E-mail Etiquette, part 2
Posted on January 18, 2006
One week ago, I touched briefly on some thoughts about e-mail, specifically how a church should or should not send e-mail out to it’s congregation. If you missed it, click here to read it, then come back, we’ll wait.
Now that we all understand that print media and electronic media are different, let’s dive in deeper. I think it’s great for churches to communicate using e-mail, however, let’s do it responsibly. Here’s some random thoughts:
Rule #1 – Always offer an easy way to get off the list. You shouldn’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get off the list and you should especially shouldn’t force anyone to have to explain or justify why they don’t want to be bothered with your email. The best approach is to always offer unsubscribe instructions at the bottom, either reply to this email or click this link or whatever. In a church environment, it’s probably appropriate to give a specific contact person and say call this person at this extension to request your e-mail address be removed. Never at any time, should this contact person question anyone’s motives. Furthermore, if the email unsubscribe is not automatic, in other words, a person needs to physically remove the address, it will never be a topic of conversation at anytime with anyone. Seem extreme? Perhaps. But, honestly, I think it’s a personal decision whether you participate in this kind of thing or not, don’t put someone on the spot for choosing to unsubscribe. If they tried it and it’s not working for them, so be it, let it go.
Rule #2 – Never disclose anyone’s e-mail address. Either use a mailing list service or a mailing list through your webhost or, at the very least, use BCC:. Again, it’s a personal thing, your members are not giving you their e-mail address for you to distribute to others, they are giving it to you to receive hopefully relevant info.
Rule #3 – Send e-mail at a reasonable, consistent frequency and fully disclose that frequency. 2-3 emails every day is too much, maybe a weekly email is good with info about that week’s events, plus maybe an occassional special request or announcement. If there is a family with a sudden urgent need, that would be appropriate to send out. Don’t use this email list to send stupid jokes or petitions or anything else.
Rule #4 – At the end of each e-mail, state that e-mail addresses will absolutely never be used for anything else or given away, rented or sold. (yes, email addresses can be rented, not ethical, but it has been done.) So, at the bottom of every email, you need to have an easy unsubscribe, plus this last statement.
Rule #5 – Never subscribe anyone without their consent. In other words, don’t subscribe your entire congregation with the assumption that they can simply unsubscribe later if they’re not interested. Again, it’s a personal thing, offer the choice and those that are interested will participate.
The real point here is take your e-mail communication seriously and make it valuable to your members. Here’s a good resource for e-mail guidelines on mailing lists.
If there’s interest, I will get more into the specific mailing lists available now. The real question is this – is it e-mail or email, I know I go back and forth on the dash.
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