8 Best Church Email Marketing Strategies to implement TODAY
One of the most efficient ways to reach your church members and donors is through email marketing. This involves careful content planning and a well-crafted message with each email.
If you are not wise or prayerful with your email marketing strategy, your emails can end up more like spam in peoples inboxes, and will not serve your purpose or mission. The idea with emailing is to find a way to reach out, connect, and get the reader to take notice of your call-to-action. Whether that is supporting your latest outreach program, or clicking a link for inspirational Bible passages for the day.
How can you go about church marketing in a way that is attractive, inspiring, and gets your message across without pushing people away?
Below are 8 ideas for how you can succeed and be more effective.
1. Use a reliable email builder.
An email builder helps you craft your message, and automates much of the business-side of marketing. A few reliable options include HubSpot, MailChimp, and Constant Contact
2. Make it Interesting, make it personal
Think beautiful, not boring. There£s a reason Christ called us “The Salt of the Earth”. Christianity should be full of flavor, deep, and your messages insightful. The last thing you want your emails to sound like is spam. Write as if you are talking to each individual personally, and try to stay relevant in each letter.
3. Let Your Call-To-Action Encourage Donors
Email marketing is a great way to plug an event, a fundraiser, or outreach program you are involved in. et your church members excited about the progress, but don’t be afraid to ask for help when needed. Most people who are used to receiving commercial emails will expect there to be some kind of call-to-action at the end. After speaking about your mission, always make it easy for potential donors to help you by inserting links that go directly to your website or donor platform.
4. Remember mobile device optimization
Most people nowadays access their emails on their handheld devices. Think about optimization for tablets and cellphones when choosing your email marketing platform. This is what is known as “responsive design”. When choosing a template, you can preview how your emails will look on which device. 73% of companies today know that this should be a priority. They choose their platform based on whether or not the emails can be optimized.
5. Stay Positive
Open your emails with lines that encourage peoples faith, not weaken it. It may be a very stressful and dark tie for many of those in your congregation. Use this channel of communication to bring some light, positive energy from the church, and a source of strength to those who may be struggling in this uncertain times.
6. Make it easy for others to share your message
Many platforms for email marketing will enable you to link snippets of your emails to your other social network accounts, such as Twitter and Facebook. You can make it as easy as a one-liner or a single Bible verse for your followers to tweet. This way, those who read your emails and are inspired by the message will be able to spread it to their friends, creating more awareness about your work and church. This is the best kind of marketing, by word of mouth.
7. Use email marketing to raise awareness and incentive to read your blog
You might want to save longer messages for blog articles, or your Sunday Sermons. But the emails are still a way to get people excited or thinking about the topic. You don£t have to disclose everything in the email. Simple put out a paragraph that links to your other content. You want to give them a bit of bait and then attract your readers to the “meat” of your message.
8. Your Mission of Serving Comes First
Yes, it is a method of marketing, but at the core of every strategy we can offer you should be your original vision to help empower and make lives better. Pray about each email you send out, and ask for Diving guidance to help you as you convey each message. You have a wonderful platform for reaching hearts and touching lives. But with it also comes a great responsibility to serve. For a quick refresher, here are some of our favorite Bible verses on service to remember as you craft your emails and marketing messages.
Ephesians 6:6-7 (KJV) Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eye service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.
Romans 12:4-7 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching;
Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
1 Peter 1:12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
For more inspiring tips on church marketing and ways to help your church grow, please see our recent blog posts and resources on the topic of service and modern-day leaders.
