Dawn Nicole Baldwin is CEO of AspireOne, which helps churches (mostly very large ones) with branding and web strategy. She's a real authority on branding, particularly as it relates to the church world. She's tightly associated with Willow Creek. Here are some tidbits from her afternoon session on branding.
- Ask, "What do we, as a church, want to be known for?" If we're not intentional about defining who we are, others will do it for us.
- "Brand experience" includes many ways people interact with you: word of mouth, your website, mailers, publications, your logo, and much more. The brand is not just the logo.
- Brand strategy: ask these three questions: Who are you serving? What are your unique strengths? How do you reach people with impact.
- When ministry leaders say, "We need a brochure,"...do they really? I face that at the denominational level. Everyone wants a brochure, and I don't think they're all that valuable.
- Blanding: trying to be all things to all people. You water all your uniquenesses down.
- She doesn't like churches giving different brands to a bunch of church ministries. She doesn't like having different URLs for the various ministries. Prefers having everything under the single brand of the church and the church website.
- Identify your biggest fans (brand advocates). In churches, your church's biggest fans are often new Christians.
- Sometimes the senior pastor is such a presence that he is the brand. Go to the website for Houston's Lakewood Church. You'll see Joel Osteen plastered everywhere. You wonder whether the website is for the church or a commercial for his books.
- Seacoast Church is a multi-site church with 11 campuses, one of which is five hours from water. Did the name "Seacoast" fit them? They decided that their brand transcended geography.
- She gave away some gifts. One was to the person who had been in his/her communications role the longest. A gal sitting in front of me said "16 years," and nobody could top that. So she got a free book. After the workshop, I told her, "I've been doing my job for 26 years." But since the focus here is local church communications, I didn't inject myself.
Career-wise, I've been hanging around and writing about and cheering on churches and pastors for the past 25 years as my denomination's Communications Director.
A year and a half ago, attending something like this would have been the highlight of my week. I have always loved and been intrigued by the whole marketing thing. But lately, after having helped a few churches in my time "brand themselves," I am wondering, who does God say they are? And how much of what they claim about themselves is who they wish they were and what they wish they had going on? It would be interesting to me now to see a church brand strategy, attend there for awhile and then see if it's really true?...
"Many are the words we speak
Many are the songs we sing,
Many are the offerings,
But now to live the life..." -Matt Redmon