Did you hear about the Leaning Tower of Pisa finally falling down? Or how about the Space Shuttle landing in San Diego? Or how about the Cell Phone ban in New Zealand? All of these were hoaxes played on April Fools day; and they attracted a lot of attention. Perhaps you’ve got a staff member who likes to play pranks and sends out eMails like those to everyone on the staff. It can be good for a staff to find time to laugh a little, but it is also easy to go overboard. Anyone can send an eMail to everyone on the staff with just a few clicks. Maybe that isn’t such a good thing.

The trouble is volume. As your staff grows, so does the natural volume of eMail. At some point, the time spent reading all of the internally generated eMails becomes a concern. How much time should your staff really spend reading eMail, Twits, and/or Facebook walls? Who should really be able to send out a message to everyone? Here are some ideas to consider:

• The Senior Pastor – High Priority issue comes up
• Human Resource person – Something affecting everyone’s paycheck
• Security Personnel – Emergency situations that affect everyone’s safety
• Operations Personnel – Alerts about a System Malfunction

Obviously, the importance of the message needs to be a part of the criteria to consider. Ask yourself the question, “Does this really need to be sent to everyone?” Or should it be more focused on the few who are directly affected? This is a judgment call, and your staff are expected to use good judgment. In a small organization, where everyone knows everyone, this should not be a problem.

We have Geoffrey Chaucer to thank for April Fools day – i.e. from his reference to the 32nd of March (April 1st). Perhaps appropriately, this is mentioned in the story about the fox and the rooster in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. So let’s all find time to laugh today; just don’t overdo it.

Electronic mail has many advantages for a Church. You can publish a monthly newsletter via eMail without spending a lot on postage. You can also target emails to specific groups – e.g. just the people interested in missions. And you can get the information out quickly – within an hour. These advantages make eMail communication a great communications tool when you want to get the Word out to people.

So why not blast away with every eMail message you can think of? In short, because of SPAM. SPAM is unsolicited bulk messaging sent to people indiscriminately. Everyone with an eMail account has had to deal with this deluge of useless information. This year, projections show that there will be at least 7 trillion SPAM messages generated. Unfortunately, that means 80% of the eMails that land in your inbox are likely to be SPAM. How does the Church’s important message about the change in the meeting time get through all of that chaff? And to make matters worse, people use eMail filters that can mislabel an eMail message as SPAM and throw it away. Here are some tips for getting your eMail Blasts past the filters:

• Ensure that your eMails have original, useful content
• Avoid trigger words in your subject line, e.g. free, trial, money, quote
• Avoid using ALL CAPS – i.e. SHOUTING FOR ATTENTION
• Do use a subject line that matches the eMail – e.g. March Monthly Newsletter
• Avoid the excessive use of punctuation – i.e. “! ! !”

SPAM is a tough problem to deal with. And some people have given up and don’t use eMail as a result. Or they may use Social Network Messaging instead. You should encourage people to let you know if they aren’t getting your eMails. Perhaps you should still print a few paper newsletters and send them through snail mail (USPS). That way, you cover the spectrum and ensure that the Word gets through.

There was a time when you had to publish the monthly newsletter on paper, incurring ever rising printing costs and postage. Now, you can get the same information out in electronic form, using EMail. But how do you manage a large mailing list? Just building a huge distribution list in Outlook is not very effective, and opens you up to spammers. EMail Communication Services exist to help you with this communication. They provide huge capacity and security at relatively low cost. Many will support multi-user access and scheduling of EMails in advance. Here is a review of some of the commercial services available:

Top Ten EMail Services

Does your Church use such a service for the weekly or monthly newsletter? If so, please comment and let us know how you use this service. What are the pros and cons?

How does your Church use eMail?

At its best, eMail saves time and effort by letting you communicate more efficiently. But it can also be a real time-waster. One survey concluded that corporate users were getting 126 messages a day. According to the study, that can wind up taking up 40 percent of the work day. If the focus of your job is handling eMail messages, then that is well and good. If those eMails saved you hundreds of phone calls – i.e. you sent an eMail in place of playing phone tag, then you also are more productive as a result. But if your main focus is somewhere else, then all that time at the computer was less than optimum. You may be thus suffering from eMail Overload.

Churches have discovered eMail. It is perfect for distributing newsletters and such – i.e. the savings in postage is awesome. But is a phone call a better means of communication? And eMail may very well communicate information, but it doesn’t enlist support very well. And it doesn’t provide immediate feedback on new ideas. And people that are harried by eMail Overload may only give a passing glance to that message you sent them about the upcoming meeting. So should you really be surprised that they didn’t show up? Of course, we all have busy schedules, and things do come up – i.e. often at the last minute with family. However, there is a difference between a verbal “I’ll be there” over the phone and an eMail “Okay.”

How does your Church use eMail to contact members and staff? Is it effective? Or does it add to the eMail Overload problem?