Category: Branding

5 Point Checklist for your Church’s Website

Post author By Adam McLaughlin
Post date December 22, 2016
1 Comment on 5 Point Checklist for your Church’s Website

Your website is more important than ever in representing who you are as a church and attracting people to you.

Almost 100% of the families that joined us for the first time in 2016 say that they checked out our website before visiting. Some found Life Church by searching on Google, others heard about us from another source but still checked us out online before visiting.

Here are some must-haves so your website can keep up in 2017 that ANY church can implement (these aren’t just for churches with full-time designers on staff).

Contact information on the home page above the fold

A big majority of people visiting your website are coming to find out how and when they can connect with you, like what time are your services, where are you located or an office phone number or email address.

‘Above the fold’ is a term that means that something appears on your screen without having to scroll. With long-scrolling website styles, its tempting to make your home page REALLY long with more and more sections of content. That’s fine if it’s done strategically, but keep your contact info available before someone has to scroll.

Represent yourselves accurately

If you haven’t yet read me an ebook about building trust. Download it free here, and read the section about your website. Since your website is digital, it’s WAY TOO EASY to misrepresent yourselves using stock photos and text descriptions.

My suggestion would be to use actual photos and video of your building, your services, your people and let the size and demographic speak for itself as much as possible. Even if you hope to be something (ie. larger, more diverse, younger, older, etc.) give the impression that you welcome that diversity, but don’t give the impression that it exists.

If you need to use stock photography then be sure it still represents you accurately.

(here’s an article from Brady Shearer at Pro Church Tools with some alternatives to clipart and stock photography)

Reduce your load time

Believe it or not, websites haven’t gotten faster proportionate to our connection speeds – we just find more things we can now do in light of our connection speeds while our websites load, so keep in mind that just because high speed internet exists doesn’t mean you shouldn’t focus on what you’re putting on your site and how it will affect load time.

Keep your load time to under 4 seconds. You can check with this free tool: tools.pingdom.com – It will tell you not only your load time from a secondary server, but will show each process and file that loads on your website and which are taking the most time.

Images: Reduce them to 100KB or less – full screen images I try and keep around 200 – 250KB. When you export form photoshop, click “Save for web” and play with the quality and size until you get it right. If you’re going to be using an image at 500px wide, then output the picture at 500px. Resizing a larger image down to a smaller image requires your site to load larger files, then scale them all as part of your load time.

Video: As much as possible, host videos on YouTube or Vimeo and paste a frame or shortcode in your website. This causes large video files to load on their server instead of loading on yours.

Audio: Same as video, when possible, host somewhere else.

Don’t just have a mobile website, have a responsive website

If your site isn’t mobile, stop here and get that fixed…A mobile site means that when someone loads your site on a mobile device, it loads unique content and layout just for that device (ie. the website says ‘hey, this is a cell phone. I’ll load the cell phone content that’s narrower).

Responsive means that you have a single site and the content automatically resizes itself based on the browser window (large or small browser window on a desktop / laptop, tablet, small phone, plus size phone, etc.)

When your church website is responsive, it thinks ‘hey, this browser is 823 pixels wide, I’ll make the content match. The next browser window is 1834 pixels wide, and now the content will match that.)

With a growing number of devices, screen sizes and manufacturers, a responsive site has become a necessity (with the added perk that if you change information, it is that same info on every device – you don’t have to update both a desktop site and a mobile site)

The “responsive’ qualities of your website are usually built right into the template. If you use WordPress, look for a responsive theme. If you’re stuck on your theme, but it’s not responsive, consider a mobile version of your site until you can replace it with a responsive theme that works.

Have a color scheme that’s not named “Rainbow”

Pick a background color, text color, heading color, and menu color – THAT’S IT! (and it’s okay if one of these is white). When you add in accents like buttons or highlights or quotes, use one of the 4 colors already in your scheme.

If your website has even color in the rainbow, you’re not going to be viewed as credible – trust me. Even if you had a committee approve your website, they all have smart phones that are 1 color with an accent color, use Facebook or twitter or instagram with really simple color schemes. If you’re wanting to use more colors to create energy or excitement, try using colorful photos – people relate to faces better than a barrage of colors.

Need some color scheme inspiration? Try Coolors.co or if you’re looking for something premade, Google color schemes for websites.

Post your website link in the comments so we can check it out! (Business or church!)

Branding Build a Team Guest Services Marketing

The 4 reasons people come to your church

Post author By Adam McLaughlin
Post date November 25, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS5oYPVcYow

There are 4 reasons why someone comes to your church – not just the first time, but every time. This person may change their reason over time, but how you communicate with them will help determine why they come back.

First, I’ll outline the 4 reasons, then how to connect with those people based on their reason.

1. Compulsion

With Compulsion (or conviction) these people come because they believe it’s the right thing to do – not necessarily because they want to, but because of an obligation or guilt if they don’t. This could be coming to Mothers’ Day service to make Mom happy, coming to their niece or nephew’s Christmas concert, or showing up because they’re scheduled for nursery and don’t want to let someone down.

Maybe church is part of their tradition at Easter or Christmas, even though they aren’t really sure (or not interested in) where they stand with God, or they feel obligated to be in church our of guilt to make amends with God.

2. Curiosity

This is when someone sees a friend who shares a Facebook post, or find your video on youtube or drives by and sees your sign, or gets invited by a friend. Hopefully they have an idea of what to expect from your church, but until they experience it, they’re curious as to what that experience is like. It could be hesitancy, or excitement. They’ve come through the door not entirely sure what to expect.

This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s their first visit – maybe they’re curious about your new series, or new pastor or haven’t been in a while or just moved back to the area and want to know what church is like now. It’s even possible that this person comes every week, and their curious about your bumper video or to find out what songs your worship team will pick.

Unfortunately, once the novelty wears off, so will this person’s curiosity, so you have to move them to another reason to come back.

3. Community

This person likes to be part of something. They love to see the same faces at the same time, shake hands, invite in new people and build friendships. For these people, serving is a privilege: a chance to be part of the ‘family’, and the chance to get together for coffee or a meal after church. This could also reflect that they like your style of worship or the way people respond to the speaker or a monthly social event your church hosts.

Sometimes a person who is focussed primarily on community will come weeks or months before getting saved or committing their life to Jesus, since it’s possible that’s secondary in their mind to the community. They could eventually stop coming to your church and get involved in a weekly soup kitchen or other community organization or even take a job that requires them to work every weekend where they feel a stronger attachment to community.

4. Commitment

This is the bullseye on the target where you point people to. If they’re coming to your church because of their commitment, this is vision and values centered, and starts to become part of who they are. You’ll hear them say “I’m part of XYZ church” rather than “I go to XYZ church.”

Very little (if anything) could dissuade them from being part of your church, serving the assignment God has given you and connecting others to the vision. When a new initiative is released, they figure out how to get behind it.

How to move people toward Commitment

Knowing that commitment is the bullseye, how do we communicate in a way that draws people there?

Generally (and loosely) speaking, if someone starts with Conviction / Compulsion, then the next step is curiosity moving to community, then commitment. Some people skip the “Compulsion” stage and start with Curiosity > Community > Commitment.

Compulsion to Curiosity

Capitalize on the opportunities you know are going to be well-attended by the compulsion people. When your kids sing at the Christmas Concert, invite those visitors back for Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, promote your January series. Host a Valentines dinner and send out an email to everyone who has visited your church only once in the past 12 months. On Easter, talk about your Summer events. At your summer event, talk about your back to school service… try and create ways to spark some curiosity.

Curiosity to Community

Talk often about the community you’re creating. This is a shotgun approach helping everyone who came because of any reason to find a way to get connected. As people move through the different reasons, there will always be a need for community, even if it’s not the driving force.

Play on people’s curiosity to attract new people to your church – don’t try and attract them using compulsion. Get them through the door based on their curiosity, then talk about your community as a way for them to come back.

If you haven’t already, read here about how Buckhead Church in Atlanta creates a “Come back” experience. They’ve found ways to get people connected and building a community from the moment people come into their property.

Community to Commitment

First, let me remind you that even though you’re moving this person to come back because of commitment, never give up on piquing their curiosity or talking about community.

Move people from coming for community to coming because of commitment by modelling it for them – give them hope, give them a family to be part of, give them a goal and a vision and help them find their place there.

Show videos of families who are in the commitment realm and talk about that journey. Model commitment in those who are put in leadership and help leaders who slip into compulsion to restore their excitement for the vision.

Thank your committed people often, and let those in the compulsion, curiosity or community category see the fulfilment of bringing people to know Jesus by living out your church’s values and vision.

I would love to hear how you’ve seen these steps working for you. What are some of the ways you’ve found to move people toward commitment? Leave a comment below!

Advertising Branding Marketing

3 ideas not to be confused: Branding, Marketing & Advertising – Guest Post on ThatCC.com

Post author By Adam McLaughlin
Post date October 16, 2016

There are 3 concepts that I’ve seen confused in the communications world. Sometimes they’re used interchangeably and sometimes they’re not used at all, but I’ve found that the most effective communication strategies, whether in church or in business, come from teams who have figured out how to distinguish them.

Here’s how I would define and describe these 3 categories: Branding, Marketing and Advertising. (Side note: I’m not suggesting these are universally true definitions – like straight of our Websters Dictionary – but for me, this is how I describe these concepts in a distinguishable way)

Advertising Branding ebooks Free Resources For Churches Marketing

Trust Glue: 11 ways to create a first impression that sticks

Post author By Adam McLaughlin
Post date July 25, 2016
1 Comment on Trust Glue: 11 ways to create a first impression that sticks

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]

What is Trust Glue?

Have you ever had an experience at a church or business that didn’t quite sit right, but you can’t put your finger on why? This sensation is likely your response to a breach of trust: Their self-proclaimed values weren’t consistent with your experience.

Trust is like glue that makes someone stick around. Be true to yourself and live that out through your branding, marketing and advertising, and you’ll create trust that sticks.

Would you find it strange if you went out for a nice steak dinner at a high-end establishment, and they offered a $1.49 burger being served by a waiter in a tuxedo. Why is it not strange if you saw a $1.49 burger at a drive thru? Is one right and the other wrong? No. Simply put, your expectation wouldn’t match your experience. One of those restaurants is not being true to who they are, and that waters down their trust glue.

If you can sum up your experience with “I thought I was getting this, but they did that instead?” then it’s a trust issue. “They advertised having the best chef in town, but my chicken wasn’t cooked properly,” or, “The sign says they’re a loving church, but not one person was smiling.” Or “Aunt Gertrude said the worship leader sings like a bird. She was wrong.” In this case, the trust is more like water than glue; It doesn’t make you want to stick around.

Every opportunity that someone walks through your door is an opportunity to build and strengthen the trust glue, or dilute the glue. The difference between a visitor coming back and never returning is whether or not they trust you after their experience.

Trust Glue is stickiest when your branding consistently matches your marketing, and is relayed accurately in your advertising; When your church’s values (branding) matches how someone experiences your church (marketing) and what they heard you say about your church (advertising)…

Download Trust Glue: 11 ways to create first impressions that stick.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Branding Graphic Design Social Media

How to create a broken Text Box effect in Photoshop

Post author By Adam McLaughlin
Post date March 28, 2016

Start with a background image and place your text (I used Gill Sans for words and Gloucester for the 1):

Create a new layer and using the selection tool, create a box approximately the height of your image spacing and fill it with a color. I like to use a color that has nothing to do with the image so I can clearly see where that shape is. Size and position doesn’t have to be exact – it can be adjusted later:

Double click the layer where the box is to open the “Layer Style” options. Check “Stroke” in the left column to put a line around the entire selection.

In the “Stroke’ dialog, adjust the size (in this case I used 5 pixels) and the color field at the bottom. I changed mine to white:

Now your colored box will have a 5pox white stroke around the outside. Close the “Layer Style” box by clicking OK:

To remove the blue fill from the box, select the layer, and reduce the fill percentage from “100%” to “0%”:

This is what your image will look like:

Next, we have to convert that layer style to an editable shape (If you just take an eraser and erase a portion of the line, you’re actually just changing the shape of the 0% blue box, and the stoke will appear around the perimeter of whatever you erase.).

Right click the layer and choose “Rasterize Layer Style”:

This will now make your layer just that outline without the blue box:

Select all of the layers including your background image and use the “Center Align” button at the top of the window to align all of your text and your box centered with the canvas:

Now that everything is aligned, create a selection box around the text, then select your box layer and delete. It will delete the portion of the line that you’ve selected leaving only the words ands what looks like a break in the line:

Repeat for other text in the image – it also is cool if you have a word across the middle of the screen and it breaks the border on either side:

Brand your image before posting on Social Media:

This effect can also be used to generate some pretty cool quotes from your Pastor or guest speaker for the weekend like this:

Click here to see how that effect works.

Branding Graphic Design

Create a Logo Use Guideline for your Church

Post author By Adam McLaughlin
Post date October 21, 2015
1 Comment on Create a Logo Use Guideline for your Church

The beautiful thing about churches is that, when run properly, we’re a team of people doing whatever we can to further the Gospel. This often means that people are taking on tasks and helping out in areas beyond their expertise. In order to not become overwhelmed with marketing and graphic design request, different leaders from department heads to small group leaders will often create their own handouts rather than having to run everything through the marketing department.

One of my biggest pet peeves is how logos get used (or should I say misused), so one of the first things that I created when I came on staff at Life Church is our Logo Use Guidelines that we ask everyone to follow when they’re producing any kind of material that includes our logo. Even though we provide the actual file of our logo for those who require it, sometimes it still gets squashed, stretched or modified to ‘fit’ an application.

Think about who will use your logo and the application of how they’ll use your logo. Use terms that a non-designer will understand (ie. letter spacing instead of the word ‘kerning’).

Here’s our policy. We give ours out in a PDF so it can’t be edited, but I’ve put it here in images and text so yo can use whichever pieces best apply to you. To create the examples, I used photoshop and simply used the line tool to draw an ‘x’ through the incorrect examples:

Life Church Logo Use Guidelines:

1) Use the logo in its original proportions, not squashed or stretched. It can be resized as needed to for the design, but the circle icon with the ‘L’ paint stroke should always be a circle, not an oval:

2) The ‘L’ in the circle does not replace the letter ‘L’ in LIFE

3) The circle with the ‘L’ icon (with or without the words “Life Church”) needs to appear on everything that relates to Life Church. This includes mail outs, hand outs, sign up for registration forms for events, posters, etc. If your department has it’s own logo (Youth / Kids / Small Groups / etc.), the Life Church icon still needs to be included in the design (it can be a faded watermark). In some cases where the red conflicts with your design colors, a white icon may be used.

4) The full logo can be used with the red/grey font or on darker backgrounds the red and white combination. In black/white print, it can be solid grey, or on dark or colored background, it may be solid white.

5) The logo appearing in color must appear as red: RGB: 237,28,36 / CMYK: 1,99,97,0 / hex# ED1C24

6) Use the logo as a stand-‐alone image. Don’t use it to replace ‘Life Church’ in a sentence.

7) Use the logo in original resolution, or smaller. Making the logo larger than it’s original resolution can cause pixilation and distortion. If you need a version of the logo larger than you have, please request a full resolution version.

Tags How To, logo, photoshop