In season three, episode thirty of the Missional Marketing Podcast, our church growth strategist, Bart Blair, shares valuable insights on how to optimize your church email communications. Based on a blog post and lead generator from Salesforce, this podcast episode presents ten practical tips to make your church email more effective. By implementing these strategies, you can enhance engagement, build trust, and achieve your email objectives. Let’s dive into these valuable recommendations and explore how they can revolutionize your church email communications.
#1. Understanding Your Objectives
Begin by defining your email goals. If you don’t have established goals, it is difficult to create emails that best serve your organization and your readers. Every email you send should add value, but gauging the value you’re contributing depends on your overall goals. Establishing clear objectives, such as reducing unsubscribes or increasing clicks-to-conversions, helps you focus your email strategy and avoid subscriber fatigue. Every church should focus on its open rate, its click-through rate, and the frequency and consistency of unsubscribes. If you send too many emails without a goal in mind, you risk lowering congregational trust. Take time to establish specific goals that align with your church’s mission and communication objectives.
#2. Including All the Details
Ensure that your emails include essential contact information, social sharing buttons, and unsubscribe links. When a subscriber opens your email, they should be able to find all the information they need at a glance. Whether they want to contact the church or get an event address, they should not have to search for this information. And even though we never want people to unsubscribe, the option should always be easily accessible. This communicates transparency and builds trust. By providing these details, you make it easier for recipients to engage with your content, share it with others, and reach out to you with questions or needs.
#3. Letting the Unengaged Go
To maintain a healthy email list, you might need to say goodbye! If a segment of the contacts you send a weekly email to are unengaged and don’t open your emails, sending more won’t serve them well. Instead, consider segmenting unengaged subscribers and sending them targeted win-back emails. If someone hasn’t opened or clicked on your emails in 90 days or more, it may be time to either re-engage or move them to a different audience. Tailoring your email communications improves your overall engagement and optimizes your resources.
#4. Accommodating for Mobile
One of the biggest mistakes church communications directors make is designing emails on their desktops and never checking how the layout looks for mobile users. The reality is most people check their emails on their phones these days. So ensure your emails are mobile-friendly and display well on any device and email client. With the world becoming increasingly mobile-first, providing an elegant mobile experience is crucial for engaging your audience and delivering your message effectively.
#5. Making the CTA Shine
In most emails you’re sending out to your congregation, you’re asking them to do something. Whether it’s to sign up for a class, come to an event, host a Bible study, or volunteer, make sure you highlight your call to action (CTA) through strategic use of color, placement, and text treatment. By making your CTA visually distinct, readers can quickly understand the purpose of your email. A distinct CTA makes sure your directions are easy for people to follow so they can take decisive action with all the information they need to take the next step.
#6. Breaking Things Up
Most people opening your emails may have a tendency to scan through the text and find the information they’re looking for most. An email with a massive amount of text and no visual breaks makes this almost impossible. Instead, you can improve the readability of your emails by breaking up content into bulleted text and short paragraphs. Organizing information in digestible chunks enhances comprehension and engagement, and also helps people follow your CTAs more quickly because they can easily identify their next step and take it without feeling visually overwhelmed or overloaded with information.
#7. Telling a Story
Utilize the power of storytelling in your email communications. Craft compelling narratives that resonate with your recipients, making your emails more interesting, shareable, and impactful. By telling stories, you automatically increase your open rate and engagement rate, which are wins for everyone. Stories also provide an opportunity to reinforce your church’s mission and values, creating a deeper connection with your audience. For more information on how to implement this well, check out our recent podcast on writing story-based emails here.
#8. Grabbing Their Attention
People receive a lot of emails each day, so using a short, catchy subject line can help your email stand out. Craft concise subject lines that grab your readers’ attention and drive open rates. Short and medium-length subject lines tend to have higher open rates, as they are less likely to be truncated on different devices or email providers. Keep your subject line to 50 characters or fewer for maximum impact. Play with different subject lines to see what connects with your audience and drives an increase in open rates. If you’re using story-based emails, use a subject line that helps people connect with the story you’re telling.
#9. Making It Personal
Most email platforms allow personalization integrations so your email can be addressed to the subscriber’s individual name rather than using a general greeting or salutation. Leverage the subscriber data at your disposal to personalize your emails. Simple personalization techniques, such as addressing recipients by their first name, create a sense of connection. As you gather more data, explore advanced personalization strategies tailored to each subscriber’s interests and preferences. The more personalized your email is, the better the experience will be for the user and the higher the retention rate will be as well.
#10. Making Sense with Segmentation
By breaking your list down into smaller segments, you can deliver more relevant content to the people receiving your emails. Segment your subscribers based on factors such as interests, life stages, and membership status. You can send personalized updates to church members with the inside scoop on decision-making and upcoming prayer points. Perhaps you also have a large group of people who are saved but haven’t been baptized. This is a great opportunity to send a personalized email to address their current need. Creating targeted segments allows you to deliver more relevant content and messaging that resonate with specific audience groups. Defining segments in creative briefs and reporting also helps your organization align on shared objectives and enhance overall effectiveness.
Next Steps
By implementing these ten practical tips, you can elevate the effectiveness of your church email communications. Understanding your objectives, incorporating essential details, and personalizing your messages will help you engage your audience and build trust. By optimizing for mobile, highlighting your CTA, and utilizing storytelling techniques, you will create compelling emails that resonate with your recipients. Additionally, crafting attention-grabbing subject lines, making use of personalization, and employing strategic segmentation will further enhance the impact of your emails. Embrace these strategies, and watch as your church email communications flourish, fostering stronger connections and driving meaningful engagement with your congregation. For more help optimizing your church communications, click here to schedule an appointment to speak with one of our marketing coaches.