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Marketing: Take a lesson from new churches

by: Rebecca Barnes, editor

Scott Evans, president and founder of Outreach, a church marketing company, believes effective outreach starts where most new churches begin: In understanding their community and the people they are trying to reach.

"Understanding a church's individual identity can help focus marketing and outreach efforts for maximum effectiveness," according to Evans.

Reaching out to specific people with particular needs is also essential. Evans recommends that churches do their demographics homework.


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Tim Stephens, who helped plant Journey Christian Church in Tampa, Fla., in 1999, said the outreach there included mass mailings targeted to unchurched people interested in learning more about Christianity.

"In the first three months of Journey Christian Church's existence," Stephens says, "over 40 people were baptized. Almost all of them came to Journey because they received a card in the mail."

Direct mail is one of the most effective tools to reach people, according to a Pitney Bowes survey released last year.

For new churches, direct mail is often the most appropriate marketing tool because it can be targeted and is relatively inexpensive, according to John Bagwell of ChurchMax.com.

For established churches, ChurchMax offers a New Movers Program that allows churches to send postcards each month to people who move into their neighborhood, inviting them to church.

According to research by church health expert Dr. Thom S. Rainer, most Americans have never been invited to church, but 82 percent said they would be "somewhat likely" to attend if asked.

Sending messages

Whether or not they receive a printed invitation, prospective members are receiving plenty of messages from new and established churches.

"Every church markets," Stephens wrote. Signs, logos, newsletters, meeting space, even a worship service is a marketing tool, according to Stephens, because, "everything the church does either helps people take a step closer to Jesus or creates a barrier for the gospel."

Stephens suggests five steps to creating a marketing plan, which is essential for effective branding and advertising.

1. Define who you are and who you want to be
2. Make an exhaustive list of methods to reach your target group
3. Contextualize your ideas to fit your area
4. Prioritize your ideas
5. Weigh the costs

Beyond that, marketing experts recommend keeping the message consistent and saturating the target group not only with direct mail, but with newspaper articles, radio and television ads, the Internet, business cards and brochures.

Church marketing can be a bridge to lost people, according to Stephens, connecting them to the gospel message. "That is why, among the Christian community, church planters and new churches have been the most willing to accept church marketing."


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