Someone recently called me and asked me about resources for discovering and reaching new movers. I sent them an email with more info than they ever wanted. While I am no fan of long posts- you can find the info below. The stuff below is not exhaustive, just what I have come across.
We currently use ReachingAmerica.com- http://www.reachingamerica.com/. They will send out three postcards personalized with the new mover’s name on your behalf from their mailing center using their Bulk Rate Permit to the new movers in your zip code every week. It is turnkey. They will be spaced out over three weeks. For a small additional fee they will also give you the names, addresses and other info for those new neighbors. The postcards are personalized on the back with our local church’s info. This costs $2.94 per household (each household includes three postcards and the names furnished to us via email).
Outreach.com also has a similar program- turnkey, personalized with the new mover’s info and your church’s info on the back. You can check it out here. http://www.outreach.com/print/articlef.asp?article_name=p-WelcomeOne2&sid=47BB6D803034617F. Theirs is cheaper but they are only sending out one postcard, there is a $79 set up fee. There is also a monthly minimum. However, it costs 79 cents for one card. I think you have to do a 50 name minimum per month.
Other alternatives include sending out a letter/ postcard yourself. You would have to buy a list of names. We did this for a while but the turnkey approach of the above and the professionalism of the above companies caused us to switch. There are many sources to get new neighbor lists. The ones I have found do it by zip code. One company is Melissa Data. You can check out their services here. http://w2.melissadata.com/listnewmovers.htm. You need to contact them directly for a price quote but because they are just furnishing the names it will be significantly less than the above.
We have also used New Movers Evangelism in the past. This program is run by a real nice fellow named Doug Miranda. You can check it out here. http://newmovers.org/index.php?action=website-view&WebSiteID=124&WebPageID=2433. Again, you will have to contact them for the price per name.
When you do your own letter you of course have to print the letter, print labels, stuff and label envelopes, stamp, bring to the post office etc. That of course has to be taken into account when deciding whether to do this approach or one of the turnkey approaches.
Regardless of which way a church chooses I would suggest they do what we have called “The Neighborhood Captain Program.” Here we recruited neighborhood captains for subdivisions and areas in our mission field. When we got the names of the new movers we then sorted and assigned them to the Neighborhood Captain for the subdivision in which they moved. We would then once a month provide our Neighborhood Captains with New Neighbor Bags (small bags personalized with our church logo and info containing a guide to the area, a letter from me, other info about the church, coupons from area businesses etc.). We also gave our neighborhood captains a list of the people with the appropriate number of bags. We gave them the option of knocking on the door, welcoming the person and giving them the bag or just dropping off the bag in front of the door.
As I mentioned, we have been using the ReachingAmerica.com program and the Neighborhood Captain Program we devised. Our intent was to go beyond the one letter that other area churches were already doing so we could stand out. Our intent with providing the bag was to “wow” the new neighbors so they would take the next step in visiting the church.
Outreach.com also has a similar program- turnkey, personalized with the new mover’s info and your church’s info on the back. You can check it out here. http://www.outreach.com/print/articlef.asp?article_name=p-WelcomeOne2&sid=47BB6D803034617F. Theirs is cheaper but they are only sending out one postcard, there is a $79 set up fee. There is also a monthly minimum. However, it costs 79 cents for one card. I think you have to do a 50 name minimum per month.
Other alternatives include sending out a letter/ postcard yourself. You would have to buy a list of names. We did this for a while but the turnkey approach of the above and the professionalism of the above companies caused us to switch. There are many sources to get new neighbor lists. The ones I have found do it by zip code. One company is Melissa Data. You can check out their services here. http://w2.melissadata.com/listnewmovers.htm. You need to contact them directly for a price quote but because they are just furnishing the names it will be significantly less than the above.
We have also used New Movers Evangelism in the past. This program is run by a real nice fellow named Doug Miranda. You can check it out here. http://newmovers.org/index.php?action=website-view&WebSiteID=124&WebPageID=2433. Again, you will have to contact them for the price per name.
When you do your own letter you of course have to print the letter, print labels, stuff and label envelopes, stamp, bring to the post office etc. That of course has to be taken into account when deciding whether to do this approach or one of the turnkey approaches.
Regardless of which way a church chooses I would suggest they do what we have called “The Neighborhood Captain Program.” Here we recruited neighborhood captains for subdivisions and areas in our mission field. When we got the names of the new movers we then sorted and assigned them to the Neighborhood Captain for the subdivision in which they moved. We would then once a month provide our Neighborhood Captains with New Neighbor Bags (small bags personalized with our church logo and info containing a guide to the area, a letter from me, other info about the church, coupons from area businesses etc.). We also gave our neighborhood captains a list of the people with the appropriate number of bags. We gave them the option of knocking on the door, welcoming the person and giving them the bag or just dropping off the bag in front of the door.
As I mentioned, we have been using the ReachingAmerica.com program and the Neighborhood Captain Program we devised. Our intent was to go beyond the one letter that other area churches were already doing so we could stand out. Our intent with providing the bag was to “wow” the new neighbors so they would take the next step in visiting the church.
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