Speaker 0 00:00:00 Contrary to popular belief. Email is not dead. Yeah. Social media gets all the attention now, but if you want to reach people in 2021, email is still one of the best ways to do it. But here's the key. If you want people to read your emails, you need to create fantastic subject lines. In today's episode, we walk you through how you can write better subject lines for all of your church emails. We hope this conversation helps you reach more people and grow. This is the retrial podcast. You're listening to the read-write podcast. The show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We're here to help your church see more visitors and grow.
Speaker 2 00:01:03 I'm ready to get <inaudible>.
Speaker 0 00:01:09 Hey guys, welcome to the retry podcast episode number 69. I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost. He and Hyatt what's up Thomas. Hey, not too much, man. Excited for our conversation here today. We're gonna be talking about how churches can write better email, subject lines, how you can write better church, email, subject lines. Uh, I think this is really important, uh, contrary to belief, uh, that a lot of people have is that email is not dead by any stretch of the imagination. Um, I know that kind of became a popular notion, uh, with the rise of social media and just kind of like, I think it's true to say that people don't really care for at least email has a negative reputation. Uh, yeah, but to say that it is dead as a communication tool is totally overstating the case, if not totally and completely factually wrong, because I think it is probably still the best, uh, communication tool that we have.
Speaker 0 00:02:08 Uh, it's something that is so important. Um, the reason for that is because it is something that more than most communication channels you actually own with this one, uh, email communication is something that people cannot take away from you. So, uh, I say this as running an organization that has invested a lot of time and effort and even money into building audiences on Facebook and Twitter, those kinds of places. But we have seen in the time that we've spent building that audience, that our reach is algorithmically diminished all the time. So yeah, the more people we have that like us on Facebook, unfortunately the fewer people see our content on there. Whereas with email, it still is kind of a, an open market and you can reach people. If you have a big list, you could reach more people. Um, and so, uh, it is something that is really, uh, a fantastic tool for churches to be using. What do you have to add in,
Speaker 3 00:03:02 You know, like you said, people got this notion a little while back with the rise of social media. I think also people got the notion that maybe it was dead when text, uh, texting became a big thing. Um, but quite frankly, there's just more, I would add to what you just said. There's more that you can do strategically with email too, compared to just shooting a text message. Um, there's, there's more that you can send over, uh, with whether or not it's files and everything else. And there's just what we're talking about to today with, with subject lines, uh, you just can be a little bit more strategic with it and I use it daily for reach. Right. And I can tell you that, uh, uh, many people email me, uh, so, and use it. So, but, uh, so yeah,
Speaker 0 00:03:44 I don't know that the number of emails we get is a good barometer for how important it is to us. Cause I think that's one of the other complaints about email is that we get so many of them. I mean, I don't know. I look at, I think between my personal accounts and work accounts and all those things that I have, there's a hundred plus a day. I'm sure of emails that I get. And thankfully I use g-mail mostly. So a lot of the tools that they give us to, to categorize things and things that I have to look at, things that I don't, but I just, I have it open on my screen on the side here. I mean, I there's several emails that required a response or things that I need to look at, uh, today. And I think most people have that kind of relationship with email is that it's kind of a, a necessary evil in my life as well.
Speaker 0 00:04:29 I don't really like a lot of the stuff that I get on there. There are things daily that come to me that are, uh, imperative that I actually respond to it or that I look at it or read it right. I need to know the content. And so I think it still remains the best communication platform for churches. Uh, but here's the reality is that a lot of, for a lot of churches, it's an afterthought like the, yeah, the email newsletter, which we've done other episodes on itself, this one's more specific about just subject lines. Uh, the email newsletter is just a reproduction of whatever you put in the bulletin or a list of announcements that are coming up there when really it should be a lot more. And, um, another thing that a lot of churches struggle with is getting people to even open their church newsletter or their church emails that they send out weekly.
Speaker 0 00:05:19 Uh, and the reason for that there really is a couple of reasons of why people don't open it. Number one is that you've have such a history of producing bad content that they've recognized that I'm not going to open anything from them because every time I just bore myself or I don't really find anything of interest. So that's one thing that we can't really fix that in this episode, that's going to take time for you to fix, but the other primary reason, and really the chief reason that most emails don't get open is they have bad subject lines. Cause the reality is, is that people look at there's two things you can see when you get an email who it's from and the subject is, and those two things together, they're going to dictate if someone's being introduced to you, whether they're going to open your email or not.
Speaker 0 00:06:04 And if you have a bad subject line, uh, it will almost always, I mean, if they don't know who you are, especially, they will never open your emails there and they'll never be read. And so that's why this is so important. If you get your subject lines, right, you can communicate to many, many more people. And here's the thing that I think, and I'm sorry, I'm taking up so much of the introduction with this here, but I think it's so important to get this out here. A small change in your open rate leads to a huge increase in the number of people that are seeing and hearing your message, which ultimately is about reaching people with Jesus and discipling them to be more like him, right? That's what churches are here to do. So if you can go from 10 to 25% of your emails or 20 to 35% of your emails being opened, well, I mean 10 to 25, that's 150% increase in the number of people that are hearing what you have to say. And ultimately the gospel of Jesus Christ and being glad to be more like him. So this stuff matters getting these email subject lines right, is hugely vitally important for churches to get it. So what do you have to add before we kind of get into the list here in?
Speaker 3 00:07:16 No, I think you, uh, that was a full body of work that you outlined right there. And, uh, no, it is very important and I'll just kick us off on the first one. Uh, and this was this one I liked because I think this is a rule, uh, for most things in life.
Speaker 0 00:07:31 This isn't my specialty. Right. So
Speaker 3 00:07:33 That's right. Keep it short, keep it short. Uh, so, you know, you're not always lengthy Thomas. That was actually very important. And I think this subject again, I think it's important for people to know how important it is, but first rule, keep it short. Um, I mean, I can't stand getting, uh, and I think most companies have done, uh, when I say companies, we're not talking about churches, but most companies have done a really good job of, of this in, in recent years. Uh, a very short piffy, you know, subject line, uh, in an email, um, is very important. So because again, if you're just like anything else, if you're too drawn out, um, you know, if it's too lengthy, just like when we come across to a text heavy website that has too much text again, contents important, but for a subject line, uh, bear in mind, like you said, your email was open and you have how many that you see right there.
Speaker 3 00:08:26 You have, I don't know how many email subject lines I see whenever I have it open. So, uh, and honestly I will, based on what I see in that subject line often determines which email I opened first and, and a shorter, short, succinct, uh, succinct email subject line. Um, it's just going to be a lot better. You don't want to divulge everything in the subject line. It just, it just comes across too. It's just like, um, I don't know, in competent, maybe that's what kind of a harsh way to put it, but if everyone just kind of throws everything on that subject line, it just, eh, so yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:01 Yeah. I think that, um, as a general rule, I have a couple of things, I guess if you're looking for a specifics, um, I shoot to make our subject lines readable in a glance, right? So if it's something where like a whole sentence is usually too long, so if you have, you know, 17 words or something like that, that's just too much. Um, so something you can look at and know exactly what's going to be in there, uh, and exactly, uh, it'll pique your interest right away in just a glance, the, the rule of thumb for, and this is especially important in the mobile world that we live in. Um, I don't know about you, but I look at most of my emails, I usually respond on a, on a computer, but I read emails on my phone. Uh, and the average phone only allows space for 30 characters in the subject line on an email there.
Speaker 0 00:09:51 So that's another good rule of thumb is 30 characters. Now that's, that's pretty short. That's six, five letter words is that's, that's not, that's not much at all. So you have to really be strategic to make that really work out for you. So I think that's a good kind of target. Uh, I'll be the first to admit that, uh, again, as the long-winded one that I tend to be, I tend to go longer than that. Sometimes that's my struggle, but when I can, I love it. It's best to keep those kinds of things short. Uh, and as a general rule, short, shorter is better than longer with email subject lines.
Speaker 3 00:10:23 'cause people are like you said, glancing on their phones and guess what else they're glancing on now, their watches I act. And that is actually even a shorter allowance of, of content on a, on a tiny watch screen, but I will actually get my, my watch. My smartwatch will just vibrate. And whenever I get a little, uh, email alert and I, what, you know, what I look at, I look at the subject line because then I know I know exactly what it is, um, and how it's relevant to me. So
Speaker 0 00:10:53 If it's my watch or what I was, but I could very rarely read more than like a word or two of the sassy the center. Uh, and then I see that it's from Gmail and then I see maybe three words of subject. So just bear that in mind, people are looking at these in different ways and if you want them to open it, uh, I mean, it would take a pretty special email for me to be out on my way, looking at my watch, oh, it's from my church. You know, I want to get onto something like this here, you know, that, I think it's important that you really think about how people are using email. Uh, and yet keep it short is really important. Um, good stuff. I'll, I'll hit the next one. It's personalize it. Uh, when you can, it is very powerful.
Speaker 0 00:11:34 If you personalize your subject line, what do we mean by that? Almost every modern broadcast email software out there. So I'm talking about your MailChimp's your constant contact? Uh, we ha we use one here called Zoho campaigns, cause we're on the whole Zoho suite. Uh, that works well for us, but, um, every modern software will let you use a code to put in the contacts first name or first and last name. I'd recommend just first name into the body of the email, but also into the subject line. Uh, and if you have their first name in there, the odds of them clicking on it and opening it and reading it are higher than if you don't, if it can be personalized, it feels like it's actually from someone that knows them and their information is there. I think that that's something that is really a powerful tool.
Speaker 0 00:12:25 So I don't do this every single email that we send out. Uh, but I find that, you know, once a month or so our email will say, Joe, have you seen these new stats or something to that effect that it will, we'll make sure to get the person's email, their first name in there. Now there is a caution on this. And, uh, the thing about using this kind of data is you have to make sure you have clean data because if you don't have the person's name, uh, and for some reason it just says Mister, or it says first name for some reason in your database, or it has their name misspelled even worse. And it says, Hey, Mister, make sure you check out this week's message or whatever it would be, then your odds of them actually they'll actually be turned off by that. And you'll be more likely to get unsubscribes than you would them. They won't even, they won't only not open it. They won't even subscribe or they'll unsubscribe to your email list there. So you gotta be careful with it.
Speaker 3 00:13:23 Yeah, not much dad. I, I think it's good. I, I, you know, when I consult with pastors and ministry leaders for what we do here at reach, right. You know, I get to know people and, and I say their name. And when you say someone's name, whether or not it's over zoom or a phone call or text or email, uh, it just shows that you actually know them and care about them. It's just, it's it's yeah.
Speaker 0 00:13:46 The personal, have you ever, I'm sure we've all done this before. Have you ever like filled out a form on some website, but you didn't really want to give your information, but you had to like give it email address, but then you just put in a baloney first name. Uh, and so you'll get like an email later that says, Hey, ADSL, kefir, K uh, thanks so much for, you know, so be careful with those kinds of things you probably have, if you don't, if you don't take a look at your email list and the matching emails with names, my guess is you probably have people that have the wrong personal name on there. So you want to be careful with that. I think that's the point in there.
Speaker 3 00:14:22 Good. I'll grab the next one, which is a build urgency and your email subject lines. So not every email is urgent. Uh, I would hope, uh, if every email coming from your churches urgent, uh, then, uh, something's wrong, but you do want to build urgency. And what we mean by this is urgency gives someone a reason to open it. Right. So, uh, make it, uh, another way to put it as time sensitive. Right? You can make an email subject time because quite frankly, if we do put out an email, uh, or an announcement from church, we want people to look at it. There's a reason we're sending it at that time. Right. So we want people to look at it quickly. So, uh, if it's just something kind of vague and, and, uh, generic, um, but something that just doesn't build urgency, um, then people are less likely to open the email.
Speaker 3 00:15:13 So I think that if some examples we thought of and that we often use ourselves, or just, uh, you know, uh, if you're making an announcement or you could say, Hey, this, this is going away this week, or, um, ends at midnight. Right. Or, uh, um, you know, trying you one last time. Uh, if you've emailed someone, you know, several times, um, you know, people kind of, if they aren't opening emails, but they see that this is if they care about you and what you have to say, and they hear this is the last time. Well then, Hey, um, and we've seen car dealerships do a very good job of this with discounts and sales. Right? So,
Speaker 0 00:15:51 Absolutely one last thing. So we don't have any discounts to offer there's no, there's no savings on tides or anything like that if you act now. But, um, yeah, I think like I see this working really well, and I think it's a good tool to use if you have a specific event coming up, uh, so last chance to register or, uh, spaces filling up fast, you know, those kinds of things, uh, putting some urgency in this that says, why better click on this now? I can't wait. Cause here's what happens is that how, how many times do we see an email and you take a look, you see the subject line, say I got to look at that, but I'm really busy right now. So I can't really do it. Or I'm in the middle of something else. I'll get back to it. One of the goals should be is how do I get someone to, uh, stop what they're doing and take a look at this.
Speaker 0 00:16:34 And I know this seems so strange for, for churches to be, you know, I want to take people off their other things, or if they're at work, I want them to stop working and think about me or, you know, it seems strange, but I think this is really how marketing works is that we need to think about these kinds of things is how we can get their attention, uh, to focus on what we're talking about here. And so urgency and have some kind of a, that time is running out or that opening this now, and not later is vital to you. So kind of communicating that in the subject line is important and it's good. Good. Next one is make it about them. This is a mistake. I see churches making all the time is that we make it about us as the church and not about them.
Speaker 0 00:17:15 So the worst, uh, like the worst thing, I've maybe not the word, I'm sure you could think of worse. So you could put cuss words in your subject line. But one of the worst things you can do as an email subject line is to call it something like what's happening at new song this week, because there's so many issues with that. As it's not interesting, they get the same one every single week. And it's all about you. It's about the church. It's about what the church is doing. Good marketing, good, uh, email communication is going to be about them. And so, you know, what you should be saying is something more like, how is answering the question of how what's happening at church this week is going to benefit you? How the financial peace university class that's coming up is going to be something that will be a blessing to you.
Speaker 0 00:18:06 So if your main focus of your email is a newsletter and the chief thing in there is about getting people to sign up for your financial peace class. Uh, it might say something like last chance to, uh, take a step in financial freedom towards financial freedom, something like that. It's about them and how they can get financial freedom. And there's some urgency in there too, if you didn't see something like that. So really focusing, not so much about us, because as much as it is from your church and your church is important. The fact is if people aren't really connected to your church, they don't really care what's happening this week. If they're not yet a part of your church there, you probably have 10 or 15% of your people that do really care. You have your, your kind of your core team. And they're going to open every email and read over every jot and tittle that you have written in there. But the vast majority of people, I'm sorry to say this pastors, they don't care. They don't really care. And you need to find a way to make them care and talking about them instead of yourselves is the best way to do that.
Speaker 3 00:19:08 Yeah. I remember my, my church does a very good job of this. They send out a lot of emails and it's a large church, of course, a lot of stuff happening. But, uh, at the same time, one of the ones that comes to mind that I don't open all of my church's emails, but when I did open a little while back was Ian, you got to be at man night because, uh, and so we, we do a man night, every, uh, every quarter where, uh, it's just a, men's cool. We do cool stuff for men. And feed of course have barbecue. Where in Texas, you gotta have barbecue if you're going to feed guys. So, but, uh, but yeah, it, you know, those are the, that's the one I opened. I was like, oh, there's a specific reason why Ian needs to go to man night. Not just that man night was happening. So that's good. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:19:52 Good stuff.
Speaker 3 00:19:54 But the next one, the next one. So don't give away the content. Um, so, uh, what do we mean by this? Don't, don't give everything away in the subject line again. We said, keep it short. Um, so that's a good thing, but don't give away all the content, because again, if you put everything in the subject line, there's no need for them to open the email. Right. And what we want is them to open the email. So if there's a, a big announcement or something, um, we, we came up with it, like the example of a youth, new youth, pastor being hired. You don't want to say, and the new youth pastor is a John Smith. You know, you want to say, we got a new youth pastor. Here's who it is. And don't say the name and you'll get someone to open it. And my guess is that you're not just announcing the youth pastor. They're going to have more information. That's important in this email. Um, but you want, so you want to intrigue someone to open it by not giving it all away.
Speaker 0 00:20:48 Yeah. There's so much, uh, technology that goes into this. And I want to be clear. So if you're doing an announcement, email like that with a new youth pastor. Yeah. The chief thing is to introduce who the new youth pastor is. You want to get his bio in there and you want to make sure people feel a connection with them and you're building that up. But yeah, the problem is is that if it just says, John is the new youth pastor as a subject line, people say, okay, it was John. That's good, that's good. But if they say new guy is, and then they click on it and then they see, uh, his, uh, name, his picture, his bio, and they make a connection with this person right away. And it, it actually helps your cause. It's communication. You're trying to, to build the value around, uh, why this new person was chosen, how it's going to make a difference to your family.
Speaker 0 00:21:35 And on top of that, here's why it's also important is that every single time you send an email, there are metrics that are being measured by the big email providers, the chief among them now is Google Gmail. And so if your church has a history of sending emails that they get delivered and nobody opens them, whether it's for good reason or batteries, and this is a good announcement, but if you give away the whole content in the subject line, fewer people will open it. If your church has a history of that, and people rarely open your emails, they're going to start to say this place, doesn't send interesting emails, start putting it into the promotions tab, start putting it into spam because we have to have a track record of people not opening this stuff. And so you have to give this away, even though you're accomplishing something similar of telling people, the decision was made, you're actually hurting every future email that you send, because Google is going to be used to you not sending interesting emails, or they're going to think that you're sending an uninteresting email. So it really is a game trying to work that algorithm and making sure you get it right. Uh, and yeah, I think, I think you got it exactly right. You can't just give away the content there.
Speaker 3 00:22:48 Yeah. That's good. Why don't you bring us home? Cause I know this last one is your favorite.
Speaker 0 00:22:52 Absolutely. I'm a huge, huge believer. I actually dislike this one. Uh, but I I'm going to share it anyway.
Speaker 3 00:22:59 You've the locked about it? More
Speaker 0 00:23:01 Use an emoji or to use an emoji or two. So disclaimer, personally in my life, I don't use emojis. I, I, um, I have teenage kids, they use emojis. My wife uses emojis. They know that dad doesn't really do the whole emoji thing. I don't know what it is and just feels weird to me to use emojis. I don't, I don't know that maybe that's a sign of my age here. Are you a big emoji user? Do you use emojis all the time?
Speaker 3 00:23:28 I do use them not, I wouldn't say big, but yeah, I definitely use them a lot more than, you
Speaker 0 00:23:36 Know,
Speaker 3 00:23:36 I'm still public.
Speaker 0 00:23:38 Yeah. I don't, I don't personally use them in my own personal communication. If I'm sending text messages to you, I don't really use emojis, but there is evidence and it is proven and we have seen it to work at reach, right. That emojis work in subject lines. If we want people to open our emails, including emojis is important. So now the cat's out of the bag. If you get an eight, if you're on our email list and you get an email from me and there's an emoji in there, know that it's against my, it's not it's against my will to be communicating that way, but I know that it increases your likelihood of opening it. So, um, use them sparingly. You, you don't want 19 emojis. You don't want to communicate the whole thing in emojis. Uh, but if there's one or two that go along with your subject line, uh, it might be a good idea to use them because data can prove that emojis actually helped people to open emails. And so I've seen this to be the case there. I use it on all of our Facebook ads. We usually include an emoji or two there's, nothing like dropping a stat and then putting little fire symbols next to it. And that kind of stuff. That's, that's all well and good, but, uh, I do it because it works. I am someone that believes in doing that. So, um, that's my, my take on it. Use emojis. I say it begrudgingly, what do you have to add?
Speaker 3 00:24:56 Yeah, I, you know, I, I connect, uh, I'm on, I'm on the front lines here, uh, reach, right. So to speak. And so I'm connecting with a lot of pastors and, and, you know, on our services and honestly they lighten things, they lighten things up, you know? Um, and I know we're talking about a church. Yeah. You know, a church, uh, emails can be kind of, of a serious nature and, and, you know, think about that newer person, uh, at the church that maybe they're not a member yet. Um, and you know, there's a little bit apprehension and, uh, there's a seriousness to faith. There's a seriousness to spirituality and it's, they lighten things up, you know? So I think that when you, when you do that, it, it, it increases someone's chances of opening it. So
Speaker 0 00:25:39 It's true. I, I think that it makes you feel more approachable. Um, and I think it will make you feel more conversational with people, even though we don't converse with emojis, but for whatever reason they make you feel more conversational. Uh, and so, yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think there's some concern from churches that, yeah, we would not be professional enough if we sent it with emojis, it would make us feel like we're childish or something like that. Yeah, really. I mean, this is the millennials and gen Z. They are using emojis and I am a staunch, I guess I made gen X by a year, I guess. And so I don't know if I'm in that camp. I know a lot of gen Xers do it too. Like you, uh, so, um,
Speaker 3 00:26:20 Well I made it, I made it by two years. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:26:24 So
Speaker 3 00:26:26 Anyway, well, I'll send you an angry emoji right now for that comment.
Speaker 0 00:26:31 Well, uh, I hope that's been helpful to you guys. Uh, those are six ways. I think that you can improve your subject lines for your emails. Uh, again, this makes a big difference. Uh, increasing your open rates increases the number of people that are being discipled and having an encounter with Jesus Christ. If that's what your church is about in the end, every email, it should have, it should play a part in leading people down that path of discipleship and growing closer to Jesus. And so if we can make little changes to our subject lines, to double the number of people that are being impacted by our discipleship, we have to do those kinds of things. So I hope this has been helpful to you. I think it will make a difference if you apply some of these things here. Uh, so if it has been helpful, please let us know, uh, rate, review, subscribe, like comment and do all those things that does mean so much to us. If you do that. So thank you guys so much for being a part of our reach, right family, and we hope to catch you next week.
Speaker 0 00:27:30 Thanks for listening to the reach right podcast. We hope this episode will help you reach people the right way, looking for more resources for your church. Check us out
[email protected]. If this episode has been helpful to you, it would mean the world to us. If you would rate, review and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening. And we'll see you next week.
