The Main Thing
This is the primary email newsletter for Christ Church Santa Fe. When I first came on board, they struggled with email communications not only in design, but frequency. A church secretary would send out "email blasts" per request. With a busy congregation served by 14 ministries, someone would have a reason to get word out to the mailing list almost daily. Obviously, this demand desperately needed to be tempered with scheduling and organization. I re-oranized the lists and switched email marketing over to MailChimp from ConstantContact. Simultaneously, I worked with various ministry leaders to improve their content, usually via professional copywriting and photography, which elevated and put a face on their activities.
This is the primary email newsletter for Christ Church Santa Fe. When I first came on board, they struggled with email communications not only in design, but frequency. A church secretary would send out "email blasts" per request. With a busy congregation served by 14 ministries, someone would have a reason to get word out to the mailing list almost daily. Obviously, this demand desperately needed to be tempered with scheduling and organization. I re-oranized the lists and switched email marketing over to MailChimp from ConstantContact. Simultaneously, I worked with various ministry leaders to improve their content, usually via professional copywriting and photography, which elevated and put a face on their activities.
My audit of the state of communications allowed Pastoral staff to better determine communication goals. Changing from former Inbox clutter, The Main Thing would now cover general activities on a quarterly basis, so as not to overwhelm recipients, while allowing the ministries to better organize their calendars so they too could have regular, ministry-specific email communications. With better communication came positive change: Fewer people unsubscribed from church emails, church attendance doubled, while tithing steadily increased. (In fact, during my second year, six million dollars was raised for a building expansion.)
The three years I spent as Director of Communication Arts at this church resulted in much more usable, organized, and better-designed communications.
Below is a test email for The Main Thing. This design was a radical departure from the former newsletter. It was well-received and allowed for better communications by further specializing the emails. Giving the community a choice of which subscriptions best met their interest heped with subscriber retention.
