How much is too much?

A recent blog entitled Don't Do It inspired a lot of online and offline conversation. The blog tells the story of an email marketing campaign gone horribly wrong because of the illegal practice of email harvesting. As a result we learned a lesson about SPAM and how to conduct email marketing campaigns legally.

That lead to more marketing questions such as, "How much is too much?" And "How often should I send out my ministry's email?"

I have signed up for three ministry newsletters; the rest I classify as spam.

Anita Carmen of Inspire Women sends out her newsletter once a week and I look forward to it every Monday. Her newsletters bless me and the once a week frequency works for me. On the other hand, I recently canceled an email subscription because the frequency of the emails were too much. Sometimes there were two and three in a day. That was information overload and I unsubscribed

So personally, how often do you want to hear from ministries/organizations and businesses? You can respond to the poll on my blog.

Once the poll is closed I'll report back to you. This information can be used as a barometer when conducting your own email campaigns. It won't be a scientific poll and there are lots more questions to be asked but the results of this simple poll can help you gauge your email frequency.

Thank you in advance for your participation and the information gathered will help us all in our ministry promotions.

God Bless!

Pastor Lisa

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Too good not to share

Sometimes a word is so good you just have to share. A good friend of mine, Prophetess Karen Pina has an awesome word on "the peoples" that I believe will bless those with callings on their lives and those in leadership.

Here's an excerpt from her blog.

Enjoy!

What plans do they have for you?

“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart through all generations. He makes the thoughts and plans of the peoples of no effect.” – Psalm 33:10b-11

If you have been in ministry for any amount of time, you have run into “the peoples” referred to in this scripture. “The peoples” are also the “they” that have all sorts of plans and thoughts –some good, some evil. The peoples seem to always have some counsel about the direction of your God-given vision/call.

The peoples can tell you what and what you are not anointed to do. They even tell you that you are not called to the office Jesus Himself appointed you to and gave you as a gift to His very own body. They withhold goodness when it is in their power to do good by you and the ministry God has assigned your hands.

Finish reading the rest of her blog by clicking here.

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Don't do it!

We've all been a victim of this at one time or another. Your email address has been harvested and your inbox is now full of emails for products, services, ministry events that you never signed up for. Harvesting email addresses is illegal! It does not matter if, "everybody is doing it" either. The law on email harvesting can be read here.

Email addresses are harvested through a number of ways.

1. One can scour the Internet for ministries with a Web presence and grab their info@churchname address. It's recommended that you use a comment form instead of listing your email address online to ward off harvesters.
   
   
2. Friends send you and everybody else in their address book an email so now they also have your email address. If sending out an email to everyone in your address book, use the Blind Carbon Copy or BCC to protect your list.
   
   
3. And then there are "bots" that scour the Internet for email addresses.

Today I received an email from someone I do not know, for a ministry event happening on the East coast. And I'm certain that the person who sent the email wishes they had not. Apparently the email addresses were harvested and a snowball of emails ensued asking to be removed from the list. They had the system setup to where if you responded to the email, your response was sent to everyone. So today my email has been full of angry request to be removed from their list. Now the email sender who was just trying to the get word out about a ministry event has to report to his leaders why all the angry calls and emails to their ministry.

So, today I urge you, if your friends send you an email and its loaded with email addresses, or if you're tempted to go cruising the Internet for email address...Don't do it!

You may find yourself like this young man, buried under angry emails and phone calls. Sometimes a marketing effort backfires horribly as it did today for that particular ministry.

Instead, make sure your Web site has a place where visitors can legitimately sign up to receive notices from you. Include a double opt-in feature. Services like Constant Contact and AWeber are good resources and can help you conduct ethical and legal email marketing campaigns.

Do get the word out about the great thing God is doing in your ministry, just make sure it's legal!

Be blessed,

Pastor Lisa

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