How are you reaching your members on all the days they’re not at church?
For many years, email was the mainstay. It’s still an excellent and cost-effective platform for faith-based organizations to use. The problem? Email has become so abused by marketers and scammers that many people don’t read their emails anymore. Only 20% of emails even get opened.
This is where text notifications come in. Texting is now the method to communicate that almost everyone uses and prefers. With a 98% open rate and a 33% response rate when used for marketing, text messages have become the new best way to engage with your community.
So let’s talk about how churches can use text notifications to build relationships with members and increase participation.
What are Text Notifications?
Text notifications are basically just text messages that church administrators can send to their members or any subset message group that they’ve created. You can invite members to opt in to text notifications in a variety of ways, from completing a simple online form to checking a box on a connect card to texting a keyword to a number you provide.
Your church can use text notifications to send:
- Short Bible verses relevant to the season on the Christian calendar
- Event reminders or changes
- Project updates
- Fun or happy news or memes
- Giving appeals
- Daily or weekly devotions
- Volunteer opportunities and sign-up links
- Calls for prayers
- And more!
The list of ways to effectively use text notifications to increase participation with your membership is endless.
Text Notification Best Practices
In addition to receiving opt-in confirmation from members, there are some best practices to follow in administrating text notifications. Using text notifications judiciously is important.
If you’ve ever signed up to receive marketing texts from a company (say to receive a discount on your first order), you know there’s such a thing as too many texts. You can invite your members to opt in to certain kinds of texts but not others by creating notification categories. For example, daily devotions. Some members might really appreciate a daily message, while for others this frequency would be way too much. Allowing members to provide their preferences up front will help you communicate with them respectfully.
Here are some other best practices:
- Send no more than 1 or 2 messages a week.
- Keep the messages very brief and friendly.
- Proofread and format professionally. Avoid all caps and too much punctuation.
- Schedule your messages to be delivered between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
- If individuals respond to your texts with questions or comments, be sure to answer them one-on-one.
i3 Nonprofit Solution’s Text Messaging is used by many churches across the country to effectively communicate with members via text.
We’re a faith-based company that works closely with churches to help them grow impact.
Our tools were developed by pastors. Back in 2006, we saw we could use our gifts to help other churches effectively use digital community-building and giving technologies. That’s been their mission ever since!