The church is the hope of the world. As church leaders we have the responsibility of communicating the greatest message known to mankind; the only message capable of changing a person’s entire eternity.

The weight of that responsibility is both profound and incredible. It moves us to action and demands that we communicate it well.

Yet oftentimes, churches have a difficult time communicating this message because they don’t understand the basics of church marketing and communications.

Think about it … Is your church clear on who they are and where they are going? Does your church use social media to nurture and grow relationships? Has your church spent unhurried time developing a brand that resonates with people in your church and community? Does your website accurately communicate the uniqueness of your church? Have you evaluated and observed what guests experience on a Sunday morning? Does your community even know you exist?

These things may not seem significant, but they are critical. In fact, they are essential.

At Sayge, we have spent years researching and identifying the 12 Essentials to Church Communications and have developed a resource that equips Church Communications leaders to master them.

The 12 Essentials Church Marketing and Communications are:

Vision Identification

Vision Identification is clarifying who you are, what you do, why you do it and where you are going. You will receive very specific instructions and exercises to achieve clarity on your vision.

Guest Experience
Your first-time guest experience is critical to guests returning to your church, and possibly to any church.  The great part is you can improve any experience and we will give you the ultimate experience evaluation checklist to make improvements.

Social Media
Learning to use social media to reach the lost and to extend the influence of the church isn’t just a good idea; it’s a must.  The key to social media is interacting with your audience through great content and conversations.  We will give you an easy-to-use content calendar to develop and distribute content.

Brand Standards
Brand Standards are the compilation of documents where you articulate your key communication messages, establish a visual identity and explore ways to protect your brand.  Your church will receive a Brand Guide to help you create your very own Brand Standards document.

Communication Strategy
Your communication strategy helps you determine what, when and how you will communicate.  The development of a communication strategy is critical and we will give you a template to develop a compelling strategy.

Project Systems
Andy Stanley says, “The systems down the hall trump the vision on the wall.” If you don’t have systems in place, standards and strategy mean absolutely nothing.  You will receive practical methods and customizable project management system templates.

Web Essentials
Today’s church visitors will most certainly check out your church on the Internet before they attend for the first time. Your website should be a web experience, not just a website.  You will receive case studies and critical evaluation tools to help maximize your web experience.

Audience Connection
Ever been disconnected on the phone but not realize it until you have finished speaking?  Then you understand the importance of making sure you are connected to your audience. We will give you customizable focus group agendas and surveys to connect with and learn from your audiences.

Volunteer Mobilization
You have an army of creatively gifted people who attend your church every week. Learning to recruit, train and mobilize them will catapult your communications ministry to levels you never dreamed possible.  You will receive volunteer job descriptions and master lists on how to recruit and train volunteers.

Creative Leadership
Creative people are not easy to lead and motivate.  Understanding how to lead creative people, and those in authority over you who lack creativity is critical.  We will equip you as leader with practical ways to lead with meeting agendas, exercises and tips.

External Marketing
Most churches make the same marketing mistakes: the message is not unique; the content is not inviting; and there’s no long-term strategy in place. If that description fits your church’s marketing, it’s time to make some changes.  You will receive over 50 practical and relevant ways to market your church.

The good news is, you don’t need hours of research, big budgets and countless cups of coffee to master The Essentials of Church Communications. The Sayge monthly training resource replaces the hours of research you’ll spend looking for great marketing and communication resources. And it contains the wisdom of some of the greatest church communication leaders in our nation today.

Each month you will receive a coaching video, comprehensive eBook, and hands-on application tools to help you master the 12 Essentials of Church Communications; and all at a price that won’t break or even stretch your budget.

Check out Sayge if you’re ready to master the basics of Church Communications.

The post GUEST POST: Sayge: The 12 Essentials of Church Communications appeared first on JR Design Strategies.

Alright, you’ve done it. You’ve got a slick looking web presence with all the info you need. You’re leaning back in your seat, waxing your money shovel and getting ready for the piles of cash. Hold on a minute, Mr. Skippy. Just having a website does not instantly equate to mounds of money. Your potential customers still need a way to be directed there.

SEO!

Fortunately, there are some options to increase traffic without having to spend any money. Firstly, a technique known as search engine optimization. Your websites SEO defines how good of a chance it has of appearing in search engine results. This method is designed to net the customers who are searching online for your services. You can increase your websites SEO with content management. It is time intensive, but free – so often worth the extra effort. Techniques such as, regularly producing articles and blog posts that are pertinent to your business can increase results. In writing these blogs and articles, make sure to include key words that relate to what you do. When these keywords are searched, you will have more of a chance of search engines featuring your content in headlines, page names, and meta tags. For example, the sentence, “JR Design Strategies offers traditional services like web and graphic design while distinctively offering a strategic partnership to create perfect design, launch your advertising campaign, or establish your brand,” utilizes several different key phrases that can be helpful in search engine results.

Social Media

Social media is a free way to generate traffic to your location. So, use it! Use it as a means of introducing potential clients to your website. Use Twitter to connect with businesses in the area that may benefit from your product or service. Generate a personalized Facebook page for your business and use it to direct people to your site. Utilize other social applications, such as: Youtube, Google+, LinkedIn and FourSquare. Keep up to date on the social media applications that are new and upcoming. Beta test these and incorporate them into your Social Media strategies. These services are free and can generate a good deal of visitors. If you have the money, consider hiring a Social Media Manager to manage your various blogs and sites. Social media humanizes your company, and by staying current you remain in the public eye.

Print Media

If you’re working with a good designer, they know that the bulk of your business information will be located on your website. Therefore all of the components of your identity design and print pieces that you use should make it easy for the reader to learn how to reach your website. Your business card, flyer, or even brochure alone simply cannot contain all of the information your website can. Go the extra mile, in the midst of handing out your business card and giving your ‘elevator speech’, by inviting them to visit your website. If you have the money, invest in a billboard, or even a car wrap to increase your reach to clients whom you may not be able to reach otherwise. Even the use of a QR code on your print media can be a useful tool to direct them. Figure out the audience that you are reaching, find the off-line tools that they interact with…and then get your print materials all over it! Do not give someone any excuse to not know how to visit your website.

Take the extra mile to direct traffic to the location that houses all of the information that your client or customer needs – your website. After that, you can get your money shovel ready to go.

[info]JR Design Strategies is equipped to provide you with a free, detailed design and functionality audit of your organization’s website. If you are interested fill out our Website Audit Form and we will contact you.[/info]

The post VISIT MY SITE: Business Website Design (Part 2 of 2) appeared first on JR Design Strategies.

Design for Attention

Keep your website design attractive but appropriate. The goal is to capture attention, not induce seizures. Firework and laser animations, though eye-catching, are incredibly inappropriate for a funeral home website. In business, website design simplicity is important. Visitors should not have to machete their way through pages of text or click a dozen times to find what they need. They need information quickly, easily, and conveniently.

Your design should set you apart from other organizations. Your website should be unique to your industry and service. It should stand out among similar companies and give people a reason to visit yours.

That being said; prepare for a brain-breakingly philosophic statement:  People want things to look like what they expect those things to look like. A design can be as innovative as you like, but a financial website needs to look like a financial website, not a boutique. And, a children’s museums website shouldn’t look like a construction company. Seems simple, yet this basic concept eludes many.[blockquote align="right"]People want things to look like what they expect those things to look like.[/blockquote]

Keep your website design consistent with the rest of your identity design. A good designer will be able to stretch your identity across multiple channels. Inconsistency in brand presentation will make customers wary, or make finding you difficult. The website should maintain a similar visual layout not only to the identity of the organization, but also within itself. Main elements should be consistent from page to page to allow for an easy to use navigation system.

Design for Education

Everyone visiting your site has a reason to be there. They all need information about the service you provide. Good design will provide your prospective client with an efficient, fluid way of finding the information they need. Design isn’t just about art and money and all the Lamborghini’s you can squeeze into your caviar themed garage. A good website designer analyzes the business’s mission, services and web content to create the simplest, most efficient way for the reader to access the information they need.

This informational architecture employed by the designer uses hierarchy and logic to break up website content into an order that facilitates navigation. The designer uses this hierarchy to direct the flow of information from the general message to the specific message. The ultimate goal, in this case, is to give the user a frustration free experience. The user should only have to think about the content about the business, instead of being frustrated by a poorly planned interface.

Design for Interaction

A user’s increased interaction with your site will make the experience more memorable, lengthen visit time and encourage returns. The more a person is encouraged to actively participate on your site, the more they will want to revisit. This can be achieved rather easily through simple additions to sites, such as, the ability to enter reviews or comments. Tactics like these produce community between the business and customers. Other tactics are more involved such as the purchase of products, animations and videos, even downloading simple flash games. With more and more internet time being used for entertainment, strategies like these help the business compete for attention. These applications do require more time and money, but if it is appropriate for your business structure, then more people will stay longer on your site. The longer that they stay, the more they presumably invest, which will increase the return on that investment.

These simple strategies are well received by the online community. They want to interact with their brands and talk about them.  It will be virtually impossible to run a successful business without harnessing social media, in the coming years, because people buy what they talk about and what other people recommend to them. So, when you design, make sure that your business can be virtually interacted with. Give your audience multiple ways to connect with you and contact you. Make sure you are monitoring these avenues and interacting with your audience. (Or employ someone who does on your behalf.)

[info]JR Design Strategies is equipped to provide you with a detailed design and functionality audit of your organization’s website. If you are interested fill out our Website Audit Form and we will contact you.

The post Keep Your Customers: Your Organization’s Website (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on JR Design Strategies.

Northwest Arkansas (NWA) is an anomaly;  an incredible mixture of a good country, down-home setting, offset by massive headquarters for major corporations. The old and new, traditional and trendsetting–in neat rows side-by-side. Home to Wal-Mart, Tyson Chicken, Butterball and J.B. Hunt headquarters, NWA is, in many ways, a gateway to the world.

Another unique quality, about Northwest Arkansas, is the controversial prophecy, made by Corrie Ten Boom (holocaust survivor), that Christians and church leaders hold fast to. Ten Boom is believed to have said that the area would be hit with a revival that would spread around the world. Many claim that Ten Boom said this as she flew over NWA in a plane and experienced a revelation from God. But the validity of the statement has been called into question, because those that spent the most time with her, during her travels around the time the statement was said to be made claim she never spoke of Arkansas in such terms. Regardless, the faithful cling to the words spoken by this woman, and this hope permeates the heart and lives of many that live there.

This was the setting for Creative Missions 2012. Twenty-five creative missionaries from around the country converged in NWA with the idea of providing sustainable solutions for seventeen churches and church plants in the area, in order to communicate a message of hope to their communities. It was my privilege to be one on that team.

The Kickoff

The team gathered in the loft at Iron Horse Coffee Company around sandwiches and coffee as we were charged by Arkansas Church Planter Brandon Cox to “Continue to change the world for Jesus in a way that you are uniquely gifted.”

The Work

Teamed up with leader, Evan Courtney and teammates, Kyna Moore and Brad Huss, my team worked tirelessly to help three churches in Rogers and Eureka Springs.

Church 1: Metro Church

Metro Church (or “The Metro” as insiders know it) is an incredible church plant with talented leadership.  When you walk in, you know it’s not going to be church as usual. Your eyes focus immediately on various artwork and stencils done by people from the church in  ”The Gallery”. Once you walk into their worship space, affectionately called “The Theater”, your eye focuses on a beautiful piece of pin and yarn art that took them 20 hours to craft (and more than a couple of thumbs).   Armed with the tagline “Love Jesus, Love Others, No Bull.” Pastor Andy Swart leads the church and leadership team with a straight-forward, no-nonsense, Mark-Driscoll-like shepherding style that only he could pull off.  My first question was, “Why are we here?”. For four years we’ve had graphic design, video and website needs and your team knocked it out in a week.

In a setting like this, its hard to imagine what we could possibly help them with. We were pretty sure that the reason we were there was to clarify the message to the community through streamlining their website, welcome videos, creating signage, revamping social media strategies and encouraging their team to not grow weary in doing good. We were convinced that once the community knows they’re there, you won’t be able to hold everyone. As we left Pastor Andy remarked, “For four years we’ve had graphic design, video and website needs and your team knocked it out in a week,”.

Church 2: Boundless Grace

Boundless Grace started as a small group 6 months ago with 30 people. It became clear, with steady growth, they needed a space and a name. Members of the group believe that God’s kindness doesn’t have walls, boundaries or limits to His people; and thus Boundless Grace was born. Their growing community already has a bid in on new land with plans for a larger space than their already “too small” sanctuary that currently packs 70-80 people consistently on a Sunday morning. It is clear that Pastor Joshua Ramsey and team have been led to revive their community. [Creative Missions did] in one day what would have taken us five years to do! We only had one day with the church but we were able to create a logo, build a website, train a few people on podcasting, produce a welcome video and replace some much-needed matching signage with their new identity.  Pastor Joshua said, our team accomplished “in one day what would have taken us five years to do.” I really look forward to what God will do through that community of believers. I am so thankful to be a part of that story.

Church 3: Beaver Lake Baptist Church

Set in the beautiful resort area of Eureka Springs, Beaver Lake Baptist Church seeks to love their community with the heart of God. Despite recent personal tragedy through the loss of their daughter, it is clear that Pastor Mike and Debra Mercer care deeply for the well-being of their community.  Although we only had one day at the church we were able to offer a new logo, business cards, website, welcome video, podcast, troubleshoot some email issues and fix some networking and sound problems. At the end of the day Pastor Mike remarked, “This is one of the most important ministries that can be done in our church today. “This is one of the most important ministries that can be done in our church today.

It is a humbling experience to be able to offer my abilities to give others the opportunity to effectively communicate a message of hope to their communities; and these three churches are only three out of the seventeen total churches that our entire group worked with. I’m so thankful to be a part of  these stories that will continue to unfold over time. If you resonate with the idea of creative missions and would like to be involved, there are still a few projects that we have designed and still need to be funded, such as: much-needed signage. If you want to help, check out give.creativemissions.to or contact the heart and mind behind Creative Missions, Cleve Persinger.

If you’re interested in hearing more or seeing more check out these places on the web:

“Like” Creative Missions on Facebook

Creative Mission Wrap Up on Church Marketing Sucks Blog

Creative Missions Storified with tweets, status updates and pictures from team members

Creative Missions Twitter Hashtag

The post Mini-Diary of a Creative Missions-ary (2012) appeared first on JR Design Strategies.

We are excited to announce that we have brought onboard some amazing talent. Our newest team member, Jake Roberts, will be interning with us and working on many of our summer 2012 projects.  We couldn’t be more excited.

Jake Roberts is a student at Liberty University, majoring in Graphic Design with a minor in Advertising. Roberts specializes in identity design, print design, branding, and web design. When he is not designing, you will find him shooting photography, writing or developing typography.

What’s unique about Jake, is that he understands that there is more to Graphic Design than the design itself. It is a field knit closely with advertising, marketing, communications, media and public relations. Understanding how graphic design translates across different disciplines is important to developing unique campaigns that truly speak to each targeted audience.

“This is why I find myself at JR Design Strategies. JRDS allows me to stretch myself across multiple disciplines. Their commitment to excellence over many different design mediums is what drew me to their company. I’m excited to learn and contribute everything I can.” – Jake Roberts

It was this understanding (and his stellar portfolio) that landed Jake Roberts with us this summer.

Well, that and… …he’s got the right initials.

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See Jake’s Work: (Temporary) Online Portfolio at www.jakeroberts.carbonmade.com

Follow Jake on Twitter: at www.twitter.com/jakecroberts

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The post A New Face at JRDS appeared first on JR Design Strategies.