Most household grocery lists start with the same things: eggs, milk, bread, apples…and then they divide into lists tailored to each family’s eating habits. Those first four items, though––those are the essentials. They’re the items that almost every household has on hand. If I don’t have at least these things in my house, I have trouble preparing quick breakfasts or lunches. My whole eating routine gets thrown off a bit.
If your church’s content strategy were a refrigerator, it would always be stocked with these essentials. It would have at least a few structural pieces that help you stay organized, engaging, and creative. The essential elements of your content plan help you spread the messages your congregation wants to be fed from your church leadership. Without ingredients, you can’t provide healthy meals.
So let’s dive into the essential elements your efficient, engaging church content strategy needs to create online conversations in your community:
Audit:
What are you working on right now? How is it working? Before you move forward with a new church content strategy, you need to take stock of your current inventory so you can throw away the moldy Tupperware, if you need to. Make a list of all of the relevant sermon series, blog posts, and other content that will still hold true for your church in the future. Be honest with yourself in this step! It's not about "getting good grades," it's about improving where you are starting from. Even if you don’t have much high-quality content that you can use moving forward, you’ll need to know your starting point.
It’s not very often that we change our messaging as a church, but sometimes we approach things in a new or more modern light. We could call these “competing strategies,” and they’re a red flag to watch for in your content audit. Take stock of the mixed messages you might have on similar topics. For example, have you started referring to your weekly groups as “small groups” instead of “bible studies?” Your website and messages should all be consistent with your new terminology.
|
Your content and programs aren’t the only thing you need to take an audit of. Before you make a strategy for producing future content, make a list of the staff and resources you’ll have on your side. Who will have the capacity to contribute fresh blog posts or help with social media? What kinds of software can you budget for to produce videos, graphics, and edit photos? This will affect the goals and standards you set next. Define your team before you begin to plan. |
Goals:
Your audit will show you where your current church content strategy is. Where do you want your content to take you next? Where do you want your church communications to be in 3 months when you’ve completed the content batch you’re currently planning? Or in 6 or 12 months? The point of content is not for content's sake. The point of content is to help your church members achieve their next steps and goals. Whether it’s to help them deepen their relationship with our Lord or devote more time to service––you need to create your goals around helping your readers grow in their faith.
Defining your audience:
As a church communicator, you should already have a good grasp on the personalities and people who make up your church. You know the general age ranges, lifestyles, household incomes, and the fun traits that make your members so unique. You even know many of the people in your congregation personally. But now you need to really think through how you can produce and promote your church’s messages to better reach and serve them. How do they like to communicate and be communicated with? What types of media do they need to help them mature in faith and connect better with the church every day? Answering these questions is an essential element in the content strategy process. It helps you know who you are speaking to so that you can be more personal, attentive, and welcoming. And it makes sure that you are keeping in tune with the heart of your church: the people.
Creating a calendar:
After all of this research and organization, you’re ready to create your actual content calendar. This is the one space where you’ll be able to lay out the messages the church is promoting, the campaigns it will be running, and even the events you’ll tie into all of your communications. It’s basically your home base for seeing what the church is talking about right now (and in the months to come). The dynamic, flexible document you create doesn’t have to follow a certain pattern or format. It can be in a Google Doc, Trello, project management software, or just a basic, shareable calendar app. You will learn and grow as you use the calendar––so remember that this is just the starting point. Now you can get to creating valuable content for your church! See our Ekklesia360 content calendar for an idea of how we set this up:
