ALPHA YOUTH SERIES: COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING TIMELINE This is the recommended communications and marketing plan for the English version of the Alpha Youth Series (AYS), which will be available from October 2017. If you’ve only just translated the current Alpha Youth Film Series and/or the Alpha Film Series in the past year, please feel free to use this plan for ideas on how to promote these other Alpha products and engaging with churches in general. Our aim is to equip NAOs to build momentum, create a buzz and ensure your existing churches already running Alpha are well-resourced with the AYS. We will also aim to suggest ways in which you can engage with churches which are not currently running Alpha in the youth context to ensure they are aware of this youth-specific resource and how it will enable them to run Alpha easily. This document also includes a recommended plan for social media. Feel free to contact us at comms@alpha.org with any questions. Timeline overview:
Asset delivery:
- Tease and Engage: Feb – Sep 2017
- Coming soon video
- May – August: Teaser and trailer videos
- Launch: October 2017
- Introductory blog post (feel free to duplicate this for your own Alpha websites)
- June: Editable versions of banners, posters and postcards
- February: Landing pages on Alpha.org (likewise, feel free to duplicate this for your own Alpha websites)
- September: Training guides and videos that are more specific to the Alpha Youth context
- Roll Out: Ongoing from early October 2017
- February – August: Behind the scenes images and videos
- August: Press release
- Early 2018: International masters and scripts for translation
FEBRUARY Church engagement Work with your Alpha Youth Coordinator(s) to identify key youth pastors and leaders who are already engaged with the current Alpha Youth Film Series and, where possible, are active on social media. These will be your potential early adopters/key AYS advocates. Create a list of these advocates and reach out to them, letting them know about the new AYS and invite them to sign up to your Inside Track or existing churchfacing newsletter. The Inside Track: This will be similar to the Alpha Film Series’ Inside Track newsletters which give churches an exclusive preview of behind-thescenes videos and production information before they are shared publicly. Through this channel, you can then capture early adopters for the AYS. We will be sending you a monthly Inside Track newsletter that you can forward to these advocates
if you so wish. You can also pop the content into your existing church-facing newsletters.
The existing Alpha Youth FIlm Series social media channels will also be phased out, with them all directing to the global Alpha channels.
By reaching out and cultivating a relationship with advocates you can generate an authentic buzz around the new AYS. This can be just as influential (or more influential) as a single influencer tweeting once.
Share: - The Coming Soon video - The landing page on Alpha.org or duplicated on your own Alpha website
Website
Encourage your followers to follow Ben and Jason to journey with them as they film on location.
Decide if you’d prefer using the global AYS landing page on Alpha.org or duplicate it on your own Alpha website. All assets to do so are on the Alpha Hub, Alpha Global site.
Example posts - Get ready for the new #AlphaYouthSeries launching late 2017! - The #AlphaYouthSeries will be reimagined and redesigned this year. Watch out for new episodes coming late 2017 - Introducing the brand new, totally reimagined #AlphaYouthSeries. Coming soon in 2017. - We are launching an updated, totally reimagined #AlphaYouthSeries! Stay tuned for more information
Social media With the new AYS, we really want to promote the idea of one Alpha, many contexts. Therefore we would appreciate if you kindly refrain from setting up separate Alpha Youth social media accounts in your country. Instead, we highly encourage everyone to integrate the AYS content into your Alpha channel.
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and a look behind the scenes as presenters Ben and Jason lead us on a journey to explore life, faith and meaning. Events Research and get in touch with any events e.g. key Christian festivals, conferences, etc. that might be suitable to present Alpha at. This will be a good opportunity to introduce the new AYS to churches. Alternatively, decide if you’d prefer to organise and host an Alpha conference or training event that you could invite your advocates and other churches to. Print/Online/Broadcast Research Christian broadcasters, online blogs, youth magazines and partner online pages. This will be a good channel to promote the AYS to churches and potential Alpha leaders not already known to Alpha. A press release will be available in July.