Why You Need a Youth Ministry Texting Service

According to a new study from Nielsen, the average teenager sends 3,339 texts per month. That’s more than email and phone calls combined!

The reality is, if you want to connect with the modern teen, texting is the way to get their attention.

Better yet, it’s a way to align yourself right next to their closest friends and family, all within one inbox.

So, what are the tangible benefits of text-enabling your youth ministry and how do you get started with it? That’s a secret we’ll always share.

But first, if you’re completely new to text marketing, check out this demo we made just for churches that will help give you a better understanding of the platform!

What Is a Youth Ministry Texting Service?

Just as services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact allow you to design and send campaigns to a list of subscribers, texting services exist to do the same thing.

The only difference?

Instead of emails, which have an average open rate of 20%, you send text messages—90% of which get read within three minutes of being opened!

A youth ministry texting service lets you send a message to everyone in your ministry at once.

The beauty of a texting service is that you can send mass messages and chat with subscribers one-on-one.

For example, Life Chapel sends out event updates to their entire youth group through one message. But they’re able to answer questions through individual replies.

[Read: How Life Chapel in New Jersey Uses Texting to Engage Their Youth Ministry]

Why Does Your Church Need a Youth Ministry Texting Service?

Not only is texting what the kids are doing these days, but it’s also an effective marketing channel used by ministries across the country.

For each of the most common reasons you’d need to connect with your youth ministry, texting provides the perfect method to get your message across.

Event Reminders

The average person takes 90 seconds to reply to an SMS message—but 90 minutes to respond to an email. When it comes to gathering event RSVPs, a channel with that kind of response rate is a game-changer.

From bible studies to pizza and prayer nights, hear back faster and in higher volumes when you text out your invitations.

Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteer involvement in the parish is a great way to connect your youth ministry to the community. However, getting teens out of bed on a Saturday morning to garden can be a tough sell. Texting has a proven track record of success when it comes to recruiting church volunteers.

For example, in our case study with Coastal Cathedral, SMS even outperformed social media, improving their volunteer turnout by 100%!

Recruitment

A Gallup poll found that religious group membership is down 20% in the last 20 years. However, for youth groups like the one at Milestone church, attendance, and engagement are up thanks to texting. Milestone’s youth group “Elevate” utilizes a keyword (a short word or phrase you can text into a number to sign up for updates) to reach new youth group members during mass.

Each time folks text in the keyword, they automatically receive a link to a Google form to share more about their interests. Thanks to this kind of savvy data collection, they’ve seen nothing but growth in their youth programming over the last few years!

Faith Engagement

With school and bustling social lives monopolizing their attention, it can be challenging to show your ministries’ youth how easy it is to slow down and bring Christ into your daily life. However, texting out daily devotionals and reflections is a great, quick way to keep your ministry engaged and involved.

[Read: 30 Worship Lines Worth Sharing With Your Church]

How to Get Started With a Youth Ministry Texting Service

It only takes a few minutes to get your youth ministry started with SMS. But that’s not even the best part.

Texting is free to try out, but churches are also eligible for 15% off on all monthly plans going forward.

Here’s how it works.

1. Sign Up for a Free Trial

If you’re ready to jump right in more power to you. Many of our church partners like to give our platform a quick trial run to make sure it meets your needs.

Once you sign up for your free trial, you’ll provide an email and create a password. You’ll then answer a couple of questions about how you want to text with your youth ministry, and done! Your account is up and running.

2. Add Contacts

There are a few different ways you can start to connect with your youth ministry:

• Import a contact list: If you already have phone numbers from people who have permitted you to text them, you can import them into SimpleTexting. You can learn how to do this in our step-by-step help center article.
• Create a keyword: Text-to-Join using a keyword is an excellent way to grow the number of people signed up to receive your text messages. As we mentioned earlier, a keyword is a word or phrase that people can text to your number to sign up for future messages. (E.g. Text MINISTRY to 94090.)

3. Send Your First Message

Now that you’ve created a keyword or imported a list, it’s time to send your first message! You can send the text immediately or schedule a text for later.

If you plan to use SimpleTexting to chat one-on-one with members of your youth ministry, then you’ll spend a lot of time in our inbox.

The SimpleTexting inbox lets you prioritize conversations, make notes, and set up templates so that you never have to rewrite the same message twice. 

Now you’ve got everything you need to get started with your youth ministry texting service. Still have questions? Text CHURCH to 94090 to see how church text messaging works for yourself!