How to set objectives and measure church communication
TL;DR
Start with the problem you want to solve, define a measurable result, then choose the indicators and activities that support it. Content production alone does not tell you whether the communication is working.
It's not fun, but I've got to say it...
Now, I need to ask you to bear with me today, because today's topic is a little dull, but it matters.
I think a lot of churches are doing media because they feel like they should.
Post the sermon to YouTube. Cut a few clips for social. Send a weekly email. Make a flyer for the next event.
Keep everything ticking over.
None of that is bad, but very little of it is tied to anything specific.
It’s just… activity. So you end up busy, but unsure what any of it is actually doing.
Creating church media isn’t the goal.
It’s a tool to solve problems.
Like: “We want more people at the prayer meeting” “New people aren’t sure what to expect on a Sunday” “Our events get announced, but sign-ups stay low”
That’s where you start. Not with “what should we post this week?”
But: “What problem are we trying to solve?”
Once you’ve got that, everything else gets clearer.
There are four layers to this - I'm sorry if you already know some of this, it's for the uninitiated...
Objectives
Key Result/s
KPIs
Strategy and tactics
Let’s walk it through.
Define the church communication objective
This is the problem you’re trying to solve, turned into an outcome.
For example:
Get more people to attend the prayer meeting
Help new people feel confident to visit on Sunday
Get more youth coming to the weekend away
That’s the objective.
Set a measurable key result
This is where you make it measurable.
What would need to happen for you to say, “that worked”?
So instead of: “Get more people to the prayer meeting”
Your key result is: "20 new people to attend this month"
That’s your key result, you can measure it.
Choose indicators that show progress
These are the numbers you track along the way. They don’t define success on their own, they show whether you’re moving towards it.
So for that same prayer meeting:
You might track:
Clicks to the event page
"Add to calendar” clicks
Sign-ups (if you use them)
Reminder email clicks
Those are your KPIs.
Choose activities that support the intended result
This is what you actually do.
The plan to move achieve those KPIs, so you hit the key result, so you achieve the objective.
For example:
Strategy: Make the prayer meeting feel simple and worth attending
Tactics:
A short video from the pastor explaining why it matters
A clear event page with times and what to expect
Two reminder emails during the week
A Sunday announcement with a clear next step
A WhatsApp reminder the day before
Now this might sound very corporate and not very church-like, but we're doing it for the benefit of our church. We want people to be discipled, to grow in their walk with Jesus. To do that, we need to see some real evidence and we need to know if what we're doing is helping.
Now compare that to how most churches run things.
They post the sermon. They send the email. They make the graphic.
But there’s no clear problem being solved. No defined result. No real way of knowing what worked.
So everything feels like it’s “going out", but nothing is clearly moving forward.
When you know what you're aiming at, you can evaluate what you do.
You can see where things are breaking.
If people click but don’t sign up then the page or message needs work
If no one clicks then the post or email isn’t doing its job
If people sign up but don’t attend then your reminders or expectations might be off
So if you take anything from this, make it this:
Don’t start with content.
Start with the problem.
Then define: What are we trying to make happen? What would success look like? What numbers show us we’re getting there? What are we going to do about it?
That’s when church media starts to actually work.