Church and Sunday School Publicity: Practical Suggestions for Using the Printed Word to Extend the Influence of the Gospel
A 1922 handbook by Herbert Heebner Smith, associate director of publicity for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and a former newspaperman, that applies the methods of commercial advertising to local churches and Sunday schools.
What it is
A 1922 handbook by Herbert Heebner Smith, associate director of publicity for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and a former newspaperman, that applies the methods of commercial advertising to local churches and Sunday schools. It opens with three questions: what the church has to "sell", where it can sell it, and how to tell its possible market. Twelve chapters then move from advertising the church to its own members (oral announcements, weekly calendars, homemade posters) to reaching outsiders through letters, news items and paid newspaper space. Examples include a Nebraska pastor whose $1.80 weekly ads led the trustees to fund $200 a year, a Brooklyn church that stopped advertising sermon titles and advertised churchgoing itself, and a 1921 Easter campaign in Portsmouth, Ohio, paid for by merchants and bankers. The last two chapters cover medium, type, layout and headlines.
Why read it now
The book is an early case of marketing an intangible offer. Smith tells churches to translate the unseen product into concrete benefits (comfort in distress, companionship, child-training) and to write headlines that tell a story with an active verb instead of a label such as "First Methodist Church". Both still hold: eye-tracking studies by the Nielsen Norman Group since 2006 show that readers scan headings and the first words of lines and skip much of the rest. His letter advice also holds: write from the reader's side, open with a question, and enclose a reply card so the reader does something. His warning that promoting the preacher builds "an audience rather than a congregation" applies to any brand that rests on one personality. What has dated: he admits there is no data on church advertising and borrows commercial rules untested, and he assumes the newspaper reaches nearly everyone. Use: for a charity, school or community program, list its intangible benefits, then give each ad one benefit and a verb headline, not the organisation's name.
Passages worth keeping
Many churches have found, however, that overemphasis on the pastor and underemphasis on the message of the gospel has built up an audience rather than a congregation.
التركيز على شخص الواعظ بدل الرسالة يجمع جمهورًا عابرًا لا جماعة ثابتة، والجمهور يرحل حين يرحل الواعظ.
Most letters are advertisements addressed to a specified individual. As such they follow the laws of advertising, of which the first is "Find the point of contact."
الرسالة إعلان موجه إلى شخص بعينه، وأول قواعدها أن تجد نقطة التقاء مع القارئ قبل أن تطرح فكرتك.
I want to set my trap where the mice are plenty.
مقولة ينسبها المؤلف إلى مؤسس متاجر وولوورث: اذهب برسالتك إلى حيث يوجد الناس، وهم هنا قراء الصحف.
Obviously the label "First Methodist Church" as a heading will not go far toward inducing nonchurchgoers to read the advertisement.
عنوان يكتفي باسم الجهة لا يجذب من لا يعرفها؛ على العنوان أن يقدم شيئًا يهم القارئ نفسه.
The head over a news story really sells the story to the readers, or it doesn't.
العنوان هو الذي يبيع الخبر للقارئ أو يفشل في ذلك، وعنوان الإعلان كذلك يقود إلى نصه أو يضيّع ثمن المساحة.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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