Email is one of the most important ways of communication for churches to reach out to their members. But if you want your congregation to read and pay attention to your emails, then you should know what works and what doesn’t. The frequency of your emails can affect how people view not only your emails, but also your church.
Not sure how often you should send out emails to your people? Here are some of our members’ comments concerning the appropriate amount of emails sent out:
Comments:
“We send a Monday Moment and Thursday In Touch. If there is an emergency or a death, there is an extra.” Lisa Olsen Gaston
“Eek!!! I think once a week is even a lot, to be honest! Any more than that, people will stop reading anything the church sends out! During COVID, we have collected all the information and sent out one email on Tuesday after the staff meeting. If your information gets missed in that e-blast, you have to wait until the following week.” Lindsay Kivell
“We get one church-wide email a week outlining church events, links to sign up for things, etc. etc. Then if we are on a specific team, we’ll get one email a week from the team leader. If some sort of “emergency” comes up, we get one additional email, but that happens only 2-3 times a year.” Kelsey Blankenship
“1 email a week. I open every email I get from my church because it’s 1 email. Consider that the average person gets a couple of hundred every day. You don’t want to be noisy. Instead, maybe there is a way to compile the one-off birthday/announcements into one email to respect the attention span and load of the member. I’m assuming the information in the email is also shared on your church socials and groups as well.” Leilani Corpus-Haywood
“1-2. Currently doing a Sunday Review on Mondays and Weekly News on Thursdays.” Jen Sullivan
“1 a week with classes and events and then only add if people submit prayer requests.” Hannah Bochert
“We do a weekly e-news on Wednesday and a Cares and Concerns (updates on sick and homebound, etc.) on Thursday. That’s it. Deadlines are clear, and we stick to it. We use MailChimp for both. This is working very well for us right now.” Marti Pulliam Messick
“1 with the exception for two if you’re having a huge church-wide event (such as special service, conference, picnic, etc.)” Jonathan W Hodge
“Pre-COVID we did one a week. We now do 3. The one we used to do on Friday evenings looking ahead, short, mid-week updates and registrations, and one on Sunday mornings with all the ways they can view the service online (we have a significant number of older congregants that need the direct link.)” Sharon Linnell Kautz
“We do two – and the occasional extra if it really can’t wait. Both are short – just a couple of short articles, and upcoming things for people to be aware of. We were doing just one long one each week. Our open rate doubled when we went to two shorter emails.” Sue Coller
“We do a general email every Friday (worship info, news, mission opportunities) plus an email on Tuesdays targeting families with children for all their specific needs like Sunday School and youth mission. Those are our only regulars- teams may send their own, but not through the Comm dept. We get an open rate between 38 and 50 percent.” Jeanne Erner Thiemann
Conclusion:
Every email you send out represents your church. If you do it right, it means more people read them, act on them, and ultimately care what you have to say. The frequency of your email blasts should depend on the needs of your congregation. As a communicator, you need to find the line between being persistent and annoying. Too many emails is a bad thing, so that line is important.
Have any other suggestions? Let us know in the comments.
