New waves in Promotion

One big priority for us at NMC Student Ministries is clear communication and promotion... to our leadership, students and parents. It's a tough battle trying to communicate on all fronts. The biggest trick is due to the variety of communication styles, and each individual's preferred mode of communication.

Scenerio - An important deadline is approaching for an upcoming trip we are having. We want to make sure our leaders know so we can have our staff in place. We want to make sure students know about the trip and want to go. We want to make sure parents know so they can have the forms and money prepared by the deadline... how do you communicate it?
... upfront Sunday Morning and Wednesday Announcements
... Church Bulletin
... Announcement Slide
... Mailing
... Website
... E-mail
... Phone Calls
... Face to Face promotion
... Peer to peer promotion

The answer is "YES." They all come into play. The person who never reads their mail closely may listen well on a Sunday morning. The one who wasn't there on Sunday or Wednesday may hop online to the website or check e-mail to see if they missed anything. The one who doesn't believe in technology will want to read it in their Church Bulletin.

It's ineveitable that a significant event or deadline passes and a student or parent says, "I didn't even hear about it." To which I want to bang my head against the wall and scream, "Are you serious?"
We've been talking about it for the past 2 months on Wednesday Nights.
You received a brochure and application in the mail 2 months ago, and a postcard reminder 2 weeks ago.
It's been in the bulletin on a regular basis over the last 2 months.
I talked with your son about it three different times!!

The reality is that getting information and promotion into the right hands at the right times is tough. And despite our best efforts, people can honestly and sincerely just "miss" the info.

We're not going to give up though. Two new initiatives we are taking at NMC Student Ministries to make sure our parents and students are getting valuable info...

1. Senior High Blog: As mentioned yesterday, this is a great spot to discover what we're covering on Wednesday Night. This is a great spot for parents to go and get a pulse for where we're heading. This can help parents initiate spiritual conversation with their students.

2. NMC Senior High Text Alerts: The primary mode of communication has become the cell phone. It's very rare for someone to not have one. We are in the process of getting students, and soon parents registered if they would like to receive text alerts (event reminders, important announcements, upcoming deadlines). Students who have a limitted text plan must mark that they've received permission from parents before registering. How are we doing it? We're actually sending the text messages through e-mail. Read more about it here.

Our goal, to make sure we are connecting leaders, students, and parents on our efforts to see students move from Religion to Relationship to Spiritually Reproducing.