3 Reasons Churches Should Use Text Marketing Immediately

Today I am going to talk about why text marketing or text communications is going to take your church communications to the next level.

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but in the past year or two, text communication is starting to become very, very well accepted, in terms of getting communications from businesses and other entities.

You've probably received an Amazon package on your doorstep and gotten a text message when your package arrived.

Maybe you've made reservations at a restaurant or set up an appointment at the doctor, gym or dentist.

The day before you get a text message saying, "Hey, just wanted to confirm your appointment is coming up tomorrow at 11 o'clock. Please text, yes to confirm or please text no to cancel." 

1. Consumers are comfortable with text communication

Using text messages to engage with consumers is something businesses are starting to do more and more and more. Consumers with smartphones are actually getting more comfortable with this. It's no longer a kind of spam, like with email where I get messages I don't want. It's actually messages I want, and I'm much more apt to open those things.Text marketing is becoming bigger and bigger, and consumers are getting more and more comfortable with businesses doing it. And thus, they're going to get more comfortable with you as a church doing it to them as well.

2. No one leaves a text message unread 

I'm sure you could probably look at your phone right now and every one of your messages have been read. Maybe you've been in a meeting and you've got a handful of them, but you know you're going to read those messages More often than not, you're going to respond to those messages or you're going to do what those messages ask you to do. Way more so than email. Certainly more than the phone, print mail, direct mail or anything like that. Text messaging is a highly, highly effective way to engage people once they've given you permission.

3. Text messaging is a great way to prompt action 

I have a couple examples of this. If you're a church and you put up a screen during a Sunday and say, "Hey church, if anyone here is new today, we want you to text the word new to this number." When someone texts the word new, maybe they get a text back from the Senior Pastor with a link to a YouTube video with a personal message telling you that they're grateful to see you at church today. Now you have that person’s phone number in your database. You can send another text message that says, "Hey, if you want to receive more updates from us, text the word yes." They text yes, and now they've approved and they want to hear messages from you.

Another great example is when you have a big event coming up. You've got your database of member’s mobile numbers and you send a text message out to that whole list saying, "Hey, kids' camp is coming up. It starts in three months. We need you to start registering. Here's the link. Click here to register." They click on the link for a great mobile optimized event registration form and now their kids are registered for camp. 

These are three quick reasons and a couple examples of why you definitely need to start looking into text communications and make it part of your communication strategy as a church.‍

Show Notes

Read the full blog of this episode here: https://get.tithe.ly/blog/churches-text-marketing

Today on Modern Church Leader, Tithe.ly COO Frank Barry explains 3 reasons why your church should already be using a text marketing tool built just for churches.

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