One of the main points of confusion I see in churches is thinking that marketing problems are actually branding problems (and vice versa). "Church members glaze over when I explain our purposes." (Branding Problem) "People in the community don't know we exist." (Marketing Problem) "We don't have enough visitors coming in the door." (Could be both, or neither!) Today I want to clear up the difference with a bite-sized explanation that makes it easy to remember. Branding = Who You Are Branding defines your church's identity through logo, colors, messaging, and overall vibe. It shapes how people feel about your church. A strong church brand has a clear message and consistent visuals that attract people and give them a sense of belonging. Marketing = How You Promote Marketing is different because it promotes your church brand through advertising, social media, and outreach. It focuses on getting attention and driving action. Effective church marketing uses social media, emails, and videos to reach new visitors. How They Work Together Strong branding must come before marketing. Marketing helps spread the word, while branding determines what that word is. Think of branding as the roots and marketing as the branches of a tree—you need strong roots first. This is why I called the blog Tend Your Brand — it's my goal to help you cultivate those roots so they grow deep and wide in the hearts of your people.

Sometimes you’re stuck with a brand you inherited from whoever came before you. If the gut feelings and associations around that brand are good, then you don’t want to throw everything out and start over from scratch. As my dad would say: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s true… but… there comes a time when you could use a little refresh to make that brand more effective, without losing the trust and goodwill built up in the past. You need a good old Rebrand Lite™️ Color adjustments One option is to brighten up your color palette slightly, bringing a little more energy and vibrancy without losing the hues that are recognized by your congregation. Logo adjustments A second way to do a light brand refresh is to refine your existing logo. What is the core idea it represents? Is there anything that distracts from that core idea? What happens if you simplify it just slightly? If it’s multiple colors, is there a way to make it work in a single color? This is a more advanced option, but even a slight adjustment can help your logo look more clean and confident. Font adjustments There are two elements to typography: selection and application. Fonts can be tricky to navigate because there are so many bad ones out there. Rather than picking totally new fonts, think about how your existing fonts that could be used in a new creative way. If you’re pruning things that distract, and nurturing things that bear fruit, you’ll be able to make an outdated brand work for a long time! It’s not a forever solution, but hopefully these strategies can make a difference in the meantime.

It can be hard to know if you should tease a church rebrand in advance. An all-at-once approach might seem cleaner and easier. However, if you really want a lot of buy-in from the congregation, there are real advantages to letting certain people get a little taste of the rebrand before it officially launches. I recently worked with Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, KY on a total rebrand. Here’s what worship pastor Will said about their strategy (shared with permission): Before I did the big roll-out to the whole church, I did a presentation for our staff and our deacons. This allowed me to practice my spiel, but it also let two influential groups of leaders give their immediate feedback. It also created some helpful buzz, as those leaders could tell their friends that they had seen the new branding and liked it. That helpful buzz was really important. For Walnut Street, teasing or “pre-launching” their new brand was a great way to build momentum leading up to the official launch. Where else would you apply this idea of creating buzz?

Love it or hate it, social media is the perfect place to communicate about the life of your church. Your church isn’t a museum and you probably want people to know that. An active social media profile indicates an active church. But posting photos, going live, and answering comments is something that a lot of companies have an entire team for. Thankfully, it’s not as hard as it sounds. Here are two guiding principles for a vibrant, flourishing church social media presence. 1. Consistency over Quantity How often you post is far less important than how regularly you post. Whether it’s once a week or every day - it doesn’t matter! What matters is that you set expectations and then meet those expectations consistently over time. This creates familiar patterns of communication that give people a sense of belonging and connection. I saw a church do this exceptionally well, and their engagement was off the charts! They posted a short video every week with an elder or staff member giving a 5 minute devotional (they’ve been going for 2 years now!). It’s not anything fancy, but it serves to publicly show the church’s long-term focus on discipleship. 2. Substance and Relevance over Aesthetics The truth is, almost no one is scrutinizing your images, videos, and text. While it’s good to pursue excellence, nobody is going to pay much attention to how professional your photos look or how good the lighting is in your videos! They’re giving you a couple seconds of their attention and then they’re back to scrolling. Making your content substantive and relevant is going to give you way more engagement than making it look and sound pretty.

It’s easy to look at only your church logo in isolation and think “Our branding is taken care of.” Here’s the problem: Most churches aren't using their branding toolkit very well. Or worse, they don't have one at all. Their website and bulletins look like they could belong to any church. Even with their logo on it, it says nothing about their vision and identity. Having a roadmap and process is all some churches need to get through a rebrand. For others, they need someone to guide them past the traps and time-sucks that can slow them down or make them give up all together. If your church is stuck with a lacking or nonexistent branding toolkit, I can help you fix that, without all the technical headaches, delays, and uncertainty of a DIY rebrand. Not only does it save stress, having a trusted design partner makes sure that you launch the new brand sooner rather than later, and with lots of buy-in from your congregation. I have a couple of openings over the next month, so let’s talk soon to see what that could look like in your church.

For most people, the word “branding” brings to mind symbolism. Brands use symbols to convey a bigger message and create an association between ideas, people, and products. There’s also a strong Biblical precedent for visual storytelling and symbolism. Moses lifted up the image of a serpent in the wilderness. The Lord’s instructions for his tabernacle were packed full of icons and symbols. The early church used the ichthys to represent their shared Christian identity. Applying this to a church communications, we focus on the logo as the main visual symbol, and most people naturally want it to represent as much transcendent meaning as possible. Here’s my hot take: All the symbols in the world can’t make up for unclear foundational ideas that underpin your church identity. Symbolism in a logo means nothing without core distinctives. How do you know what those distinctives are? You have to do a little digging. Tending your brand sometimes means breaking out the shovel and getting to the root.

So you want to put professional-looking photos on your church website. That’s great, but where do you start? Who do you hire? What shots do you need? The main thing to remember is that you want to show the benefits of your church. Why do people attend? What makes your church uniquely valuable as a local congregation? Website photos and videos should show the benefits you’re known for and set realistic expectations. Church website imagery is especially important because it’s giving potential visitors a taste of what it’s like to attend, while also reminding existing members of the reason they come. That said, how can you get the most out of your time and resources? Here are my recommendations. Book a local photographer for a Sunday morning and ask them for a list of shots that looks something like this: Parking Lot / Building Greeters Bulletins / Merch Worship Preaching Fellowship Baptisms or other significant moments Bonus tip: If you can find a little more budget, use a videographer instead and ask for stills from the footage they capture. Now you have professional video and photos. Much like a rebrand, if you do this right, you won’t have to do it again for a very long time. Put your new photos and video on the most visited pages of your website, and let them go to work. While you’re off focusing on ministry, they’ll be consistently connecting with people who are looking for a church home, and tending that part of your brand for you.

We’ve established that you need a church website, but what makes a website "good?" Out of pride, I'd like to say that a well-balanced, memorable logo and strong color palette are the most important things, but I'd be lying. Professional-looking photos and videos are the most permanent and powerful way to make your website stand out. Let’s face it, people can identify a stock image from a mile away, and while AI is getting better all the time, it’s not good at generating images that feel like genuine, authentic interactions at a real place. Most websites will need maintenance and updates from time to time, but a strong image on your website’s homepage is something you'll never have to worry about updating. That’s why even a few high-quality images can make all the difference. Take them once, and they do the work of resonating with potential visitors over and over again, forever. In a future post, I’ll share how I recommend churches should get professional photos and videos for their websites. Especially how to get the most bang for their buck when they do so... stay tuned!

People have asked me where I get design inspiration from, so I thought I’d answer that question here. In my humble opinion, church branding on the internet is a mixed bag (at best). Even for someone like me with a decade of design experience, I loathe having to sort through what the algorithm overlords deem helpful. All these apps and websites are designed with one goal in mind: to trap you in the doomscrolling black hole. That’s why I contain browsing for inspiration to a very small sliver of my branding process, which happens AFTER the research and strategy phases. It keeps me grounded in the specific context of the project at hand and saves me from getting sidetracked by designs made for someone else. The best Inspiration comes from reality. Here’s the thing: The people, places, and things that make up your own unique context and story are the ones that will give you the best inspiration. You might not be able to relate to my love/hate relationship with social media (mostly hate), but I hope that you will tend your brand with a healthy dose of reality.

Last year I realized something… Designing comprehensive church rebrands is one of my favorite things to do, but I’m just one guy! The most work I can ever take on is a couple of new clients per month. The only way to help more churches… is to give my process away for free. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m writing down everything I do in a typical church rebrand project, adding templates and worksheets, and breaking it into simple steps anyone can follow (even if they have no design experience)! This is the first time I’ve ever mentioned this to anyone (outside of my wife), so I can truly say “you heard it here first.” Over the next several months, I’ll share behind the scenes sneak peaks of this thing. And the best part is… you will have an opportunity to shape the final product. I’ll be dropping more details in future updates, so keep your eyes peeled for the next one. 👀