A Communications Glossary for Pastors and Volunteers
Why’s it so complicated?
It can be dizzyingly complicated to wade through church communications. But there’s a reason for that: we’re trying to slog through industries that were largely designed with marketing in mind.
Additionally, we lack technical communications expertise in the church writ large, and often find ourselves straddling the line between technical experts (who sometimes miss the “why” and consideration of the actual people in the pews) and pastoral authors (who sometimes miss the “how” while skimping on evidence).
To that end, I’ve compiled a glossary to help you translate between the two worlds, and hopefully find it easier to wade through technical mumbo-jumbo.
Glossary
Audience
In email marketing, groups of contacts comprise your audiences. Audiences are generally a subset of the entire email list, and contacts can be included in multiple audiences. i.e., you might have a “prayer requests” audience and a “weekly newsletter” audience.
Bounce Rate
A bounce rate is measured by percentage, and represents the number of users who viewed a single page on your website before exiting (i.e., the percent of users who “bounce” off your site). For example, a 75% bounce rate indicates that for every four users, three leave without viewing any other pages.
Channel
Channels are the platforms, accounts, and means by which you communicate. For example, email, physical media, and websites are separate channels.
Click
Clicks occur when a user follows any link or button, regardless if it comes from a physical mouse, touchscreen, trackpad, or screen reader.
Click rate
The click rate represents the total number of clicks relative to the number of users. For example, a 10% click rate indicates that for every ten users, there is one click.
Content
Content is a broad term that refers to the “guts” of your communications. For example, a blog post, social media post, and newsletter article can all be the same content, simply repackaged in a variety of ways.
Direct or Private Message (DM and PM, respectively)
A direct or private message arrives in the messaging inbox of your social media account. Only the sender and those with access to your social media account can view it.
Email Campaign
Emails sent via email marketers are called email campaigns, because they often encompass several channels at once.
Email Marketing
MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Emma are examples of email marketing. Email marketing describes the ways businesses and organizations reach audiences directly through email.
Engagement
Engagement is any form of interaction on social media, email campaigns, websites, etc. that goes beyond viewing your content. Commenting, “reacting,” sharing, clicking, and bookmarking are all examples of engagement.
Engagement rate
The engagement rate represents the number of engagements relative to the total number of users who view content. For example, a 5% engagement rate indicates that for every twenty users who view your content, there is one comment, share, or other engagement.
Impression
Impressions are the number of times a piece of content is displayed to users, regardless of whether it's clicked or interacted with.
Landing Page
The first web page viewed by a user is considered the landing page. In marketing, landing page can refer to a standalone page that is linked on social media and precisely targeted to a particular audience.
Organic
This describes any impression, engagement, click, or other measurable data that was not a result of paid marketing or advertising.
Page Views
Page views are unrelated to the number of users. There can be multiple page views per user.
Reach
The total number of unique users who received your content in their feed.
Referrer
The unique origin of a new or returning user. For example, “Facebook.com,” rather than “social media.”
Sources
For web traffic, sources indicate the means by which users accessed your site. For example, “Organic search” (unpaid search via a search engine), “Direct,” (typing a URL into their browser), or “Paid social media” (ads on Facebook, Instagram, or other platforms).
Traffic
Web traffic is the number of people visiting a website and the data they generate through their interactions.
Unique Users
The total number of users, including returning and first-time users.
Want to dig deeper?
If you want a more comprehensive glossary, check out Sprout Social’s glossary for social media terms and HubSpot’s glossary for web terms.
