Holy Direct Mail

Marketing The Good News
Savvy churches are using direct mail to spread the Word

Churches used to build their membership through word of mouth. Increasingly, savvy congregations are taking that approach up a notch by getting the word out via direct mail campaigns.
And while many smaller churches often do their own marketing, the larger churches are turning more often to professional marketers to help them add to the flock.
Gina Manlove, vice president of John Manlove Church Marketing, in Pasadena, Texas, says her company has done business with thousands of churches in recent years, helping craft and hone messages about a host of issues, from the arrival of a new minister to outreach to non-Christians.
“What we do is unique to each church and its needs,” says Manlove, whose company began as a business-to-business marketing company. It opened its church-marketing division in the 1990s after noticing a lack of good-quality marketing materials for churches.
She says Manlove Marketing (johnmanlove.com), which has worked with about 5,000 churches over the years, uses direct to create a brand-oriented design for each church. “Direct mail is beneficial only when it is effective,” Manlove says. “Being effective means using a brand-driven strategy. Many marketing companies focus on the cost per card. With that approach it is easy to make inexpensive direct mail cards. Instead, we measure the cards’ ability to actually increase church attendance.”
Of course, some churches still prefer to reach out to members and potential members on their own, and there are several marketing agencies that specialize in church-related materials. For example, church-marketing.com, which focuses primarily on direct mail, offers online marketing tutorials, design services, card printing services and mail shop services.
But whether the marketing is done by their members or by professionals, Manlove says, many church members remain uncomfortable with the idea of “marketing.” Manlove, however, has an answer for the skeptics: “A beautiful direct mail piece is just another way of knocking on someone’s door.”

-Deliver Magazine







u=http%3A%2F%2Fdelivermagazine.com%2Fcase-studies%2F2007%2F09%2F21%2Fmarketing-the-good-news%2F&title=Marketing+The+Good+News">