Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

The build-it-and-they-will-come approach worked for Kevin Costner and baseball. But as a media strategy, it’s a strikeout.

All too often, we have a great event or a unique fundraiser to which we’ve committed time, energy, and money. But we wait until every other detail is complete before we think about how to promote the event. Or we post it on our Facebook page or to a listserv and then sit back and wait for the swarms to emerge.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: A good media strategy isn’t an afterthought. It’s developed and woven throughout any project. And it’s proactive, seeking to put the information in front of the storytellers at every level, from the neighborhood newsletter to the regional radio station, from the diocesan newspaper to the church-wide press. 

As you’re developing the strategy, consider these three principles: 

1.  Audience: Who am I trying to attract? Who would be interested in this event or story? The Shrove Tuesday pancake supper has a local audience, so send notices to the community newspaper and radio stations. Put a stack of flyers in the narthex for parishioners to take and distribute to friends and colleagues. Advertise well in the church newsletter and Sunday bulletins. If you’re having a special fundraiser for Haiti in the weeks after an earthquake, your audience broadens to the region, both in secular press and within the diocese. And if your congregation led the charge for a new state law or pressed hard for community action on behalf of criminal justice reform or fair labor practices, then the story may be of interest throughout The Episcopal Church.
2. Uniqueness: Let’s be honest: every church has a Christmas Eve service. And most offer a heart-warming nativity play with darling children in robes and pillowcases. This is an important event, but it probably won’t rise to the attention of NPR’s Terry Gross. But a church in my diocese holds a Christmas in July service, complete with greening the church and Christmas hymns. The service is a reminder that the miracle of Jesus’ birth should be celebrated throughout the year, not just for a few weeks in December. That’s unusual enough that Episcopal News Service might run it on the church-wide site.
3. Relevance and context: Your church may have supported the local gay pride walk for two decades. But this year, President Obama has announced his support of same-sex marriage. At the same time, the people of North Carolina have defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Secular papers are looking at different ways to tell this story, and your church’s history of support now has a “news peg” – or contextual relevance to the news of the day.

Now that you've figured out the angle of the story and at what level to pitch it, it's time to play ball.