Texting for Churches

Text Message Software for Churches

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Your church works hard to communicate with your congregation. That’s why more and more churches are turning to church texting platforms to communicate with their members and build their community. With a 98% open rate, you can be sure your congregation receives your messages. The question isn't if you should adopt a texting software to engage your congregation, but when.

Why Texting for Churches is Effective

Over a third of Americans have opted themselves in to receive text messages from businesses or organizations, with the number only getting bigger every year. Here are some statistics that every business should know about SMS:

  • 98% of text messages are read, compared to just 22% of emails.

  • 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes.

  • Text messages are responded to 7.5x more often and 60x quicker than emails.

  • 89% of consumers say they want to text message to communicate with a business, but only 48% of businesses are equipped to do this.

  • Over 60% of consumers would rather text than call when given the option for customer service.

How Texting for Churches Works

  • Collecting Church Member Information

    In order to get the most out of texting for your church, you need to create a contact list. Your contact list is simply a collection of your congregations’ contact information so that you can send them text messages.There are three ways to add church members to your texting lists:

  • Send Messages

    Texting is perfect when you want to raise communicate with your congregation or increase attendance for particular church events. In order to send a message, you need to sign in to your church text messaging software and compose a message that you want to send to your congregation. You can then do things like schedule the messages to be sent at a later time, target your messages to certain groups (like a youth ministry), or attach images to your messages. SMS also allows you to have a one on one text conversation with your members using your existing phone number, or you can generate a new one.

  • Track Results

    Your text messaging provider can track the results of your campaigns. This includes comprehensive analytics and provide insight on what tactics hasn't worked so that you can apply that knowledge to future SMS campaigns.

Church Texting Use Cases

  • Engage Your Congregation with Texting

    Texting for churches allows you to send messages to your entire congregation -- and they will read it in seconds! Even better, if you choose a provider with a landline texting functionality like Trumpia, you can then use the phone number your organization already uses to create a digital inbox that lets you text message back and forth with your congregation.

    With mobile keywords, you can collect opt-in mobile numbers automatically so your members can sign themselves up to receive updates. This allows you to automatically grow your distribution lists without having to manually enter information. You can promote your keywords through different channels like Facebook, Twitter, flyers, emails, and at events.
    You can also send engaging messages like:

    • Bible passages or hymns based on your upcoming service.
    • Ask for prayer requests and message congregants who are going through a trying time.
    • Organize your volunteers and communicate with church staff no matter where they are.
    • Send schedule updates or quickly let your congregants know if a church service is postponed due to weather.

  • Get Feedback

    Because text messages are read so quickly, church texting allows you to engage with your congregation instantly. You can do anything from sending out a quick poll to see what’s on their congregations’ heart, or you can ask what they are bringing for the next potluck. Texting is also great for hearing from the quieter members of your congregation, making sure you meet everyone’s spiritual needs.

  • Use Texting for Donations

    Churches need donations to keep their community programs funded throughout the year. Texting for churches is a great way to get donations. If you send your congregation a text with a link to your church's donation page they are far more likely to click it and complete a donation. The reason text-to-donate campaigns work is because it is the easiest way for a person on the go to setup a donation: they just text in a word and follow the link they get sent back.

    This is effective at growing your donation base, as donors want a simple process where they can make a one time donation to your organization and move on. You can even announce the keywords during your services so congregants can text in their tithes or donations.

  • Send Text Reminders

    Text reminders are an amazing way to increase your attendance. You can send your congregation personalized reminders to come to service on Sunday or other days of worship, helping you get higher attendance. Busy churches are great, but it can be hard for members to keep up with various ministry and outreach programs. A text system can remind members of upcoming group meetings quickly, and church members can easily opt-out of alerts they aren't interested in. These could include regular info about upcoming activities or meetings, or alerts if a time or location for a regular event has been changed.

    It can also let people know about other special gatherings, such as Vacation Bible Schools. Parents can send the church a text to confirm that their kids will attend or ask questions about the dates, which will help organizers know how many students to expect.

  • Boost Service Attendance

    Remind your congregation on what’s coming up and encourage them to attend. It could be a service with an unusual time, like Christmas, or it could be a special event, such as a guest speaker or special study group. Sending out texts can help organizers gauge interest and provide a general head count.

  • Organize Your Staff

    A big congregation needs but the priest or minister can’t be everywhere all the time. So he or she must find trusted staff or volunteers that are able to handle different duties, from choir to youth programs to ministry to scheduling and maintaining facilities. These positions are often on a volunteer basis, so it’s not common for everyone to be available for weekly face to face meetings.

    Luckily, church texting can keep everyone in contact no matter where they are in their busy lives. Texting can avoid problems like several groups trying to be in the same meeting room at once or trying to organize special events on the same day. This is better than a phone or email chain and far more efficient for your congregation.

  • Send Event Updates

    Things are always changing at a dynamic church environment, and what was discussed in the Sunday bulletin or post-service announcement may not be necessarily be true by Wednesday. Meetings could be canceled or postponed, meeting rooms could be changed, a scheduled event could be canceled because of inclement weather, or a pastor could be called out of town unexpectedly. Texts can alert people and make sure your members are kept up to date.

Church Texting Case Studies

  • Mariners Church is one of the largest non-denominational churches in Southern California. The church has three separate locations of worship in Orange County, CA in the cities of Irvine, Mission Viejo, and Huntington Beach. Mariners Church has been known to utilize the latest technologies to reach out to the community and expand its congregation. Mariners Church was looking for a creative and effective way to communicate with members of the church, particularly with the youth. With a limited budget, Mariners Church needed a communication tool to keep more members in the loop about church functions and activities. Mariners Church used Trumpia to quickly collect mobile numbers from members by publicly posting various mobile keywords all over the church campus. "With Trumpia's text messaging software, you can reach who you need to reach instantly, no matter where they are," - Blair Farley, Director of Communications at Mariners Church

  • Ekko Church is a non-denominational church located in Fullerton, California. The church originally began with seven members but has now grown to an average of 250 per week at its weekly worship service. While the church is well-versed in the latest technologies, it sought to provide an easy way to provide its members with the latest information. Ekko, as part of its mission, was looking for an easy and effective way to provide resources to its congregants for two upcoming events: Mental Health Awareness Sunday and Orphan Sunday. It needed a way to provide a list of resources for people who were curious about the ministries. Ekko used Trumpia to set up two mobile keywords to collect phone numbers from those who were interested in the resources for either event. “Trumpia has been one of the most effective platforms we’ve been given to spread the word, gain support, and provide information to our church members. We’re already dreaming about how to use it for our next big event!” - Isaac Chong, Operations Director of Ekko Church

The Trumpia Church Texting Advantage

  • Powerful Automation

    Trumpia’s automation enables our customers to run their text messaging campaigns automatically. Our software will save you time and resources by automatically carrying out tasks without your staff needing to be constantly on the phone, so that your subscribers receive a great experience.

    • Our Auto Campaigns carry out your messaging efforts for you without the need to know how to code or maintain your system day and night. Once our software is set, you can rest easy that our industry leading automation will take care of the rest and provide your congregation with a great experience.
    • Our intelligent Text Bot can dynamically interact with your subscribers based on their behavior and answer their questions, keeping your congregants satisfied while saving your employees time by not requiring them to be tied up on the phone.

  • Smart Targeting

    Trumpia’s Smart Targeting allows you to sort your congregants into different groups or ministries based on the criteria you want to target. This means your text messages will reach the right audience and fewer members will opt out of your church texting campaigns because they feel spammed by messages.

    • Some text messaging services can only send a large amount of non targeted messages. Trumpia’s Smart Targeting is intelligent and focused, meaning you can target your messages to your congregation, boosting their satisfaction with your SMS campaigns and making sure they don't feel spammed.
    • Trumpia keeps your distribution lists filtered in real time, so when a new congregant joins or your contact updates their information, you instantly have the most valid contact list,

  • Lifecycle Engagement

    Trumpia has something that the competition cannot match - Lifecycle Engagement for your congregation. This means that our text messaging platform is uniquely enabled to engage congregants automatically throughout their lifecycle, leading to higher community engagement and satisfaction.

    • From signup to quick service to surveys, our system can engage your congregation and make sure they feel listened to every step of the way.
    • Your congregants will become advocates when they know their needs are met and their voices matter.

  • Omnichannel Messaging

    Trumpia has a variety of business marketing channels in order to help you reach 100% of your target audience.

    • MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) messages enable you to attach videos and pictures to your messages in order to get more interest.
    • Trumpia’s email has many of the powerful features our business text messaging software has, including templates, scheduling, and automation capabilities.
    • Voice messaging still has its place. That’s why our system lets you broadcast voice messages to your audience.