Your Church Has A Brand Whether You Know It or Not!
Branding is still one of the most important aspects of advertising today. How your church or organization shows up in digital and physical spaces matters. Your branding represents your ministry/company/organization's name, logo, color palettes, slogans, overall identity, and more. Good branding helps a company or organization stand out in a crowd, but great branding moves you ahead of the pack.
McDonald's 'Golden Arches' is a classic example of an organization's brand separating them from the pack. Everyone knows what to expect when they see the 'Golden Arches'; Hot, fresh fries (most of the time)! Or if you see a billboard with a cow painting the words "Eat More Chicken", you know it's Chic-Fil-A. Furthermore, you know to expect exceptional customer service when you visit Chic-Fil-A because it is a part of their brand.
Your branding, as a ministry, organization, or company, is a part of your identity, and your church has a brand whether you control it or not. Whatever you put out or DON'T PUT OUT into the world on behalf of your ministry or organization is a part of your branding. And, since our churches have brands whether we want to acknowledge them or not, we should make every effort to control our branding narrative.
Now, I am fully aware that some people are of the persuasion that the words brand and marketing have no place in the church; however, I invite those who may struggle with the concept to consider the times in which we live and how everything is driven by technology and advertising. I am of the persuasion that there is no way Jesus wouldn't be on social media sharing the gospel and prompting God given the popularity of digital platforms today. Having said that, here are some tips to help you define and communicate your ministry and/or organizations branding through the use of digital and creative tools.
Why does your ministry and/or organization exists?
If you are unsure where to start with cultivating and expressing your brand as a ministry or organization, start with the 'Why'. Why does your ministry or organization exists in the first place? How can you translate that "why" in digital space? (More on that here.) In my opinion, the why of your organization can help define the direction of your branding. At my local church, we exist to Exalt God's greatness, Evangelize God's world, Edify, Equip & Empower God's people to express God's love. This is our 'WHY' and our branding reflects that! We share pictures of our worship services, Bible studies, and other educational settings on social media because part of our 'why' we exist is to edify people that they might thrive in life and in their relationship with God. Therefore, it is important for us to show and share that aspect of our ministry! What is happening in and around your ministry that expresses your WHY and can it be used to promote or enhance your brand?
What makes you different?
At my church, we are 'the church where everybody is somebody'. This slogan is also a part of our branding; it is what we are known for. When we express this slogan, we are saying that everyone has a place at CMBC; every person has value and CAN expect to be valued! But, this slogan is not just words, it is a part of our brand and shows up in how we plan our outreach and ministry events (we make sure all ages and genders are included) and it shows up on our social media platforms (we make sure everyone sees a representation of themselves). Does your church or organization have a slogan? What makes your church different from others? How can you translate that difference into branding for your church?
Promote Your Brand!
Once you have defined your 'why' and identified your brand, you can begin to express it in more creative ways. Some churches will often overlook the importance of the things I'm about to mention. However, how you express your brand through content on social media, and how that content looks, matters and often determines whether or not people will stop to engage it. Below, I share somethings to remember when sharing Graphics and Video specifically to promote your brand. As with many things you'll find on this blog, this list is not intended to be exhaustive, but suggestive.
Graphic Design
Graphics are essential to any good brand. They often help to communicate the vision and mission of an organization. Therefore, how they look while communicating these essential components is important and demands our upmost attention. Things to remember when creating graphics for your ministry or organization:
Font: Be consistent with your font choices. You want to choose fonts that don't clash with one another. You also want to avoid choosing too many different types and styles of fonts (this also depends on the type of graphic or flyer you are creating and marketing). Clashing fonts can potentially make your graphic appear gaudy and messy. Fight to keep your graphics clean! If you need a place to find nice fonts for any occasion try dafont.com and fontspace.com.
Color: Use of the right color(s) play an important role in how your graphic is received by others. Like fonts, if you are using more than one color (which you definitely should be), you want to avoid using colors that clash. Creating a color palette that your team can use for each graphic, can help define your brand (e.g. Chic-Fil-A obviously uses a red and white color palette and nothing else). The right selection of colors can help your content stand out and people will begin to identify your brand with those particular colors.
Word Placement: It's important to make sure your most important information is not hidden behind other content on the graphic. If you are promoting an event, the name of the event needs to be prominent. Next, the date and time of the event are essential components that need to be clearly stated and visible. Finally, where will the event be hosted, will it be in-person and online? If it is online, what platforms will it be available on? All of these questions are important when negotiating word placement on your graphics. Just remember, clean graphics go a long way and Facebook's algorithm, in particular, is more apt to promote graphics where only 20% of the graphic is cover by words.
Churches, more often than not, don't always have access to professional, or even skilled, graphic designers. But, you can find some entry level options that you can use to get started with creating great content here. Also, if you are interested in outsourcing the creation of your graphics and have the budget, you may want to check out Pro Media Fire.
Video
Video helps to tell the story. Everyone has an HD camera video camera in their pockets; pull it out and start filming. I recently posted a video of our Pastor dancing with a group of children. This was not a video to promote an event, a worship service, or Bible Study, it was a simple video meant to capture the heart (or brand) of our ministry. We are the church where everybody is somebody. A church where children and pastor can dance together; a church that believes in community and values each person in that community. This simple video is on par to perform just as well or better than some of our well developed and thought out material. At the time of this blog, the video has 342 reactions, 59 comments, 17 shares, and 2.7k views; and it was all organic!
The most important thing I'd like to share with you regarding using video to promote your brand is this: be sure to capture the authentic moments, they go a long way on digital platforms. There is a place for well thought out videos that have sprawling titles screens and fancy lower thirds (and there's a blog coming soon for that too), but using short, authentic video footage to express your brand will more often than not create a win for your ministry in one way or another in this Tiktok culture.
While some churches refuse to accept the words branding or marketing as it relates to their ministries or organizations, I invite them to reconsider the lens through which they view those words. Your church has a brand whether you give it one or not. You can be known for excellent content, bad content, or no content at all, but you'll be known for something; and that is essentially a brand. And since your ministry or organization will be known for something, you may as well have a say in cultivating what that something is and putting your best foot, or should I say brand, forward.
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