AKA: “Something other than cheap Viagra, rich Nigerians, and knockoff Rolexes.”
Much to the chagrin of many, email is not dead yet. And it still provides a vital communications link between churches, their members, and their potential members. For many of these, who don’t do RSS, or Twitter, or really the Internet, email is the only real electronic medium they’re comfortable with. That’s why your church really should set up an email marketing program. It doesn’t have to be much – even if you just cut and paste content from your newsletter, bulletins, or blogs, it’ll work. The idea is just to stay in touch with someone, either to keep them informed or just to keep your church in their “peripheral vision”.
Smallbiztechnology.com identifies the four main purveyors of this service (here) – ConstantContact.com is one, and is a vendor I know has been used successfully by organizations I’ve worked with. This article goes beyond that, though, to remind customers of those services that they need to cross-promote and utilize email addresses gathered in other ways to grow email readership. For instance, do you ask for an email address for downloading forms or audio files from your website? You don’t have to ask for a registration, just an email – and allow them to skip that step if they wish (so you don’t alienate them). In a lot of cases, people will provide an address so they can hear about any other content they might be interested in.
ConstantContact provides a 500-email-address plan for $15/mo. You can check out the other vendors to price-shop, as well as look for features you want to have. Also, talk to whoever handles your website’s technical needs – some hosting packages (the guys who actually serve up your website) offer free or discounted options for email marketing as well. Definitely look into it, though – email isn’t going away anytime soon.