Taking the Gospel Forward with SMS
Answer: When it is a Church Messaging App.
Let’s explain…
Your church probably uses a ChMS such as Breeze, Church Community Builder, Planning Center or Tithely(Elvanto) to help you with tasks such as:
Organizing member information
Handling check-in for events
Scheduling rooms and resources
Giving
Running small groups
There is another very important task—the ‘oil’ or ‘grease’ without which things usually get stuck. Know what it is?
COMMUNICATION
In the introduction to her upcoming book, “Church Communications (Methods and Marketing)”, author Katie Allred writes: “How can we take the gospel forward in new and exciting ways? I think the answer is in new and better communication.”
Most ChMSs have communication features. Usually, those are not built for “new and better” communication. You might need to add the PastorsLine church messaging app: a type of church management software that offers bulk texting and a variety of innovative features.
Some recent statistics
Data for 2022 gives some insights into business-client communication: only 5% of interactions happen face-to-face; phones are used 7% of the time; email is the top choice (51%) followed by other online tools (31%).
But that’s not the whole picture
It’s surprising that email is so popular. Email open rates are 17% on average with a clickthrough rate of 4%. In other words, on average, 17 out of 100 emails are opened. Of those 17, less than one person will take further action such as go to a website or click on a “Read more”. Not such a good result.
Compare that with SMS: a 95% open rate within the first 3 minutes of receipt AND a 19% clickthrough rate. In other words, 95 out of 100 people will read a text no later than 3 minutes after they get it. Of those 95, 18 will take further action. A much better result, right?
How could this relate to your church?
Your church is in the “business” of spreading the Good Word and supporting people as they walk with Jesus. Your “clients” are your church members and first-time guests. Adding SMS church management software puts you on track for “new and better” church communication.
The power of SMS
People are on their phones anyway. Use this digital device to your church’s advantage. Here are two examples.
One and done
Many of your church events repeat: the Christmas potluck, the Easter sermon, VBS, the youth concert, etc. Part of each event’s “to do” list is promotion. You want people to attend.
A PastorsLine “Automated Messages Campaign” (AMC) is a series of text messages: SMS 1 announces the event; SMS 2 is a reminder to take action (sign up, etc.); SMS 3 is a friendly memory jog, something like “Hope to see you tomorrow!”.
An AMC could also be a series of texts around a theme such as 21-day prayer, 40-day Lent, or 7-day devotional.
The text messages in an AMC are sent via a date-based [specific date(s)] or evergreen timer [based on the number of days after a person has opted in (via SMS) to the campaign] as suits your needs.
Tags
Basically, if you can name it, PastorsLine can capture it, store it, and let you use it in a variety of ways. Here’s what we mean…
Your church is holding a weekend prayer retreat. All the people who opted in via SMS are in a group named “Retreat”. Now, you want to organize the seating so that:
families with small children have easy access to the exits just in case;
those with walkers don’t have to move down the aisles to sit down;
those with wheelchairs can see and don’t block the walkways; etc.
Easy. Just set up the following tags: ‘None’, ‘Family’, ‘Walker’, ‘Wheelchair’. Then, text your Retreat group members. Give them the tag options and ask them to text back the relevant one.
You have effectively created sub-groups within your main Retreat group. Now you can set up the seating areas to successfully accommodate people’s needs. Then, based on their tag, send each person a text explaining where they should sit and how to identify their area.
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