If you run communication for a church, you know the Saturday routine. Open the texting app, type the same Sunday reminder you typed last week, check the time, hit send. Then Wednesday: the youth night text. The first of the month: the volunteer schedule. The words barely change, but someone has to remember to send them, every single time.
And the message itself has a problem. “Reminder: worship is tomorrow at 10am” goes to 300 phones and reads like a blast on every one of them. People can tell when a text was written for everyone and no one.
Three additions to the MojoTxt composer take both problems off your plate. They are part of every plan at no extra cost.
Each person gets their own name
While writing a list message, insert a {first name} or {last name} tag wherever you want it. Every person on the list receives their own copy:
- Sarah gets “Hi Sarah, see you Sunday at 10! Doors open at 9:30.”
- Marcus gets “Hi Marcus, see you Sunday at 10! Doors open at 9:30.”
Some people on your list will not have a name on file. You choose a fallback word for them, so the text reads “Hi there” or “Hi church family!” instead of leaving a gap. The defaults are “there” and “church”.
Names are tidied automatically on the way out, so a record stored as JOHN is sent as John. Your records themselves are not changed.
Billing works the way it always has: each person is billed only for their own copy. A long name can make one person's copy 2 credits, and the composer shows you the exact total before you send.
Name tags work in list messages, in welcome-series automations, in People sends and through the API, so a new subscriber's very first text can greet them by name.
Repeat on a schedule
Write the Sunday reminder once and choose Repeat on a schedule. You pick:
- how often: every day, every week, every 2 weeks or every month
- which days, and the time of day in your account's time zone
- when it starts, and when it ends: never, on a date, or after a set number of sends
Before you save, the composer shows the next three sends so you can confirm the pattern is what you meant. After that, a Repeating tab lists every schedule with Pause, Resume, Edit and Delete.
Each upcoming send also appears like any other scheduled message. If a holiday weekend means no service, open that one send and skip or edit it. The rest of the schedule carries on.
A schedule that cannot send, because a trial has run out of credits or nobody is left on the list, pauses on its own and tells you why, so nothing goes out half-finished and nothing fails silently.
Saved messages
Some texts are not on a schedule but come up again and again: the inclement-weather closing, the “we are praying for you” reply, the giving link. Save the text, link and image of any message under a name, and pick it from the composer the next time you need it.
What this looks like on a Saturday
You open MojoTxt once, in September, and write: “Hi {first name}, see you Sunday at 10! Doors open at 9:30 and coffee is on.” You set it to repeat weekly on Saturdays at 6pm, ending never, and check the three preview dates. From then on, every Saturday evening, every person on the list gets a text with their own name on it, and your Saturday routine is one item shorter.
Getting started
If you already use MojoTxt, open the composer and look for the name tag buttons and the Repeat option. The step-by-step details are in the in-app guide (sign in first). If you are new, start a free 30-day trial with 250 message credits. Before your first send, the mobile carriers require a one-time registration of your number, which we walk you through inside your account.
Read more about recurring text messages, see everything on the church texting service page, or check pricing.
