Branding Archives - Passion for Planting

Does Church Branding Matter?

Sean Cronin — Fri, 21 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Home > Blog > Does Church Branding Matter?

Does Church Branding Matter?

By Nancy Cornwell

Should branding matter for your church? Let’s think through this topic both biblically and practically if it matters and what you need to do about it.

Every church has a brand. There is no such thing as a church without a brand. A brand is simply what a community thinks about a church. Let me repeat that: your brand is what your community thinks about your church, not what you think about your church.

Do you want someone else to define what your brand is for your church? Or, do you want to define the brand of your church?

Branding matters. We often feel frustrated because we think of branding as a marketing scheme and something that is only applicable in the business world. People view branding as a marketing tactic to convince you to buy something that you don’t need and doesn’t deliver on what is promised.

Branding is merely telling your church’s story. So, how do you tell your story?

In Acts 17:5-8, we see branding elements in descriptions of the church at Thessalonica. These believers were known for for turning “the world upside down” (v. 6) as followers of Jesus Christ. They clearly had a reputation in their community.

Here are four steps to think through your church’s branding.

1. Branding is not what you think you are. Branding is what your community thinks you are.

Your church’s brand and identity is not who and what you determine it to be unless you work diligently to communicate that message. Many churches claim to be the friendliest on the block, but those claims are only true to others within the church, not to outsiders. Other churches may say they are missional. Often these churches only talk about missions and give toward missions efforts but don’t actually engage on mission. With these types of churches, what they perceive of themselves is often a better brand than what the community sees.

2. Branding is not just your church’s logo or name. Branding is your identity.

Unless the church has experienced a public failure in the community, you likely don’t need to change your church’s name. Instead, create consistent communications about your church. Remember that your name and logo are only a small part of your church’s identity.

3. Branding is telling your story.

How do you want to tell your story? What is it about your church that you want your community to know? You must first identify your purpose then identify your process to achieve this purpose. With your purpose and process, you can then better communicate and display who your church is, how your church behaves, and what values your church holds closely. These things help your community understand what matters to you as a church. You may even discover that many in the community also resonate with these values.

4. Investing in your church’s brand is as important as investing in your church’s building and communication tools.

Your paint, chairs, signage, website, and so forth matter in contemporary culture. If you don’t manage these elements as well, your brand will still be out there. It just may not be what you want it to be. Your brand matters. Treat it that way.

Source: Does Church Branding Matter?

The post Does Church Branding Matter? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Portable Church Signage | Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment (Part 1)

Sean Cronin — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 10:00:11 +0000

by Portable Church Industries: Choosing to visit a church for the first time can be a daunting experience for many. Many first time visitors to your church can have their defenses up. Perhaps they have been hurt by a previous experience; perhaps they walked away from established religion a long time ago; perhaps they’ve never been to church. Regardless of their reasons for walking in our doors, it is our job to “disarm” them, to set the stage for them to hear the gospel and to prepare them for praise & worship.

A quick and easy way to ensure their comfort in a Portable Church is to ensure that your signage iscorrect, helpful, easy to read and pleasing to the eye.

Great communication, especially if no one is around, makes a guest feel valued and brings quick trust to your church.

It’s possible that your first-time-visitor will prefer to remain anonymous and will not be comfortable asking strangers for directions. Even if they are comfortable with asking for directions, they may not always be able to locate someone (especially if they arrive late). Make sure they know where to park, which entrance to use, where to get information, where to get coffee, where to drop off their children, which door to use for the worship environment, etc.

As a quick rule of thumb, when a visitor is standing at a sign pointing them toward somethings, they should be able to see the next sign from where they are.

Here’s a quick list of suggestions we make to all of our church planters:

- Menu Signs– place menu signs at all entrances that show locations for major routes.

- Helper Signs– If visitors will have a long walk from one destination to another, make sure to place “helper signs” letting them know that they’re still heading in the right direction.

- Destination Signs– Each room should have a sign in front of it, signaling “This is it!”

- Exterior Signage– Outside your venue, use signage to clearly mark parking entrances, main entrances and sectioned parking. Take the main entrance or the street-facing entrance and “claim” it as your own while you’re there!

Making these simple suggestions a part of your portable church culture can help you begin tocreate an environment of comfort and ease for your first time visitor.If you haven’t yet, check out some of the environments and mobile church signage we’ve done on our photos page.

As always, if you have any questions – especially regarding signage concepts, the right number of signs, the height, width, etc, give us a call.

In the meantime, check out the signs at the airport next time you are there. Pay special attention to the signs you use when trying to find the baggage claim at your destination.That’sgood signage.

.entry-content
.et_post_meta_wrapper

Source: Portable Church Signage | Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment (Part 1)

The post Portable Church Signage | Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment (Part 1) appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Social Media, Communications & Your Church with Katie Allred

Patrick Bradley — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 10:00:29 +0000

by Rich Birch: Today we have a returning guest to the podcast! Professor Katie Allred is someone you may know from this show or from the Church Communications group on Facebook. She teaches courses in Consumer Behavior and Audience Engagement at the University of Florida and in Database, Software Development and Social Media Analytics for the University of Mobile.

Today we’re chatting with her about her work with The Goodwork Agency and Church Communications, and how churches can use social media as their front door, injecting the gospel into those environments.

Don’t treat social media like a billboard. // Social media can be a great free platform for churches, but oftentimes they don’t take advantage of it in a way that’s effective. Katie hears from pastors all the time: I posted on social media, I said come this Sunday, I said to come to this event, and it didn’t work for me. Katie reminds listeners that social media is not a billboard; you must think about it differently.
Social media is a great doorway for your church. // Churches need to be considering how they can use social media for evangelism and discipleship, rather than just sharing announcements. Your church’s Facebook Page should be telling the story of who you are; what does your ‘house’ look like? Show faces of people who are a part of your congregation and tell their stories—stories of God’s goodness and faithfulness and grace in the lives of these people. If we learn to share these stories better, Katie believes we will see more traction with social media. Social media is supposed to be a conversation and has the capacity to offer real community. Let’s go deeper than simple marketing tactics and share our actual faith.
The church has a branding problem. // Katie believes that one problem the church has is that it tries to project perfect people when we’re not perfect. Christians love to tell pretty redemption stories that are wrapped up in a bow, but it doesn’t always happen that way. It’s ok to share there is still messiness in our lives as we work with God through situations. Whatever that looks like, we need to figure it out and walk with people toward sanctification. Katie points out that Elevation Church is a good example of telling baptism stories.
…

Source: Social Media, Communications & Your Church with Katie Allred

The post Social Media, Communications & Your Church with Katie Allred appeared first on Passion for Planting.

7 Early Warning Signs That Your Church Has A “Front Door” Problem

Patrick Bradley — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 09:00:51 +0000

by Rich Birch: How do you know if you aren’t attracting enough people to your church?

If your church has plateaued or is in decline, is the problem that you’re not attracting enough visitors or that you aren’t keeping those who are already attending? What signs will lead you to discover the problem?

The debate between front door problems and back door problems in church leadership has raged for years. Before we move ahead, let’s set some working definitions for what we mean by front door and back door:

The front door: Our ability to attract new visitors to our church.

Every growing church needs to attract a healthy flow of new visitors on a consistent basis.

The back door: Our systems, approaches, and community that enable people to stay at churches long term.

Growing, healthy churches have consistent methods for helping first-time guests become active parts of the community; however, how does one diagnose the problem between the front door and the back door?

Over the years of talking to vast numbers of church leaders, I’m convinced that we all naturally consider growth problems at our churches as back door problems. We got into ministry because we wanted to care for others, and we are typically community-minded individuals. Therefore, we think that if we just get more people plugged in, our churches will grow.

…

Source: 7 Early Warning Signs That Your Church Has A “Front Door” Problem – unSeminary

The post 7 Early Warning Signs That Your Church Has A “Front Door” Problem appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Increase Your Response Rates with These Church Plant Postcard Design Secrets

Patrick Bradley — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 09:00:55 +0000

by Tim Speweik: Direct mail is still alive and doing well in today’s multimedia marketing world! Engagement has grown every year with the decrease of first class mail. But just like any other marketing tool, your church plant postcard design needs to be good or it can have a low response rate. Or even leave a negative impression.

Direct mail always works best when tied in with other forms of marketing, creating an awareness campaign. Here are some key points for successful church plant postcard design:

Who Are You Trying to Reach?

Knowing who you’re trying to reach helps determine the language and direction of your design. Your postcards will get delivered to the churched (and the unhappy at church), but the target has to be the unchurched. Be sure not use church lingo. Tailor language that is aimed at the unchurched – what will speak to them? This should include a personal invite to your church. Let them know you want them…

The post Increase Your Response Rates with These Church Plant Postcard Design Secrets appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: Increase Your Response Rates with These Church Plant Postcard Design Secrets

The post Increase Your Response Rates with These Church Plant Postcard Design Secrets appeared first on Passion for Planting.

How to Save $450 by NOT Getting a Church Bulk Mail Permit

Patrick Bradley — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 09:00:00 +0000

by Patrick Bradley: If you’re sending out direct mail to announce the launch of your weekly services, save $450 and don’t open a church bulk mail permit (but still get all the benefits using this secret).

There are two permits required to get the lowest postage rate for your church plant’s mailing:

the church bulk mail permit
the nonprofit pricing classification

Any business or organization can open their own bulk mail permit (account), but it costs $225 to apply and another $225 each year (find current pricing here).

The secret trick is that the bulk mail permit doesn’t have to belong to you.

Pros of Not Having a Church Bulk Mail Permit

There are several direct mail vendors that specialize in helping churches. They each have their own bulk mail permit, so you just piggyback on theirs. You still need your own nonprofit pricing classification, but they’re already paying their own $225 a year so you don’t have to.

This is a no-brainer. You don’t want to print and prepare your own direct mail anyway. It requires way too much work and industry knowledge that you don’t have time to learn. The only thing the $450 really gets you is your own indicia (keep reading).

Let a vendor that specializes in church mailings do all the work. You’re already $450 ahead if you do, not to mention all the meetings you can have with people because you weren’t spending your ministry time preparing the mailing yourself. You have way more important things to be doing!

Cons of Not Having a Church Bulk Mail Permit

There is only one minor drawback that I’m aware of: the indicia (that non-stamp stamp thingy) has to be the vendor’s.

So instead of:

[your town] permit ##

…it would read:

[vendor’s town] permit ##

If you’re planting in Wisconsin but the vendor is in Hawaii, some recipients might get confused, but probably only the few detail-oriented people who will actually notice.

The good news is that the return address on the cards will be your church’s. In fact, it has to be.

If you can live with using their indicia to save $450, go this route. But remember, you still need to file for own nonprofit pricing classification.

Church Planting Versus Starting a Church

Patrick Bradley — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 10:00:11 +0000

by Peyton Jones:
MISSION OBJECTIVES:

To understand the difference between Church Starting and Church Planting.
To understand the difference between what Paul did versus what we do.

In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks’s character receives an apology that his squad is getting deployed to another dangerous mission. In Saving Private Ryan, Lt. Col. Anderson tells Tom Hanks’s character “It was a tough assignment. That’s why you got it.” God sends his best out…every time. Paul, Peter, John, Timothy…Only the toughest assignments were reserved for soldiers of their caliber.

Do you know what the difference is between starting a church and planting one?

Church starting is pretty much what you see people doing today in the name of church planting. Here are the six crucial steps to church starting:

Raise funds (usually hundreds of thousands of dollars).
Recruit enough people to ensure critical mass.
Brainstorm a catchy church name (branding is crucial).
Design a sexy logo (branding is everything).
Rent a building.
Advertise, blast on social media and hope it’s enough to fill the building on launch day.

By contrast, here’s what church planting looks like. It’s a one step process.

Reach the lost with the gospel.

Paul didn’t roll up with his sexy logo, rental agreement, and flashy website and call it church planting, nor could you even remotely conceive of him doing anything like that. You can stick a feather in it and call it macaroni, but the American way of church planting was completely foreign to Paul. Yet we advance our churches as an end to themselves as if Jesus commanded us to church plant to the ends of the earth. But he didn’t. Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel to all creatures, discipling, and baptizing them. Churches are what happen after you’ve been doing those other things.

Church planting starts with the lost. The seed of the plant is the gospel itself. When those seeds are sown, and watered, the fruit of that will be a church plant. When you start with the lost, you start where God starts. That was Jesus’s mission after all, to seek and save the lost. Therefore, it should also be ours.

Buy Peyton’s newest book “Reaching The Unreached: Becoming Raiders of the Lost Art” over on Amazon.com. You can also download a free chapter and watch a cool trailer for the book HERE or click the image below.

Source: CHURCH PLANTING VERSUS STARTING A CHURCH

The post Church Planting Versus Starting a Church appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Get Your People to Post Online Church Ratings

Patrick Bradley — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 10:00:07 +0000

by Patrick Bradley: Having your team post online church ratings could make the difference between whether someone decides to visit your church gatherings or not.

Have you ever looked up ratings for restaurants or contractors online? I have. I want to know something about the reputation and track record of that establishment before I go any further.

Why to Post Online Church Ratings

If you’re someone with little or no church background and something ignites your spiritual curiosity enough to visit a church, wouldn’t you check out the church first? And in today’s social media & democracy-of-the-internet world, the public’s reviews and ratings carry more weight than an institution proclaiming its own greatness.

But there’s an added bonus to having your people post online church ratings – it will increase the church’s website page rank when people are searching online for churches in your area. Your team’s reviews help legitimize the church plant’s new website and your church’s listings on important directories that people use to find stuff.

Lastly, you need to load up the positive ratings to offset the inevitable bad review. As much as possible, respond promptly to negative reviews with grace and love. Those reviews can’t be removed, but it goes a long way to let people know you’re listening and that you care.

I recently heard of an established church that have never though to post online church ratings. They discovered that on Yelp there was already (and only) one review that had been posted at least 2 years prior. And it was a nasty thrashing of a review. How many people decided not to come to their worship gatherings because of that review?

Where to Post Online Church Ratings

There are probably dozens to choose from, but I’d concentrate on the following review/rating sites. You’ll get the most bang for your buck:

Google Maps
Bing Maps
Yelp
Your church’s Facebook Page
ChurchFinder

Is your church plant not already listed on these sites? Stay tuned for some tips on how to get that done quickly and painlessly!

What to Post

When you invite people from your Launch Team to post online church reviews, encourage them to rate the church and leave a brief, honest story about their experience so far.

But also encourage them to focus on the relational dimension: friendships, welcoming environment, felt right at home, etc. By and large, people considering visiting a new church are looking for human connection and community.

Be cautious about having the same 5 reviews by the same people on each of the sites above. That would appear obviously stacked. And a little creepy.

Keep leaning on this until you have at least 5-6 reviews on each site above. It could make all the difference in the world to someone who’s on the fence about coming to your church worship gathering!

The post Get Your People to Post Online Church Ratings appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: Get Your People to Post Online Church Ratings

The post Get Your People to Post Online Church Ratings appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Top DIY Church Website Options

Patrick Bradley — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 10:00:03 +0000

by Patrick Bradley: If you’re on a budget and find WordPress confusing, there are several other DIY church website options.

I’ve leaned into this a little harder recently because I continue to get calls for help from confused pastors who just can’t figure out their WordPress sites. I know all the arguments about its unparalleled power and customizabilitiness. But at the end of the day, if a pastor and volunteer team can’t make basic changes to the website, it’s a fail in my book.

And the best-but-disappearing argument for using WordPress is that it’s better for SEO (getting found by search engines). These other DIY church website options are now about 95% as good at SEO. So unless you have the time & resources to put into coding to squeeze out that last 5% (which most church plants don’t), then don’t use that as your sole criterion.

What They Have in Common

Each of the following DIY church website options work on the same basic process:

Sign up for their service
Pick your domain name through them (it’s included in the price of packages listed)
Pick a template that has the look & feel you’re after
Start creating pages and menus
Drag & drop elements onto pages and paste in your content
Publish your site

And they offer these same features:

no set-up fee
free domain registration
social media widgets & tools
video backgrounds
custom favicon
buttons for calls-to-action
google analytics integration
custom code (embed YouTube videos, etc.)
SEO tools

Top 3 DIY Church Website Options

Here are the 3 DIY church website options that keep rising to the top as inexpensive and easy to use (pricing as of Dec 2017):

SquareSpace

product: Personal Website ($144/yr)

I’ve supported several church planters that chose SquareSpace even before I floated it out there as an option. Besides the features above, here’s what I like about it:

Custom CSS: you can hire a designer to fully customize the color & layout of your site
They offer unconventional/creative instructions for an easy DIY sermon podcast

Wix

product: Unlimited Plan ($168/yr)

Things I like about it:

Offers a calendar app that pulls in events from a google calendar (and maybe your church database calendar, too?)
Has a 3rd-party app marketplace where other popular services are writing integrations

Weebly

product: Pro Website ($144/yr)

What I like about it in addition to the common features above:

Custom CSS (as above): you can hire a designer to fully customize the site
Also has a 3rd-party app marketplace with a growing number of integrations available

If you’re still not sure which might work best for you (including WordPress), check out this fun & free website builder suitability quiz.

These sites are easy to use, offer the majority of features the typical church needs, and provide more SEO tools than most churches will be able to use. So if you’re looking for something that will be easy to set up and easy for volunteers to help maintain, consider one of these DIY church website options.

full disclosure: this blog costs money to maintain – it’s safe to assume that links to products are affiliate links and I may earn a commission should you click through and make a purchase. That doesn’t affect your price, and you can rest assured that I’ll only recommend an app or service I’ve vetted, personally trust, and would recommend even if there weren’t an affiliate program.

The post Top DIY Church Website Options appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: Top DIY Church Website Options

The post Top DIY Church Website Options appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Church Planting & Differentiation

Patrick Bradley — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 17:30:01 +0000

by Ralph Moore: Every new business needs to differentiate itself from all others. Else, why the need for a new business? Church planting necessitates differentiation.

These days, being different may open otherwise hostile hearts and minds. We face a rising generation more interested in healing hurts and sustaining resources than they are in traditional spiritual matters. We must wed evangelism to missional efforts if we expect to gain a hearing.

Differentiation Pitfalls

Sadly, our need to differentiate can result in our trying to “be different for the sake of being different.” Not much point in that as it can lead to silliness at best and hurtful mistakes at the worse. You should have both a theology and a cultural reason for everything that sets you apart from the guy down the street.

The other pitfall is that occasionally overpowering urge to simply ‘knock-off’ the ministry of some admired leader? BTW, does a copycat truly differentiate? Is there anything godly about that behavior? This one can spell real trouble.

Spiritual Integrity and Differentiation

When I say trouble, I mean trouble of a spiritual nature. Paul wrote about this kind of action to the fledgling church at Corinth, “…Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world? 4 When one of you says, ‘I am a follower of Paul,’ and another says, ‘I follow Apollos,’ aren’t you acting just like people of the world?”

According to the apostle, cookie cutter Christianity (magnified when it occurs in a leader) is worldly behavior. And, he says it is a pathway cut out by a sinful nature.

What exactly is he getting at? And, how does that apply to a church planter?

Whenever we copy someone else we are practicing a form of humanism rather than listening to the creative voice of the Holy Spirit.

Differentiation, Innovation and Needs Met

Far better to present problems and opportunities to your core team and then prayerfully seek a new way of doing things than to copy someone else’s revelation. God is creative and he will give you new and creative ways of doing things that actually fit in your community if you give him half a chance.

One Meaningful Exception

The only exception to this “Do Not Copy” rule would be to clone your mentor for the first few months out the gate. Doing so helps remind you of where you came from and who you are—it gives you a guiding star for making well-reasoned changes that will certainly differentiate you from your mentor over time.

People around us are spiritually hungry. Many are antagonistic toward church as they’ve known it. Some are hurt. Offer something fresh and you’ll touch many lives.

What makes you different?

How does your church stand apart from others? Please share unique opportunities that lead to productive communication with the culture around you…

This blog was written by Ralph Moore and published here with permission. To view the original post, click here.

Ralph Moore is a church planter and disciple maker. He planted Hope Chapel Hermosa Beach in California, Anchor Church in Hawaii, and Hope Chapel in Honolulu. He help start the Hope Chapel movement, which began with just 12 people, the ‘movement’ mushroomed to more than 2,200 churches worldwide. See his books here, download his sermons here, and visit his website here.

Source: Church Planting & Differentiation

The post Church Planting & Differentiation appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Branding Archives - Passion for Planting

Does Church Branding Matter?

Home > Blog > Does Church Branding Matter?

Does Church Branding Matter?

By Nancy Cornwell

1. Branding is not what you think you are. Branding is what your community thinks you are.

2. Branding is not just your church’s logo or name. Branding is your identity.

3. Branding is telling your story.

4. Investing in your church’s brand is as important as investing in your church’s building and communication tools.

Portable Church Signage | Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment (Part 1)

Social Media, Communications & Your Church with Katie Allred

7 Early Warning Signs That Your Church Has A “Front Door” Problem

Increase Your Response Rates with These Church Plant Postcard Design Secrets

Who Are You Trying to Reach?

How to Save $450 by NOT Getting a Church Bulk Mail Permit

Pros of Not Having a Church Bulk Mail Permit

Cons of Not Having a Church Bulk Mail Permit

More on Church Plant Postal Permits

Church Planting Versus Starting a Church

Get Your People to Post Online Church Ratings

Why to Post Online Church Ratings

Where to Post Online Church Ratings

What to Post

Top DIY Church Website Options

What They Have in Common

Top 3 DIY Church Website Options

SquareSpace

Wix

Weebly

Church Planting & Differentiation

Differentiation Pitfalls

Spiritual Integrity and Differentiation

Differentiation, Innovation and Needs Met

One Meaningful Exception

What makes you different?