Email marketing for churches…a good idea?!

Should your church be using an email marketing tool? Well, it depends on what you mean.

Many people call any professional tool that sends email to lots of people an “email marketing” tool. In this sense, yes, every church should have the ability to send an email to all (or any group) of its members.

Further, some churches *think* they have this capability already because their member management or ChMS (Church Management System) claims to be able to do it. But that’s where churches get into trouble. In almost all cases such systems are simply not up to the communication standards of any well-run, healthy church community (for which good email communication is – and will be for a long time – essential).

These other types of software typically fall short because they:

• Are very limited in their ability to make your emails look nice and professional
• Do not understand how to send email to avoid spam filters and protect the reputation of your server or domain (this is simply not their expertise)
• Are not CAN-SPAM compliant (allowing people to opt-out, manage preferences, etc.)
• Don’t allow you to track who opens it, unsubscribes, or clicks links
• Don’t capture replies very nicely (if at all)
• Don’t make it easy for you to spin-off and manage personal one-on-one conversations based on people’s replies
• Can’t handle large group conversations without annoying everyone
• Don’t make it easy for multiple admins to manage all of this
• Are not Safe Environment compliant
• Are not fun and easy to use
• Are not made so that all of your ministry leaders can each log in and communicate with their own groups just as powerfully.

Thriving churches require something much, much better. And in their search for such, they often come across some of the most common business solutions out there (like Constant Contact and Mailchimp) which happen to be “email marketing” tools.

And though these email marketing tools can be extremely powerful and well-made, and solve some of these other problems I just mentioned, they are usually not a great fit for a church either. That’s because these email marketing tools:

• Are made for hard-core marketers, not ministry leaders
• Add a lot of other complex features you don’t need…90% of which your team will never use
• Have more complex interfaces and take longer to understand and use confidently
• Are too difficult or annoying for many of your ministry leaders to use (so they won’t)
• Limit or restrict the number of admins you can have
• Are often operating with different values than a church
• Typically serve and support many groups with conflicting or anti-Christian values
• Are not designed for the diverse ways a church needs to engage and get feedback from its members
• May not be Safe Environment compliant
• Don’t share and understand your mission as a church.

That’s where Flocknote comes in. Flocknote does all of these things, plus adds in text messaging (the most powerful communication channel today) and tons of other helpful things for churches. We designed Flocknote specifically for how a church needs to communicate. Which is why thousands of churches have come to depend on Flocknote for both their most important and their everyday communications for all of their ministries.

We share your mission and would love to work with you to build a more connected Church.