Communication is a very important aspect of running a church.
Asides from helping to improve congregation management, it also helps to introduce your church to the rest of the world.
There are several tools of communication that you can employ at your church. One very powerful tool that we tend to neglect is “email.” Do you know that you can improve church communication using emails? Want to know how? Read on.
Why use emails for church communication?
Looking beyond the church, email is one of the most potent marketing tools that exist today. One of the reasons is that the average email open rate in 2021 is between 15% and 27%. Asides from this, most people get to read important emails these days because they access their emails via mobile devices. Let’s show you some reasons why you should use emails for church communication:
Inexpensive and easy to use
Sending emails doesn’t cost much. In fact, it saves you the cost of printing and or sending mails via post. Emails are pretty easy to use plus it saves a lot of time.
You can send a large number of emails with the click of a button from the convenience of your home or office. This is possible if you make use of an automated system like ChurchPad.
Measurable
It is very important to track your communication channels. Emails are among the easiest to track. You can get details on how many emails you sent, their open rate, and click rate very easily. Also, it is possible to discover the best times to send out your emails for higher open and click rates. Everything is measurable with emails.
Segmentation
This is one of the most important reasons why you should use emails for church communication. At a church, you have several groups of people. From first-timers to volunteers, staff to leaders, and congregants. Sometimes, you need to send certain messages to a specific group. Emails help you to achieve this pretty easily.
How do you improve church communication using emails?
For you to make church communication better through emails, you need to have a strategy. In this section, we will show you how to develop an efficient and effective church email strategy.
Define your purpose
Why do you want to make use of emails in your church? What do you want to communicate? Who do you want to communicate with? What do you hope to get from the process?
These are some of the questions that you must answer first. Your answers to these questions will determine the kind of strategy you will adopt. It will also help to decide on how frequently you should send emails and the kind of language to use.
Automate sending emails
Once upon a time, you had to add emails each week from connecting cards then add BCCs when sending emails. That’s stale. These days, all you need is to subscribe to an email marketing solution. Doing this presents you with manageability and convenience. It also helps you to track progress so that you can make adjustments when necessary.
Many of these solutions come with preset templates that you can build upon at your church. One of the biggest benefits of these solutions is scheduling emails. This helps to save time and effort. Check out email automation features on ChurchPad and see how they can be beneficial to your church.
Grow your email list
Using emails to improve church communication is impossible without an email list. You need to grow your email list to make it possible to send out emails. There are several ways to achieve this feat. Whichever method that you employ, you need to tell people why you need their emails.
You can begin by telling your church members to share their emails via a platform. Also, you can encourage visitors to your church website to provide their emails. When using this method, you can add a small gift for subscribing like a book, devotional, or message. Ensure that you always give people the opportunity to unsubscribe if they no longer want to receive your emails.
While growing your list, ensure that you create segments. Here are some examples that you can consider:
- Church Members
- New Visitors’ List
- Regular attendees
- Volunteers’ list
- Youth ministry list
Create premium content
You don’t want people to receive your emails for a while and unsubscribe, nobody wants that. How do you avoid this? You must create premium content. This part of your email strategy is the most important.
It doesn’t matter if you have a very large email list and you send out emails every day. If you don’t have premium content, people will not open your emails after a while. How do you create premium content?
The first step is to make use of catchy “subject lines.” They should be personalized, short, and capture the message of the email. You should test several subject lines so that you find the one that best suits your church.
Now, to the body of the email. Make sure that your email content is rich. Use it as a means to proffer solutions to problems, uplift the spirit of the reader, and pass quality information. Don’t beat about the bush. Instead, go straight to the point. Finally, don’t forget to add a “call to action.”
Test your strategy
Great job! Now, you have an email strategy that will help your church improve church communication. One part of the job is done.
Your next task is to test the system as much as possible. The more you test the strategy, the more you find what works for you.
Check the reports on your email marketing solution so you can track progress and make adjustments. For example, check what day of the week you’re open, and click rates are the highest. Also, check which subject lines have the most open rates. All of these will help you fine-tune your strategy to get the best one for your church.
Conclusion
We have shown you why you should employ emails to improve church communication. Also, we gave a few tips on how to build an email strategy. You can look through the church communication features on ChurchPad and see which ones suit your church.
