Email has been around for awhile. As a form of communication these days, it’s almost like a dinosaur. It seems that every few month there is a new social network that is advertised as the one that will take over email. While there are a few social networks that are trying to take over the world (I’m looking at you Facebook), email is still holding strong as a primary source of communication. Think about how many emails you receive in your inbox any given day and tell me you don’t agree!
What does this mean for your church? If you’re not already, it’s an essential way to keep your church attendees informed about upcoming events and happenings to keep them engaged. If you’re reading this post, though, chances are you are already communicating with your church via email. But sending email doesn’t mean much if you don’t have a good list to send them to. Here are some tips to help your get more of your church on your email list:
1) Ask for email addresses on your website: Visitors and your current church attenders will visit your website from time to time, so it’s a great place to ask them for their email address. Place a widget on your homepage letting them know you’d like to send them emails about upcoming church events and sermon series if they’s provide their email address.
This is super easy with WordPress or other common CMS-based sites with plugins that will allow you to place an email collection form on your website. If you use MailChimp to send email, they even have their own plugin for WordPress. Awesome!
2) Ask for email addresses in your program or bulletin: Do you request an information form from visitors to your church? Then you have a prime way to get their email address. Simply note on the form that you’ll be adding their email address to your email list so they aren’t surprised when the start seeing your church’s name in their inbox.
3) Ask for email addresses from the stage: If your email list is small but you have a large church, you have lots of work to do. But, there is one place where you can ask for email addresses from almost your whole church at once – from the stage on Sunday morning. Make an announcement that you’re stepping up your email game and you’d love to get their email addresses. Either provide a paper form for them or they can visit your website from a phone right in their seats at church.
These ideas are just a start. You know your congregation well, and you can come up with tons of other creative ways to collect more email addresses. Now go forth and email!
