bills. Similarly, and especially as anticipation builds for Easter services, your app can help members stay connected and involved with your church and help them better engage with your ministries. Easter is a great time to put your app to work to give your congregation access to live streaming, past sermons, event registration, online giving, volunteer opportunities, ministry updates, and more, all in one centralized platform they can access with a few taps on their phone. (Don’t have an app? Ekklesia360 can connect you with a customized church app with powerful features, so you won’t miss opportunities to keep your members engaged.) -
Maximize Your Social Media
Most growing churches understand the need to have a social media presence and heighten their engagement leading up to Easter. The key is to make these channels as informative and accessible as possible for your church families as they plan for Easter. A strong online presence management tool allows you to link your website to your Twitter or Facebook accounts — so when you publish an event, blog post, sermon, or article, a link to the new content is automatically generated, with the ability to send the link to your social media channels along with relevant text. This eliminates the step of needing to your social media pages to publish an update to a new piece of content you created. Linking your website directly with YouTube and Vimeo lets you easily upload your videos to these services and easily add this content to your website. Social media management is a key Ekklesia360 website feature because it saves church staff time and connects your members more directly with content they care about. -
Live Stream Your Easter Services
Another great communication tool for Easter is to live stream your services. Not everybody will be able to attend in person, so it's important to have an online option. Whether people are traveling out of town to visit family or they're under the weather, your live stream will help connect your online community. It's also a great way to share the gospel message with more people. Plus, you never know who is interested in attending your church but wants to get a sneak peek before showing up in person. And Easter is the perfect opportunity to give them a glimpse into what to expect.
BONUS TIP: Apply These Strategies Throughout the Year: These communications strategies can make a huge difference for your Easter programs, but they can all apply to every Sunday, every weekday, and every event or program your church has planned… throughout the entire year. After the rush of the Easter season, look at your data and engagement, seek out feedback from church members and staff, and determine how these communications strategies made a difference and where they can be implemented and expanded for upcoming events. Every program your church offers is a chance to bring your current members and new guests closer to the Gospel and into a deeper relationship with Christ — so you always want to get the word out.
