Another paid monthly subscription that saves our church a lot of time and effort is Constant Contact. As a disclaimer I know there are a lot of great newsletter options, so my advocacy is for the idea of this service more so than the particular brand. However, since we use Constant Contact, that's the brand I'll focus on in this post.
Before we used Contact Contact I crudely sent eblasts with Outlook. This had many limitations and finally had to be eliminated because our list just got too big to manage that way. Here are some of the benefits we have enjoyed since using Constant Contact for our newsletter needs:
- The ability for people to easily opt in. In addition to submitting their info at a church service, people can easily opt in to our newsletter on almost every page of our church website
- The ability for people to easily opt out. Sometimes people move, leave your church, hate your church, etc. By having a "please remove me from your list" feature people can automatically be removed without them having to feel awkward about sending you a request
- Giving people easy options to stay informed and connected by having links for people to learn more, to register, to listen to recent messages, to give, etc.
- Statistics. It's nice to see how many people actually open up and read your e-mails (hint, it's much less than you think!)
- Aesthetics and professionalism. The driving reasons for using a service like Constant Contact is function, however it's a nice perk to have everything look so much better!
If your church is getting started, it may be a good idea for you to implement use of an e-newsletter. If your church has more than 100 people attending regularly, it is probably a necessity.
Pt. 1.: Planning Center
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