Introduction
Now that you have your events planned you will be needing to promote what you are doing. This step by step guide aims to help you work through things you can do and what to think about to get your Tell: Serve: Give event noticed.
This guide covers
- what to think about before the event
- what to think about during the event
- ideas on how to encourage people to continue to connect with your church after your event
If you need further support or advice in promoting your event then contact Stuart Haynes, Director of Communications stuart.haynes@liverpool.anglican.org
If you do one thing make sure you put your event on A Church Near You and tag it TellServeGive19
Getting your Tell Serve Give event noticed
Step One – who is the event aimed at
Everyone has a limited amount of time and energy so we recommend you target the people who are most likely to be interested in what you are doing. You can then think about where you are most likely to find those people in your community.
Some examples
If you are doing a family friendly event then think about the schools, nurseries, parent and toddler groups that are close to you and engage with them.
If you have a sporting event then local sports clubs/gyms/societies may be a good place to target your publicity
If you are doing an older persons event then Age UK, Residential Homes and others may be good places to send publicity.
Things to do
1) Be clear who you are trying to attract
2) Get a database together of the groups and organisations that you could send information to. Don’t forget to check organisations social media (Twitter and Facebook). If this information is on their public websites and documents then you won’t have an issue with GDPR
Step two – what do you want to say about your event
You will want to put some publicity material together. So you need to think about
- What will attract the people you are trying to reach? Do you have something that will capture their imagination? People will often think about what is in it for them before going to something – so you may need to make your offer clear to them.
- A good way to make sure you have included everything is to answer the questions How, Where, What and Why?
- All the details that people will need – people can often forget times and dates and locations.
Step three – produce your material
If you are producing posters and flyers then use the logos and templates which you can find on our sidebar
- Work to make sure they are eye-catching
- Make sure you have a plan to distribute the flyers and posters (remember you target people in step one) and people to do this.
Step four – Update A Church Near You, websites and social media
Put all the details of your event on A Church Near You and make sure you tag it TellServeGive19. We will also be looking to see if A church Near You can capture sign ups and interest from the event.
Make sure your website has all the details. This is your most important action you can take. For more help see the sidebar.
- Post the event to any of your social media feeds. If you use Facebook for your church you should create a Facebook event. You can consider paying a small amount of money to boost your post to the people you wish to target. You can also pin a post or tweet to the top of your profile.
- Keep sharing the event on social media. Post it to our diocesan pages or twitter feed and always include the hashtag #TellServeGive You may also want to use #ComeAndSee and #AllWelcome. We will be monitoring those hashtags and will share and retweet
- Encourage others in your church to share and retweet your posts to give them a boost. Again keep using the hashtags.
- Post about your event on local community group sites and pages - particularly thinking about those you have identified in step one
Step five – tell your local media
- A well written press story has a great chance of being published in your local paper, here are some hints (Find our more at www.liverpool.anglican.org/Press-Release) linkneeded
- Make sure you put all the details in – include a quote from the event organiser or someone who can add spice to the story.
- Don’t forget to invite them to the event - they may not come
- Try to aim to get the details to them by the end of February. Most local newspapers are printed on a Tuesday for that weeks so try to contact them on Thursday or Friday before you want it to go in.
- If you know a local journalist by name direct to them – if you don’t know who to send your story to then communications@liverpool.anglican.org can help
- Put a contact detail on so the journalist can check with you
- Email details and a photo if you have one. The photo works best as an attachment but put the story in the main part of your email.
- Don’t be afraid to follow this up.
Step six – encourage your congregations to Bring One Friend
Word of mouth is the most powerful tool so keep talking to your congregations about your event encouraging them to come and to bring a friend with them. The more of your regular folk who are enthusiastically talking about this the more chance others will get excited.
And if we encourage our congregations to bring a friend once we may get them into this habit.
Things to consider during an event
Your publicity doesn’t stop when the event starts. There are things you can do to keep telling people. It may not bring them along but it could keep people talking about your church.
- Take plenty of pictures. You will need to be careful about safeguarding and permissions. You could designate an official photographer and let people know they are doing that role on behalf of the church. The simplest approach is to put up signs telling people what you are doing and what you will be using the photos for.
- Keep tweeting and posting on social media – using the hashtag #TellServeGive You may also want to use #ComeAndSee and #AllWelcome.
- Get some reaction from people at the event. You can use this as quotes and comments to keep others interested. This could include video soundbites (and try and grab a word with the bishop at your event).
Use this to do follow up stories on your website, social media and to the local press. Also, send your follow up stories to bulletin@liverpool.anglican.org so we can help publicise the stories.
Encouraging people to keep coming
Our aim is not just to create one event but to encourage people to keep coming to church so remember to use this event to promote different ways for people to keep coming. So:-
- Make sure you have plenty of information about church activities around on posters, flyers etc. Make sure those welcoming and talking to guests know what’s going on. You need to think about services, clubs and fellowship groups
- Take part and encourage ohters to take part in Lent Pilgrim - we will have some resources and you can find more at www.churchofengland.org/lent
- Don’t forget that we will have Mothering Sunday, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost and Thy Kingdom Come to look forward to and offer as things for people to do.
- You can encourage people to sign up to the Rule of Life at www.ruleoflife.org.uk
- You can collect information from visitors so that you can keep in contact. You will be GDPR compliant provided you tell people what you are using the information for, give them the ability to opt out and store the data securely. Make sure you have something to follow up the contact with. If you have a regular news email then join people to the mailing list. If you don’t then why not set one up? (for GDPR help go to www.parishresources.org.uk/gdpr/ )
Putting your events on A Church Near You
Tagging them TellServeGive19
We want all churches to put their events on www.achurchnearyou.com and tag them TellServeGive19. That way we can pull all the information into one place and we can also direct enquirers to go to www.achurchnearyou.com and find a TellServeGive event near you.
For help and support read these articles from the national church
How to add an event on A Church Near You linkneeded page doesn't exist
Tagging an event on a Chuirch Near You
Still stuck?
Email communications@liverpool.anglican.org
TellServeGive 2019
Resources and logos
Using the Diocese logo Style Guide
DioceseofLiverpool logo_black jpeg
DioceseofLiverpoo logol_black png
DioceseofLiverpool logo_colour jpeg
DioceseofLiverpool logo_colour png
Tell Serve Give logo colour jpeg
Tell Serve Give logo colour png
Tell Serve Give logo_textBlack png
Tell Serve Give logo_textWhite png
TellServeGive logo textBlack png
TellServeGive logo textWhite png
TellServeGive 2019
Posters
Download and edit these posters to use to publicise your event
A3 Poster editable
A4 Poster editable
A5 Leaflet editable
A5 Prayer Card editable
A6 Event Postcard editable
A6 Prayer Card editable
TellServeGive 2019
Guide to publicity
Download and print the guide here
From The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu
I am looking forward to coming to the Diocese of Liverpool in March for Tell Serve Give. I know you have some wonderful activities and events planned, but I am not the person you need to be telling about this. Make sure you upload your events to A Church Near You – do it today!
Start talking about them on social media, in your newsletters and wherever you engage with your local community. It’s time to tell the people in your diocese that exciting things are happening. Tell Serve Give!”
#TellServeGive
#BringOneFriend