Nine ways to improve your church email newsletter

A good church email newsletter keeps readers informed and builds trust between church leaders and the community. As not everyone will see an update on social media, it’s helpful to keep everyone in the loop with a useful newsletter. 
 
Think back to the most recent email newsletter you received. What made you open it and read to the end? Was it the enticing subject line, a desire to be in the know, or an awaited exciting update? Here’s nine tips to make the most of your church newsletter. 

1. Focus on your audience 

Start by considering what your community would like to know, rather than what you want to tell them. Which updates and events are most relevant to them? Avoid the trap of including everything in one newsletter – that can be overwhelming for readers - and instead, filter it down to three or four focused areas. 
 
You could take this one step further and create newsletters aimed at the different groups of people you communicate with, so that people only receive the information that is most relevant to them. If you do target particular groups, make sure you have people’s consent to receive these messages. How can you provide value to these specific groups? What would be relevant information for them? 

These more focused newsletters could be:  

• A family-focused newsletter for parents e.g. you could share the latest events and support for parents and young people 

• Updates for men’s groups or women’s groups e.g. when are the next social gatherings? 

• News for people in small groups e.g. Bible/prayer/inspirational content 

• A newsletter for volunteers in your congregation 

2. Subject lines, headlines and calls-to-action 

Entice readers to open the email with a catchy and short subject line, hinting at what’s enclosed. Try to keep this concise: the ideal subject line should be between 30 or 50 characters, or four to seven words in length. Throughout the newsletter, use short headlines to draw the reader's eye down the page and organise the different sections of the newsletter. 

Calls-to-action encourage the reader to take an action such as: ‘donate here’ or ‘book your ticket now’ or ‘learn more’. They’re a good way to engage people further (e.g. directing them to your website) and highlight what it is they need to do, e.g. if it’s a church weekend away, they need to ‘sign up here’. You can emphasise call-to-action links by making them into a button or clickable image which stands apart from the rest of the email. 

3. Make it easy to read 

Short, concise text will help get your message across, whereas long paragraphs can be off-putting and crucial details may be missed. Keep the most important information e.g. ‘the deadline for booking onto our weekend away is next week’ at the beginning of the relevant section. 

Break up blocks of text with bullet points, paragraphs and images. Use engaging rhetorical questions for a more conversational style e.g. ‘Have you read our latest blog?’. For your services and events, include the essential details or a short line of text, and a link to your website will enable interested readers to find out more.  

4. Be consistent 

Publish your newsletter regularly, monthly or weekly – whatever you have time for – but do keep it consistent so that readers know when to expect it. Regular features will create a consistent feel to the newsletter so your audience comes back for more. These could be features like: 

• ‘What’s happening this month’ 

• ‘Our latest blogs’ 

• ‘Photo of the week’  

• ‘Meet the team’ e.g. profile a different team member