Do You Have a Cool Church Website?

About a year and a half ago, our church changed the logo and the website. After some advice from our logo designer (Andrew Fortner) and our website designer (Kyle Kutter), we stepped away from a rural, Kansas looking website and logo to an urban, clean and hip look. I'm sure artistic people could describe the new look better than I could so you can click here to see the website. Our attendance grew by 30% after that. Even though there could be other factors that contributed to our church growing, this change to our website seems to have significantly helped our church to grow. After reading the book “Blink” by Malcom Gladwell, I now understand a little bit better why our new look helped our church to grow. Malcom Gladwell explained the concept through this example:

A well-known consulting group, Cheskin, was posed with the problem of why consumers preferred E&J Brandy over Christian Brothers Brandy. Here’s what they found out:

• During a blind taste test: The two brandies came out about the same. Therefore, the product is not the problem.
• During a taste test when people were told the brand name for each glass of brandy: Christian Brothers came out on top. Therefore, the branding is not the problem.
• During a taste test with the actual brandy bottles in the background: E&J came out on top. Therefore, the packing is the problem.
• Just to make sure the problem was the packaging, they served Christian Brothers Brandy out of an E&J Brandy bottle and vice versa. Christian Brothers Brandy in an E&J bottle won by a large margin.

Your church logo and church website are your church’s “packaging.” For many potential visitors to your church, your website is the first impression they will have. Will people want to visit your church based on your packaging?