youth ministry texting

Do you send out group texts to students?

I posted  last week at the start of this series called, Developing a Texting Strategy for your Youth Ministry, and I recommended a program called tatango.  They offer a great service, and they did have a plan that cost $25 a month for unlimited texting for up to 250 contacts.  I have promoted them in the past because I used them.  Recently they switched their plan from $25 a month to $250 a month.  What happened is that it priced youth pastors out of the market.  

I emailed tatango last week and asked them to set up the other service for churches.  They said no!  So, I had to find the next best service out there.  With a ton of research I landed at SMS360 marketing.  It is a great service.  

We live in a world where every teenager has a phone.  I quickly built my text messaging list from 30 to 82 students in a month.  All it took was developing a texting strategy that would work for my youth ministry, and I hope it will work for you.

Here are some details on SMS360 marketing: 

Price

This company is completely affordable, and I would recommend setting up a free account today to get started.

That is what I did with tatango.  I started an account and had students opt in to the program and I was completely amazed at how effective it was.

How it works: 

[vimeo 46362707] 

How can you use this? 

Currently I am using this with student in my youth ministry, but I want to build this service for parents and even prayer supporters.  I personally think that text messaging is the most effective way to communicate to a large group of people.

Why not use a iphone sms program/app? 

To be honest, I love being able to send texts to students through a service, and not through my phone.  I don’t want my phone buzzing all day, and all night.  I personally don’t want students texting me all the time.  I do have all the text numbers for my small group, but other than that I love knowing that through this program I can send texts, wish them a happy birthday, and more.  SMS360 marketing is a professional texting service that churches like Saddleback Church use.

So the text messaging program that we will be using during this series is  SMS360 marketing.  At least set up a free account to check it out.  You can check out a free account here.

Here is where we are going in this series on developing a texting strategy for the next few weeks: 

1. Setting the texting service up

2. Building a texting list

3. Using social media

4. Keeping students connected

5. Building a strategy that you can pass off.

Looking forward to the series!  Anyone already using SMS360 marketing?