Comments on: How to Do a Great Weekly Email for Your Congregation http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/ A Church Web Diva's Musings on Excellence in Religious Websites Sat, 03 Jul 2010 17:11:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Anna Belle http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/comment-page-1/#comment-323 Anna Belle Sat, 23 Jun 2007 19:26:13 +0000 http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/#comment-323 Great suggestions, Mark. You are so right about using another service provider when double checking. Poor Nigeria. My daughter briefly lived in Mali, right next door on the River Niger. Back then, email from that part of the world was my top priority. Great suggestions, Mark. You are so right about using another service provider when double checking.

Poor Nigeria. My daughter briefly lived in Mali, right next door on the River Niger. Back then, email from that part of the world was my top priority.

]]> By: Mark Alves http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/comment-page-1/#comment-320 Mark Alves Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:50:33 +0000 http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/#comment-320 Good tips. A couple more: - Include fresh content in the subject line. In your case, that might include the title of the Wed. class. - When double checking to see if the message was received, include accounts at Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and any popular local providers. Your checkers shouldn't have the sender's email address in their address books so that you can confirm the messages aren't getting blocked at the provider level. Church messages can inadvertently sound spammy -- sign up now, free offer, requests for donations. And if you have a sister organization in Nigeria, look out... After the email goes out, the content sounds like it would also make a great RSS feed. Good tips. A couple more:
- Include fresh content in the subject line. In your case, that might include the title of the Wed. class.
- When double checking to see if the message was received, include accounts at Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and any popular local providers. Your checkers shouldn’t have the sender’s email address in their address books so that you can confirm the messages aren’t getting blocked at the provider level. Church messages can inadvertently sound spammy — sign up now, free offer, requests for donations. And if you have a sister organization in Nigeria, look out…

After the email goes out, the content sounds like it would also make a great RSS feed.

]]> By: Anna Belle http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/comment-page-1/#comment-318 Anna Belle Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:26:08 +0000 http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/#comment-318 Steve -- You are in good company being anti-HTML email. Zeldman, one of my web mentors, rails against it quite regularly. To quote him: <a href="http://zeldman.com/2007/06/08/e-mail-is-not-a-platform-for-design/" rel="nofollow">"ASCII means never having to say you’re sorry."</a> Ms. Theologian -- yes, yes. We had one jinxed email where I swear there were 12 of us involved (1 to write, 1 to produce and 10 to troubleshoot). I morphed into the chief cat herder. It wasn't pretty. Steve — You are in good company being anti-HTML email. Zeldman, one of my web mentors, rails against it quite regularly. To quote him: “ASCII means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Ms. Theologian — yes, yes. We had one jinxed email where I swear there were 12 of us involved (1 to write, 1 to produce and 10 to troubleshoot). I morphed into the chief cat herder. It wasn’t pretty.

]]> By: Ms. Theologian http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/comment-page-1/#comment-315 Ms. Theologian Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:28:05 +0000 http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/#comment-315 You're so right about minimizing the cooks in the kitchen. I am the editor of a little community newsletter for our water company and everyone wants to be involved, but when two people write the education component, one person contributes the well measurement, I edit everything, and then it gets approved by three board members....it never gets done. You’re so right about minimizing the cooks in the kitchen. I am the editor of a little community newsletter for our water company and everyone wants to be involved, but when two people write the education component, one person contributes the well measurement, I edit everything, and then it gets approved by three board members….it never gets done.

]]> By: Steve Caldwell http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/comment-page-1/#comment-312 Steve Caldwell Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:02:06 +0000 http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/21/how-to-do-a-great-weekly-email-for-your-congregation/#comment-312 One possible addition to your list might be using plain-text instead of HTML and other fancy formatting in your weekly emails. Many corporate and government organizations are restricting the use of HTML-formatted emails due to security issues. For example, I just received an email at my office telling us that the Air Force email system would start rejecting HTML-formatted emails due to security issues. There's a good article on the problems with HTML email that is available as a link from the UUA web site: "What is wrong with sending HTML or MIME messages?" http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#intro This article gives background on the computer security issues. One possible addition to your list might be using plain-text instead of HTML and other fancy formatting in your weekly emails.

Many corporate and government organizations are restricting the use of HTML-formatted emails due to security issues. For example, I just received an email at my office telling us that the Air Force email system would start rejecting HTML-formatted emails due to security issues.

There’s a good article on the problems with HTML email that is available as a link from the UUA web site:

“What is wrong with sending HTML or MIME messages?”
http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#intro

This article gives background on the computer security issues.

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