People have asked me if they really should brand their church or if it’s really necessary for a church to use the same methods that Starbucks or Harley Davidson does.  My response is that if you have any interaction with a live person they will form some type of opinion about you or your church, so yes, branding your church is necessary.

The reality is that a consumer or visitor is going to make an assumption about your church that may or may not be totally correct.  This is why their experience with you must be great and your connection points (website, receptionist, brochure, servant evangelism) must be right on.  Please note that I am not saying to be perfect or flawless but whatever connection they might make with your church first (and even second or third) it should be great enough to leave the right impression.

If you are promoting the friendliest church in town and your receptionist gets hateful answering the phone, you have just made a huge disconnection!  If your website communicates a youthful and emerging worship and it’s an oldschool, traditional service – you have just dropped the ball.  In the past, mistakes could easily be overlooked by visitors but in our finicky culture of today, it’s more difficult to unscrew our screw ups.

My advice is to invest in branding your church. This doesn’t necessarily mean a logo or a website, and it doesn’t even mean spending any money.  Just make sure that you do your best to communicate a positive and accurate impression through all possible entry/connection points into your church and if a person does connects the dots, it forms the right picture.

This is what real branding is all about!