20 Apr Church Communication: Increase Your Church’s Engagement with Text Notifications
Communication among large organizations has always been difficult. But, there are new solutions out there for you to utilize!
When email became more widely used and accepted, it took over many church communications. To this day, it is still an excellent and cost-effective platform for organizations to use. The problem? Email has been abused by marketers and brands so much so that people don’t check their emails anymore.
Cell phones have become people’s preferred method of communication, and today, it’s how engaged church communities are reaching their congregations.
Let’s dive into the advantages of text notifications.
What are Text Notifications?
Text notifications are basically just text messages that church administrators can send to their members or any other individual message groups that they’ve established.
When someone comes to a church for the first time and wants to get more involved, or when a church adopts this technology, members submit their number to the list. This list is then put into the program. From here, church administrators are able to send devotion plans, scripture verses, or the latest meme to their congregation.
The Facts Behind Engagement
The reality is that emails just aren’t opened as often as we’d like to think. You’ll always have that select group of people who keep their emails perfectly clean and who can’t stand having any type of notification unopened, but that’s not the majority.
For many people opening an email account that isn’t work-related isn’t something that they do every day, and sometimes, at best, they’re checking it once a week. After they receive your email, they’re actually only going to open it 20% of the time. That means your “important” congregational or community update is headed to a virtual graveyard, where it will never be opened.
This is where text notifications come in. With a 98% open rate and a 33% response rate when used for marketing, text messages have become the new best way to engage with your audience.
Forward-thinking churches have begun to use text notifications to stir lost engagement, especially among younger members.
What Else Can You Do With Technology?
You might be wondering what else you can do with technology or what else you’ve been missing out on. There are a few different options that you should consider taking advantage of. Some churches have used apps or giving portals, but we actually feel like an app is more costly than it is beneficial.
So, instead of using an app to increase engagement, consider text-to-give! While text-to-give is a somewhat newer technology, it has become more and more popular in churches. Better yet, consider combining text notifications and text-to-give. When text notifications are combined with text-to-give churches are seeing higher engagement, better giving, and in turn, a more healthy congregation.
What is Text-To-Give?
Text-to-give is actually a very simple program. It’s easily integrated into the giving system that you’re already using and it’s much easier than apps. The set-up process is as simple as one of your church members putting in their bank account info and setting up an online giving account attached to their cellphone number.
Whenever a member wants to give all they have to do is put in the amount and press send. The technology encrypts the donation request to securely transfer funds from the donor’s account directly into the church’s bank account. The best part? All of the giving records are easily accessed by text message as well! No more member portals or apps to deal with.
How To Know What’s Right for You
It’s not always a simple task to decide whether or not you should bring some of these new technologies into your church. But, there are a few different questions to consider that can help you decide whether or not text-to-give or text notifications are right for you. We laid some of those factors out in a recent post. Here are the questions to ask while looking for the best giving tool:
- Find the average age of your congregation. By doing this, you’ll be able to learn how that average age best prefers to give and what features you might want to have available.
- What platform is easiest to manage? As an administrator, you don’t want a program that’s difficult to manage or that challenges your ability to stay on top of things. You want a program that empowers you to continue to make your processes better.
- Will you use all you’re paying for? There’s a lot that some programs offer, and most times, you’re paying for way more horsepower than you’ll actually use. No need to spend more if you’re not going to use it all.
When you’ve done some research, and when you feel good about knowing where your community is at and what tool is going to best help you increase engagement, then you’re ready to begin your search!
Consider working with mobileAxept. We love supporting our customers and offer text-to-give and text notification options for churches. Reach out to us today to learn more about pricing and the value that these solutions can offer to your organizations.
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