Home Youth Leaders Articles for Youth Leaders Stop Communicating With Parents and Do This

Stop Communicating With Parents and Do This

Today I’m going to tell you why parents don’t read your letters …

… and the very simple way to change that before the weekend.

In fact, it’s so powerful that they’ll start opening every single envelope.

Marketers call that a 100% open rate and it’s supposed to be impossible, but it’s not.

First, though, let’s talk about why traditional mailings don’t work as well as we want them to.

Too many of our ministry’s mailings look too much like junk mail.

People don’t open junk mail, people don’t open things that they think are junk mail, and they don’t open things that look like junk mail.

The church’s stuff has overly stylized envelopes and computer-generated, impersonal, address labels.

The church’s stuff has a return address with a logo instead of a human person’s name.

Your mailings may look polished and professional, but then so do the dozen credit card preapprovals I get every week.

If your church communication looks too much like junk mail, expect it to be treated like junk mail.

The credit card companies already figured this out, and so they’re beginning to create mailings that are designed to look like real, actual mail.

No logos, no return address, a real stamp and handwritten fonts.

It pains me to say it, but we could really learn something from those guys.

Want parents to open your mail? Ask their children to address the envelopes.

This is such a simple idea that it really feels like cheating, but it’s not.

Every semester, ask your students to hand address several envelopes to their parents.

Then, use these envelopes instead of your standard mailings. That’s it.

That’s really the end of the suggestion.

Parents will open a letter that is addressed to “Mom and Dad,” from their child and in their child’s handwriting.

They will open that letter every single time they see it …

… and I haven’t seen too many ideas that will achieve an open rate better than that.

Is this something you’ll try soon? Tell me about it!