Jake Bouma, the director of youth and family ministries and
contemporary worship leader at St. Mark Lutheran Church in West Des
Moines, Iowa, has the scoop on Tatango, a “free and easy” group messaging
service for both voice and SMS text.
As Jake explains on his blog,
Tatango lets you send out group text messages and voicemails for free, which for youth workers might as well be manna from heaven. Although the free version is supported by ads, they are unobtrusive and the message you send is still communicated, so who can complain.
One of my favorite things about Tatango is the different ways available for you to promote your group and get members to join. You can embed a widget in your website where users can type in their information, and every group you create has a unique web address where users can sign up as well. But the greatest tool, in my opinion, is using customizable keywords. For example, I set up a customized keyword of “EIKON” (the name of my high school ministry). All I have to do is tell students to text the word EIKON to a five-digit shortcode number, and they’re immediately subscribed to any updates I send out for that group.
Of course, Tatango isn’t just funding their free service through advertising—they also have paid subscriptions ranging from $5/month (“Basic”) to $100/month (“Enterprise”).
Jake has gone above the call of duty on this one: First, he got the CEO of Tatango to record a special video explaining how churches can take advantage of the free service. Second, he secured a 10% discount on any of Tatango’s paid subscriptions for readers of his blog (hint: type “Tango” in the Coupon Code box on the payment page).
While some churches are already using other services for
group voice (your typical phone tree setup) and text messages (including Twitter for texting), Tatango may just be
the service you need to get started in communicating more regularly with your
mobile members.
—Steve Knight, Kingdom Journalist and International Communication Coordinator for SIM (Serving In Mission)
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