After a year in development, our new Drag and Draw Email platform has arrived:
How can you get this amazing new tool? It will automagically appear in your ChurchPost account (look under CREATE) in the next few weeks. Of course, we aren’t getting rid of our Standard Editor…we’re just adding another great tool to communicate with your subscribers.
We had a wonderful time in Chicago at the 2010 Religion Communication Conference last week! In addition to meeting many of our fantastic current customers, we met a host of people (of every denomination) from pretty much every state across the United States.
We were particularly impressed with Art McClanahan from the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church. Not only is he technically savvy (I learned about a new iPhone app that broadcasts recorded audio), but he took the time to record this fantastic video of Debra talking about what we do. His questions were spot on, and his passion, interest and energy for his ministry was palpable and infectious – so…thanks for the video, Art!
We are thrilled to announce the upcoming release of our new Standard Email editor on February 1, 2010.
Here’s a sneak peak at the top 3 features:
For a quick summary of what all of the buttons/icons do, visit our Help Desk:
http://support.churchpost.com/kb/article/000043
We are excited to announce the release of our new social network sharing feature.
Next to each of your SENT messages, you will now see a small icon that automatically creates a short URL to your message.
URL shortening is a technique on the Web where a provider makes a web page available under a very short URL in addition to the original address.
For example, the page:
http://www.churchpost.com/view_message?id=pp45dfdhyXd78dfs
can be shortened to:
http://bitpost.us/23ts
Short URLs are perfect for sharing content via a host of social networking sites!
Instead of using services like bit.ly or TinyURL.com, we decided to create our own shortening service called bitpost.us, or “Bit Post Us” – a reference to our company’s legal name Post Communications 
In recent years, services like bit.ly and tinyurl.com have been attacked by spammers and the like, often times making these references (or short URLs) flagged by social networking sites and email services (like Gmail) as potential SPAM because anyone can create short URLs using them.
By creating our own shortening service, we ensure that only valid ChurchPost mailings get short links with the http://bitpost.us/ prefix, and that your messages are not filtered as SPAM when you post them.
By teaming up with AddThis, you can now share your ChurchPost.com messages with a host of over 230 communication services, including Facebook, Twitter, Digg and many more!
Of course, you can use our short URLs anywhere you wish – simply click the SHARE icon next to your sent message and copy/paste the URL into anything! Clicking the link will automatically take your viewers to a web version of your message.
By using SHARE ChurchPost, we make it incredibly easy to post your message to the platform of your choice:
Selecting Facebook, for example, automatically takes you to your posting page (or prompts you to login if you aren’t already) and includes the short URL and message subject. You can add your custom message and then post it!
TWEET your message with one simple click!
This new feature makes sharing your message even easier, without the hassle of re-creating it on every communication platform you use.
Remember, we only create short URLs for messages you decide to share. Otherwise, web versions are completely encrypted and only viewable by those who receive them.
Once a short URL has been created for your message (by clicking the SHARE icon next to your message subject), this URL will ALWAYS remain the same, and you can refer back to it any time by clicking the SHARE icon.
In the coming months, we will be vastly expanding our reporting section to include tracking of messages viewed by short URL and much more!
Happy communicating!
Team ChurchPost
Today we released a small but helpful feature that allows you to, with one click, select ALL of your groups when sending a message:
This feature has been requested by several users recently, and we thought we would go ahead and push it live before the holidays
Remember, ChurchPost automatically “de-dupes” recipients for a given message, so if a subscriber exists in more than one group in the “TO GROUPS” list for a specific message, we will be sure your subscribers do NOT receive duplicates.
We have some exciting news just around the corner…keep your eyes on our BLOG…
We know some of you have been missing the postcard templates that you had access to in Version 2.0. The wait is over…
To access, hover over your CREATE button and choose Custom Email. Click on the My Template Library button and you will see them under the heading of Public Templates just below your own My Template designs if you have any.
Don’t see something you’re looking for? Let us know. If we haven’t uploaded a design that you loved contact us and we’ll either put it up in the Public Library or load it in to your My Template section.
Thank you all for your great feedback and patience!
Sleep is overrated! We’ve been working around the clock to bring you ChurchPost Version 3 – here are a few screenshots of what’s ahead – ALL of these upgrades are in response to valuable feedback from our customers over the past year – THANK YOU
To upgrade to Version 3, you don’t need to do anything! We’ll automatically roll out these features starting March 21, 2009 (this Saturday!) and we’ll be done by March 25, 2009 – of course, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, you can reach us any time by email or phone (support.churchpost.com)….here’s what we’ve been up to (notice the help videos on every page for quick answers to your questions):
Sneak Peak of Version 3
When someone signs up for a group at your church via your Get Connected Box, they are instantly welcomed once they confirm their email address.
This welcome message is your chance to provide not only information about the specific group/ministry/activity, but also to stamp your unique personality as a group leader.
We have recently updated the customized welcome message format. Effective immediately, welcome messages (by default) contain only 3 short sentences that ensure the recipient knows what they have opted to receive.
The rest of the message is completely customizable, and is automatically personalized for that subscriber.
You can customize content, signoff, and more! Best of all, your custom welcome message accepts HTML, so have fun!
Welcome messages are always sent to the subscriber FROM the group owner’s verified address. So matter what time of the day someone signs up for your group, they will instantly be welcomed by the group owner!
We find that this article about Bonnie Anderson, the president of the General Convention House of Deputies, speaks directly to our mission and ministry. To read the entire article in The Record, click here.
“I know that this is likely an interesting, if not difficult, time for communicators. Budget cuts often find their way to the diocesan office of communications first. At the same time, there is a lively debate in the whole communications universe about digital versus print. In these current debates, first it is important for our own Episcopal communications universe to know how all the fellow Episcopalians that are served consume the news. Secondly, it is important to advocate for what we believe is the right mix.
“I want you to know that you have my support in your quest for free-flowing, transparent communication that enables the ministry of the baptized,” she said. “I believe that communication is a mission priority for our Church and needs to be recognized as such. For me, this falls into the category of an ‘infrastructure rebuild’.
We are excited that churches and church “headquarters” of all denominations are starting to focus on efficient, thorough, healthy communication. Please let us know if we can help your church or denomination in your efforts to communicate better. (And yes… the House of Deputies has chosen ChurchPost to power their communications. We’re really excited about that too!)
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) uses digital, cryptographic signatures, attaching information to a new header field in the message.
Since January, AOL, Yahoo and Google have been using DKIM to authenticate their inbound messages.
While authentication protocols like DKIM do not guarantee deliverability, they are a critical step to making sure your message gets through. So rest assured that your ChurchPost messages are being sent from mail servers that are monitored 24/7 and utilize the latest technology to ensure deliverability.
And because ISPs like AOL and others take into account BOTH IP-based reputation and domain based reputation, ChurchPost also utilizes SPF (Sender Policy Framework) authentication, so your recipients know they are reading messages from the IP/domain that it purports to be from.
For those interested, there is a fantastic white paper entitled “Trust in Email Begins with Authentication” available from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group at:
http://www.maawg.org/about/publishedDocuments/MAAWG_Email_Authentication_Paper.pdf
Happy sending!
