**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

 

MARKETING EXPERTS RELEASE “HOW TO” MANUAL, HELPING BUSINESSES REACH 140 MILLION PLUS FAITH-BASED CUSTOMERS


FAITH-BASED MARKETING: THE GUIDE TO REACHING 140 MILLION CHRISTIAN CUSTOMERS TO BE RELEASED THROUGH WILEY AND SONS PUBLISHERS ON APRIL 27, 2009


Hutchins and Stielstra, recently featured on Fox & Friends, USA Today MSNBC and Neil Cavuto/Fox Business, unveil innovative guide that bridges the gap between the mainstream and Christian business arenas

 

“This is an awesome, eye-opening guide to a market that is large and untapped. It will help you navigate and honest, ethical and effective path to reach the Christian market.”

- Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder, Alltop.com and author of Reality Check

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Franklin, Tenn. (April 27, 2009) – Recent economic woes have businesses scrambling to identify new markets and effective ways to reach them. But the largest, most faithful, highest spending market segment in the United States may be one most businesses haven’t even considered—America’s 140 million weekly churchgoers.

 

With a combined 30 plus years of experience in the faith based marketing arena, Bob Hutchins and Greg Stielstra have written Faith-Based Marketing: The Guide to Reaching 140 Million Christian Customers (Wiley and Sons Publishers, April 27, 2009, www.faithbasedmarketing.com), an innovative manual to help business people understand, and reach this untapped group. A nationally recognized expert in the area of creative marketing strategies, Hutchins was the creator of online marketing campaigns for the hit movies The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia, while Stielstra directed the marketing for Rick Warren’s bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life, which has sold some 30 million copies.

 

“Most businesses don’t have a good understanding of the faith community and how to market to this huge audience in effective, culturally sensitive ways,” says Hutchins. “Many attempts to market to Christians have backfired, because the marketers had little understanding of Christians’ values, taboos and ‘hot buttons.’ Yet the size of the opportunity is enormous for those who do it right.”

 

In Faith-Based Marketing, Hutchins and Stielstra provide helpful resources to build a better relationship between business and believers by helping them truly understand and respect each other. The book provides everything business leaders need to understand 140 million Christian consumers and effectively reach them. It explains who Christians are, what they want, and provides traditional, new media, and word-of-mouth strategies to communicate with and engage them and their churches. The book and its companion website (www.faithbasedmarketing.com) also includes a valuable directory of top Christian organizations, churches, and events, to help marketers and business leaders find out whom to contact and how.

 

Recently featured on Fox & Friends, USA Today, MSNBC and Neil Cavuto/Fox Business , marketing experts and authors Stielstra and Hutchins urge mainstream businesses to better understand the Christian community; their needs, their aspirations, and most important, their reservations. By building relationships between Christians and companies, it’s possible for both to win.

 

Releasing nationwide on April 27, 2009, Faith-Based Marketing: The Guide to Reaching 140 Million Christian Customers includes a free subscription to a companion website with bonus content.

 

Product Details
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Wiley (April 27, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0470422106
ISBN-13: 978-0470422106


For more information on Faith-Based Marketing: The Guide to Reaching 140 Million Christian Customers, visit www.faithbasedmarketing.com

 

About the authors:
Greg Stielstra (Franklin, TN; www.pyromarketing.com) was the marketing director at Thomas Nelson for The Purpose Driven Life, the bestselling hardcover book in American history (30 million copies in the first 3 years). Previously he was Senior Marketing Director at Zondervan, a leading Christian book publisher, for 15 years. An expert in word-of-mouth, faith-based, and social network marketing, Greg speaks regularly for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and at other events, including the Forbes CMO Summit. His work has been covered by The Economist, Advertising Age, Point Magazine, Business Week, Forbes, Wireless Age, Publisher’s Weekly, Knowledge @ Wharton, and the Wharton Leadership Journal. He is EVP, Director of Integrated Delivery for The Buntin Group, the largest ad agency in Tennessee.

 

Bob Hutchins (Franklin, TN) runs Buzzplant (www.buzzplant.com), an Internet marketing agency targeting the faith/family market. He led the online campaign for Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and The Chronicles of Narnia movie. His client/partner roster includes Time-Life, General Motors, Twentieth Century Fox, INO Records, Disney, Warner Brothers, Thomas Nelson Publishers and Zondervan. He is co-founder of The Faith-Based Marketing Association and Ground Force Network, and has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine, Fortune Magazine, MarketingVOX, American City Business Journals, Dallas Morning News, and television/radio media.


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