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We had a great meeting last week at Traders Point Christian Church! Thank you to Allie Bryant, Graphic Designer at TPCC, for hosting and providing us with fresh branding questions to discuss. 

If you weren't able to make it, here are some questions you can ask to help better define your church's brand: 

1. What are your brand attributes?

2. What brand is your church creating in your community? 

3. Is your brand embedded in everything you communicate, facilitate, and produce? 

4. Would your staff know what your brand attributes are?

5. Do all ministries/locations fall under your brand?

6. What internal filters are you using when looking at different ministries/locations?

Quotes on branding: 

• What is branding? “A person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company.” The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier.
• “To make that brand connection stronger, we’re organized as a ‘branded house’ (not a ‘house of brands’). In other words, Granger Community Church is the brand and all of our activities are an extension of that brand; individual events and ministries don’t stand alone.” Granger Community Church

From the tables - what we heard during discussion: 

Brand matters in the church because ...

• "It is a powerful tool to support those working inside the church." 
• "It impacts people before they show up at your church. Sometimes it even factors into their decision to set foot onto your church campus to begin with." 

We can see our church brand in ...

• "Not just what it looks like but what we say."
• "Part of our brand (in fact our tagline) is the phrase "go. love." After the prayer at the end of our service, we always end with "Amen. go. love." That habit has become so permeated in our culture, even kids praying at family dinners end it with "Amen, go love!"
• "We're attempting to integrate the brand in the language of the sermon, news releases, etc." 

Our staff does/doesn't know our brand attributes ...

• "Sometimes we build walls with our staff by using "insider" communications lingo. It's hard for them to understand what we are trying to say." 
• "Right now ... yes they do. We're still learning what our brand is, but we are doing it together!" 

All of our ministries/locations fall under our brand ... sort of ...

• "I think we have done a good job of teaching ministries how to filter their stuff through the right channels so we can make sure it works together." 
• "Sometimes it takes creative brainstorming to come up with the simple solution (when it comes to how the brand of an individual ministry falls in with the church brand)." 
• "Our childcare is a separate, but connected part of the brand. A simple answer was to add the word "Childcare" underneath the church's name and keep the same logo. Their brochures are all integrated into the brand. So far it has worked great."

Some of the internal filters we use for our brand include ... 

• "A style guide not only for design but for writing and speaking as well." 
• "We have three "buckets" we try to get each event or ministry to fit in to." 

Still interested in learning more about extending your church brand? Check out our podcast with Rachel Riley from Church at the Crossing!