The texting platform Gloo is offering free texting to churches and faith-based organizations. Ministry leaders can sign up online to begin communicating with their congregations and communities.
“The church should have all the capabilities that Fortune 500 companies have at their fingertips to communicate and engage with their people,” CEO Scott Beck said. “When tens of thousands of churches leverage a common platform, texting costs go down and some donors even step in to help cover the costs. That’s collective might at work.”
Texting is one of the most prevalent forms of communication today. Text messages have a 98 percent open rate and 45 percent response rate, compared to emails, which have only a 20 percent open rate and a 6 percent response rate, according to research.
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In addition to texting capabilities, the Gloo communications platform equips ministries with ready-made workflows, such as a series of templates that can be used to follow up with new visitors, ready-made responses to phrases such as“prayer request” and “new here” and broadcast presets that help pastors stay engaged with members throughout the week. The growing platform environment of more than 40,000 churches has attracted a variety of partnering organizations looking to serve churches with their content and expertise, including Cru, American Bible Society, The Chosen, Outreach Magazine and He Gets Us.
“Having texting at no cost is a huge benefit to us,” said Dillon Kimmel, pastor of Salt Community Church in Maiden, N.C. “It almost pays us, because we have an opportunity to save money we would normally be spending on texting. Not everybody checks their email — it gets pushed into the junk folder or shoved to the side. But everybody has the time to quickly check their phone. This level of engagement really helps us reach and connect with our people.”
Gloo has come under scrutiny in the past for “mining” data it collects on church members and others. Numerous churches use the platform to track engagement and reach potential church members, according to the Wall Street Journal.
According to a ReligionUnplugged article, “Gloo works with more than 30,000 churches, or about 10% of U.S. congregations, and has compiled data on some 245 million Americans.”
Ministry leaders can sign up for free texting at www.gloo.us/engage.
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
Photo: Pexels.
