Where large groups of people come together, there are always great challenges. Many communities and churches are creating more and more space and aim to integrate young people by making the best use of digital opportunities. Surely you too are facing the challenge of how to communicate most effectively under these circumstances. For several reasons, we would like to recommend that you try SMS for additional communication in your church.
5 good reasons to start sending SMS in your church
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1. Available to everyone – SMS are inclusive
We know we are preaching to the choir here: In a community like yours, all kinds of people come together at once. It is only logical that there are great differences in technical knowledge and preferences in all church members. However, Mrs. Muller, who will celebrate her 80th birthday next week, is just as likely to have a mobile phone as your youth group.
All of them can be contacted via SMS, completely independent of the type of phone they use or a separate app they would have to install.
2. Always informed – information can be sent regularly, but also at short notice
We all know how important communication is, but in times of a global pandemic the need has become very obvious to us all first hand, especially where a lot of people come together, such as in churches. Not only must communication be clear, it must also be flexible, because often changes have to be made public as quickly as possible. SMS are ideal for this purpose, not only for the reason mentioned above.
You can also expect that about 90% of your sent SMS will be opened within the first three minutes after sending. No other notification can keep up with this. With an SMS gateway provider, you can also schedule messages in advance and send large quantities of SMS quickly.
3. Save time – write personalized mass SMS even when you are on the road
You have very little time to spare. Still, you want to make sure that the members of your church feel taken care of. Personalizable bulk SMS allow you to address each individual member by name and yet send many SMS at once. This is already very useful in everyday life, but imagine the following scenario:
You are on an excursion abroad with a youth group and would like to reach the group as a whole. Not all of the teenagers in the church group are using the same Messenger app and you yourself can’t connect to the internet right now.
What do you do? Call all the kids one by one? Just send a single SMS that reaches everyone!
You may be wondering how you can send mass SMS while on the road if you don’t have access to the web app yourself. It’s actually very simple. If you set up SMS2SMS, you can send mass SMS to groups of your choice. Yes, even if you are on the road and have no internet access.
4. Easy to use – send and receive as you like
Life itself is complicated enough, so sending messages must be easy. Sending SMS via a gateway is also interesting for you here, because the application is simple and flexible.
If you only want to send SMS to certain church groups at fixed times, you can easily schedule them in advance in the webapp. If you’re on the road you can send spontaneous group SMS with the SMS2SMS function.
There are no costs for the recipients, unless you want to provide a reply option. It is also possible to send SMS via email. If you need more extensive functions, the service of a good SMS provider can also be integrated into numerous other programs via a programming interface (API).
5. Responses – conversations instead of one-way communication
You don’t just want to send out messages, but you want to motivate the people in your church and community to be really involved. That is why you want the recipients of your messages to have the opportunity to respond.
You do not have to do without this when using an SMS gateway. With an inbound number you can easily receive and manage SMS messages. This also eliminates the annoying information chaos associated with large groups of messengers. Your recipients only ever reply to the one number that belongs to you and the communication remains personal. When your recipients reply, they pay the sending price of their respective rates.
As you can see, there are many good reasons for using SMS in your church. An SMS gateway is easy to use, it saves time, you can send personalized messages and reach all members of the community equally. Moreover, you remain flexible and can even receive direct replies via SMS if you wish.
By the way: If you choose your SMS gateway provider carefully, you can try sending SMS without any major risks. Be sure to do some research in advance, because some providers require you to sign contracts with minimum terms and basic fees.
Best regards
Source of header picture: iStock.com/Moyo Studio