Planting Space

Last week I posted a blog on email marketing which included a link to a review of several of the providers.  There was one company that review left out that we recommend to all of our church planters: Web Accelerated Marketing.  I’ll review it based on the criteria from my post.
1.  Check the templates:  WAM [...]

Email is a key tool in the church planter’s arsenal.  It is used for fundraising, marketing, internal communication, scheduling, and many other things.  The days of plain text emails are all but gone.  Emails now are saturated with html, pictures, and hyperlinks.  But don’t worry, you don’t have to be a web designer or graphic [...]

Getting the word out in your community is an obvious necessity for a new church plant. But do you have any idea how long it takes for some of the standard communication/marketing pieces to be produced? Since church launches are seasonal, you and a hundred other planters are all asking for services from the same [...]

I had dinner with a family who is new to the church on Monday.  They both grew up Catholic and had tried connecting in with the Catholic Church in the area but had some problems.  They made a new year’s resolution that they wanted to go to church.  They had received a series of direct [...]

Over the past few months P4P has seen multiple examples of companies using Personalized URLs or PURLs as a part of direct mail marketing campaigns.  What is a PURL?  Quite simply a PURL is a page on your website personalized for every person to whom you send a postcard.  Here’s how it works:  You will [...]

In his recent post on Philanthropy Journal, brand consultant Drew Neisser says about the logo design process:
“Getting the right name and logo are essential in the early stages of brand development.  These will force you to define your mission, values and target audience since without these prerequisites, you’ll just have a cow.”
Don’t pick a logo [...]

We’ve reached round 2 of the Exponential Blogging Tournament. This week’s question is sure to be practical and beneficial for all church planters. Bloggers were asked, “What is your best marketing and/or outreach idea for under $500?” As you are planning your Summer and Fall calendars, hopefully you’ll find some great ideas [...]

Postcard mailers have been the communication of choice for church plants for some time now. There is growing consensus that, while still effective, they are declining in that department. I wasn’t in this ‘business’ at the time when postcards became en vogue, but I imagine that the practice was bootlegged from the business world. Many [...]

Answer: I Saw The Sign
Question: How did you first hear about the church? Outside of direct mail, road signs were the most effective means of marketing when I helped start LifePointe in Charlotte, NC. Now that the church is three years old, most people come because they were invited, but signs remain a [...]

Some church planters just aren’t interested in press releases. They say they’ve tried it before and it didn’t work. They say it’s too much work. They say nobody has ever mentioned a press release when asked why they came.
I must admit that sometimes they are less effective than others. Sometimes they [...]