By Uduak Umo
- What Should Church PR Be?
- What Churches Are Yet To Explore
- Is Pastor the Graphic Artist?
Evangelism and mainstream corporate Communication have strong
similarities in strategies that I will attempt to establish here. The
principles of both are the same, as are the effects and the expectations.
Handbill sharing is
direct marketing; Bulk SMS is direct mailing; Billboards: That’s Outdoor
advertising; Saturday Door-to-door is personal selling; Jingles on radio count
towards broadcast advertising; The TV and Radio sermons are in between personal
selling and product tasting. Street Rallies are marketing events.
Except for personal selling, the above are all essential for
awareness, basically. They ‘talk at’ the target audience. If properly engaged,
they may ‘talk to’. But they still don’t provide an efficient PR solution. None
can be regarded by a PR practitioner as Public Relations. They are all either
marketing or advertising.
With PR, you will be making use of next-to-free
communication procedures. You will spend some, but in PR, you will get ‘Earned’
publicity, which means that whatever you pay for is nothing compared to a run-of-the-mill
budget for marketing/advertising.
There are 5-star churches in Africa that practice Public
Relations, some big, some small churches. But they are all administered
corporate management style; and they demonstrate strong commitment to societal
values. A good number of others are as
uncultivated as they come from a PR perspective. I’d say they spot a wild
public image, but for politeness. [See the figure above].
WHAT Should Church PR Be?
PR is tested to work efficiently for Corporate
organizations, Personality brands, merchandise, politicians, whole industries
and even not-for-profit organizations; why should it not work for you, church?
Why does God’s wisdom keep inspiring tools that everyone but God’s church is
using?
PR, unlike sister Communication programmes, will use a 2-way
communication model. The reality of this feels like a no-no for many a church
leadership. But it shouldn’t be so. As long as you will speak the language of
man, and you’re sent by God to man, you must hear from God, and hear from man
too.
You will not just hear from men, but adjust your style based
on feedback - Your style, not your message. That is what we refer to as 2-way
symmetric model of communication. As an individual in PR and who has been a
church leader, my most effective tactic has been listening.
PR That Churches Are
Yet to Explore
Press Conferences – To the best of my knowledge, churches in
Africa began to use Press Conferences in Lagos and South Africa. It still isn’t
a widely used strategy. Wrong, unless what you offer is not newsworthy. If it
is, then call a press conference; engage a PR professional to plan that for
you.
2-Way Communication – This is a model, not a strategy per
se. We lose the world because we are only interested in talking at them. But
Jesus sought feedback clearly, in Luke 9:20. The scriptures also charge us to
pause and learn from our environment; “…look
at an ant. Watch it closely; let it teach you a thing or two” (Proverbs 6:6
Message Translation). Dear Church leader, you need to both receive feedback
from around you, and learn from it.
Research – The greatest undoing of organizations that offer
sound products is their lack of PR research. Find out what trends; carry out
sentiment analyses on relevant topics. Using a socio-scientific survey, you can
measure the temperature of Spirituality in your town. You cannot bring a ‘Word
in season’ when you have no grasp of the Season. For churches who do not want
to spend a part of their budget on this, do you really want to depend on evangelism
with untrained church workers to gather statistical data for you?
Budgeting – This is a fundamental part of PR programmes. A
budget is a plan. Churches must plan before embarking on projects. While
budgeting is not a PR tool, it is a PR plan to contend with, along with other
PR plan ingredients like SMART* objectives, audience identified, media etc.
CSR – Churches in Africa have hardly demonstrated social responsibility.
I don’t know much about what obtains in western nations. However, lately,
church medical departments have organized medical outreaches and so on. But
these programmes have not been tagged CSR, either because the organizers don’t
know the name or the programmes are of insignificant effect. But, imagine your church organizing an
annual nationwide campaign against Genetically modified foods, Breast cancer,
HIV spread, Stigmatization of suspected witches etc. And they brand all
campaign assets, events, souvenir, activities with the Church identity. Imagine
the level of positive support they would be able to acquire.
Sponsorships – How many projects related and unrelated to
your church vision has your church sponsored? How do you partner with other churches
or corporate organizations for social causes? How many church logos do you find
on the same sponsorship page as UNESCO, USAID, Amnesty International,
Transparency International and the likes? If any, how many times?
Endorsement – The issue of getting endorsement for Church
will be subject to yet more debate. Firstly, I will not subscribe to anybody
who is not a good role model of character to endorse a Church brand publicly.
But how about church begins to learn the skill of growing its own individual
prospects and talents? Learn to spot a prospect when it is yet in children
church; invest any amount in developing the individual. When they become
celebrity, chances of them becoming horrible role influences will be slim. The
command to “Train up a child in the way
he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6), was not for parents
alone. In Africa, for example, back in the day, the community raised the child.
Western civilization bastardizes this principle today. These ones, discovered,
trained, provided for, sponsored, guided and marketed, would make the most
reliable celebrity to endorse your Church brand tomorrow. They will do
so gladly, and at no fee.
Ask Christ Embassy what they benefit from Frank Edwards, Sinach,
Joe Praise and the likes.
Events – How do you package your events? How excellent is
your protocol? How structured or fluid is the sequence of programmes? You don’t
need to spend millions to get the best events. Spend time fine-tuning the
planning and test-runs. Call in a creative event manager, whether he/she is a
member or not. A lot of people do not know that an event manager should have PR
training. It adds to the failures in getting an ‘encore’.
New Media - While it is more cost-saving to make Church workers man your Internet media communications, I'll strongly recommend you keep an option of a trusted consultant on the side. New media is eating away at dependence on traditional media real fast. But, hand New media into the hands of just anybody and you pay for it as damaging as it would have been efficient if a Pro was engaged.
There's a Church in Nigeria that trend their services on Twitter every single Sunday. As a result, the words Worship, Praise, Prayer automatically trend along. I encourage other Churches to consider similar initiatives. New media has come to open up the field for creative evangelism. Make use of it. How much does it cost to trend your messages? Less than 20,000 daily. But how much do you gain? Far more visibility than what 20k can achieve in 'old media'.
New Media - While it is more cost-saving to make Church workers man your Internet media communications, I'll strongly recommend you keep an option of a trusted consultant on the side. New media is eating away at dependence on traditional media real fast. But, hand New media into the hands of just anybody and you pay for it as damaging as it would have been efficient if a Pro was engaged.
There's a Church in Nigeria that trend their services on Twitter every single Sunday. As a result, the words Worship, Praise, Prayer automatically trend along. I encourage other Churches to consider similar initiatives. New media has come to open up the field for creative evangelism. Make use of it. How much does it cost to trend your messages? Less than 20,000 daily. But how much do you gain? Far more visibility than what 20k can achieve in 'old media'.
Who Is The Graphic
Artiste, Pastor Or Professional?
A second look at Advertising
Of course, churches advertise. The problem is that what
comes out, just like the figure above, is in most cases, strictly an
inspiration of top leadership. What I mean is, the media unit can only design
what the man of God wants, admires, and approves, not what is right. What is
right will definitely draw approval and admiration from the broader society –
that’s how to know what is right.
And please don’t tell me it is what God put in your heart.
If it’s the God Who designed heaven and earth, the inspiration should be
popular, artistic, appealing, captivating and inspiring in itself, because; 1.
He is the author of order (1 Cor. 14:33). 2. His’ is the Spirit of Excellence (Dan
5:12).
Your graphics, TV Commercials, Jingles etc should look as
divine as Nature – if God inspired it. If you cannot get the skill-set to
achieve this, at least get the mindset first.
This is not to say men of God should be left out of what
their media churns out. No. God has patterns for everything He builds. But He
may show the pattern to the Pastor or to any other person He chooses. But most
likely, it’ll be the Pastor if you follow Biblical examples. So, there is room
for men of God to see a vision, but if they’re not skilled in the relevant
vocation, they better find skilful people who can interpret that vision.
This applies also to all entrepreneurs, whether in commodity
business, music, movies, publishing, banking, manufacturing or processing
industries. You may know what you want, but not how to get it.
Note this: what you design will not be judged by you, but by
your target audience. Design what they understand, not what you like. Get a
professional, get a professional. PR is not a common sense affair.
My Pastor at Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Pst. Emeka Ukpai is an
example of one Church leader who knows what his media should be and how to get
it there. Added to His being anointed, He’s talented, smart, creative and
trained. His method is to paint the picture He wants, sitting next to the
artiste. At the end of each production, the media comes out ultra-excellent.
He’s so good that even his graphic artistes improve in creativity, working with
him.
As a PR practitioner working for church or any other
organisation, you should be an authority in understanding the differences
between your PR, Advertising and Marketing. In my opinion, when you conquer
this point, you are well on your way to being a PR specialist.
Uduak Umo is a chartered PR professional, based in Nigeria. Find him on Twitter @UdyUmo
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