THE 5 QUESTIONS THAT
DRIVE OUR EMAIL MARKETING FEATURES
Companies like Constant Contact , Mail Chimp and others have turned email usage into a science . Rather than adding the burden of third-party integration , we asked around and chose to build the most powerful features into our Church Management email system .
Here are the big picture questions underlying email and how they relate to these features .
Purpose : Is this email personal or mass ?
Personal email is expected to NOT have a bunch of color and images , just to-the-point text . Our basic editor or the default Advanced editor is set up so that you can just jump in and start writing your email . Mass email like a newsletter , giving statement , or youth ministry update is more attractive and fun if you add images , gifs , color and creative layout . Our Advanced editor which is default in most situations was built to give you easy to use flexibility .
Mass email : Lists , filters or groups ?
Before we built out our full email marketing feature set , we often used groups to manage lists of people targeted for certain emails . With our upgrades the last few years , we now encourage churches to move to lists . Lists are familiar and give subscribers more control to unsubscribe in ways groups don ' t . Filters give you the ability to select who to email based on groups involvement ( or lack of involvement ), member attributes , giving habits or a combination of these . Filters put the full power of the database and reporting at your communication disposal .
Timing : Send now or schedule for later ?
Most of us are used to writing an email and then just sending it . Professional email marketers do research to find optimal times and / or subject lines that people are likely to respond to by opening the email . Our Email History tool gives you the analytics to run experiments like this yourself . One church found the best time to get responses for first-time guest emails was Tuesday at 3 p . m ..
Lots of us use the same schedule tool to create an email that we want people to get after an event we ' re working on . It can also be used to schedule a sequence of follow-up emails . Workflows are designed to help you sequence emails ( example : guest follow-up , on an ongoing basis ).
Branding : Be original or use templates ?
Personal and one-off emails often allow for either no or completely at-will layout and color creativity . But as churches are sensitive to developing a consistent message , they recognize that imaging and the use of colors ( branding ) is an important part of communicating that message . The Advanced editor was built to give you this creative ability . Once all the work of creating a branded email is done , you ' ll want to save it as a template . Once saved , the template is available for use over and over again . Often churches simply change out the content while using the same template . Sometimes templates are just commonly used emails .
Personalize : Dear Friend or merge tags ?
It ' s natural to write a person ' s name when sending a personal email . It adds warmth and attention and helps the author focus on his / her audience . Mass emails often are sent as newsletters with no salutation or a generic one , like “ Dear Friend .” Our Advanced editor has a merge tags option that allows you to add the warmth of a personal greeting to a mass email .
10 CHURCH EXECUTIVE