PastorsLine: A PCO-approved mass texting integration

If you are a Planning Center Online member, chances are you have used their PCO mass texting feature. In many cases, it can get the job done, but as PCO states on their website: “If you need to create a more complex campaign with keywords and detailed tracking, you should stick with one of the texting services that integrate with us!” These include PastorsLine.

Advantages

The PastorsLine-PCO integration offers you several important advantages regarding bulk texting.

NOT YOUR PERSONAL PHONE NUMBER

Is your staff still using their personal numbers to text? This makes it very difficult to keep the boundary between “work” and “not work”.
When you join PastorsLine, you choose 1 or more dedicated numbers (according to your need). There are also the PastorsLine shared short code and shared high-throughput long code at your service. You, your staff, and your church members use those numbers to text.

First thing - None of those numbers are anyone’s personal number. So, if someone is taking some well-deserved down time, they do not get interrupted. Goes a long way to reducing pastor and staff burnout.

Second thing - You can assign a number to as many staff members as you want. So, chances are, there will always be someone available to reply.

IMAGES

Unlike PCO mass texting, PastorsLine best church texting system allows you to attach inline pictures for a total size of 4.5 MB (all the inline picture sizes added together). You can also add additional pictures as links, or attach files such as PDF, PPT, MMS, DOC, DOCS. For files attached as URLs, the maximum size of each file is 100 MB. The total number of characters (message + links) cannot be more than 1600 characters. (This is the equivalent of about 10 text messages.)

SCHEDULING MESSAGES

You can schedule texts for individuals as well as groups.

We don’t always have time to dash off a text at the exact moment it is needed, especially if it is to a PCO list. And usually, those texts are messages which we knew in advance that we would need. SMS such as announcements of upcoming events, reminders to register, or nurturing of first-time guests.

That’s why the PastorsLine scheduling feature is so useful. You can prepare your messages when you have time and schedule them to go out automatically as needed.

In addition to reducing stress, scheduled messages mean that you will never miss sending a text due to lack of time.

KEYWORDS

Keywords are powerful because they can trigger any campaign or automation within PastorsLine. Even better, your users can use these keywords independently from their mobile phones, whether you are there or not. In other words, keywords trigger the process automatically, so you don’t have to.

Here are two examples:

  1. For your VBS, set up groups according to ages (UPTO5 or UP25 / 5TO10 or 5210, etc.). When parents text in the keyword, their child is automatically placed in the correct group.
  2. Having a church dinner? For menu-planning purposes, the keywords “AllFood”, “Veggie”, “Vegan”, “GlutenFree”, “NonDairy”, “AnotherNeed” will let you know the numbers you need to prepare for.


To which number can your people text keywords? It could be to your text-enabled church landline or your PastorsLine 10-digit long code (regular number). You could also reserve keywords for texting to our PastorsLine 5-digit shared short code. With long codes, the numbers are unique, so the keywords don’t have to be. With the shared short code, the number is the same, so the keywords need to be different. Either way, you can choose from a virtually endless supply of keywords that match your church goals and culture.

TWO-WAY MESSAGING

Getting the word out is important. Yet, good relationships are not one-sided. Your people need to be able to get in touch when they need to. That’s why PastorsLine offers personalized, 2-way SMS.

Using merge fields such as [first name], your PCO mass texting has a more human feel. When your people reply, only you see their message, not the entire list—just like 1-to-1 texting. And of course when they text you first, it’s just between them and you.

SOUNDS GOOD BUT WE ARE BACK TO CHURCH NOW

In other words, you don’t need texting because you are seeing people in person.

First of all, we share your joy that your church has returned to face-to-face, rather than virtual, meetings!

However, we’d just like to point out that people are still on their phones in a huge way. In fact, depending on their age, people may be texting others while in church, even though they could speak to them after the service. Many of us have just gotten used to communicating in this way. Also, phones have greatly replaced other reminders such as calendars and diaries. The SMS on your phone jogs your memory about your dental appointment, upcoming bill payment, etc.

So, even though people are now meeting in a church, church “business” is still being done on the phone.

PCO users get 1500 bonus credits during our 30-day free trial (no credit card required).

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