Marketing: Take a lesson from new churches

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.

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." Read more about this effective marketing practice.