4 changes that made the Need to Know campaign the most successful email NewSpring sends
NewSpring Church doesn’t just have one location; it has 13 campuses across the state of South Carolina with an average attendance between 10,000 in slower, summer months to 16,000 during the school year. Every week, NewSpring Church sends subscribers a weekly email newsletter – the “Need to Know” — to keep them informed of what’s happening at NewSpring.
When we began working together, the Need to Know had just over 7,000 subscribers and an open-rate average of 25.2%. Yes, anything over 20% is excellent, but we had one major problem: subscribers didn't know what was happening at their NewSpring campus. (Yikes!)
Changing how the email looked wasn't going to be enough; we needed to change how we communicated specifics to subscribers.
1. First, we switched our CMS.
MailChimp wasn't working for us, because we wanted to use a platform that seamlessly integrated with our data and kept everything safer. For us, switching from MailChimp to Rock RMS was the right call.
2. We catered to specific needs.
Our congregation didn't need to know about what the church was doing on a global scale; it needed to know what was happening in their own community and how they could be a part.
The more specific an email campaign can be to the audience, the better. Why? Because your subscribers are the "evangelists" of your brand's message. They share their problems with you, test your solutions, and share them with their friends. So, we decided to send the Need to Know as a weekly campus-specific newsletter.
3. We made it beautiful and capitalized on curiosity
Rather than run-on sentences and large images that never loaded, we provided just enough words to know what was going on. In addition, we simplified the amount of emojis and images we used and cut the "fluff." We wrote eye-catching headlines and utilized the preview text for each individual email. It worked!
Within 10 months, the open rate rose from 25.2% to an average of 45%, and the subscriber base increased by 500 people — without any external marketing (and I mean, zero).
4. We innovated to make it easy for our staff to contribute.
We wanted this experience to be frictionless for staff members. After 13 months of developing a dynamic content channel in our CRM (Rock RMS), the campus-specific Need to Know was born. All 14 campuses submit information into a content channel for their weekly email campaign. Their campus-specific information is proofread, edited if needed, compiled, and sent to subscribers at relevant campuses!
One year after launching campus-specific efforts, the Need to Know now has over 12,000 subscribers and an average open rate of 65%!
Need a little help with your existing email campaign — or help setting up a new rhythm of communication? Book a free consultation!