Recharge your Empathy to Create Better Experiences

Understanding your users’ needs is the biggest part of creating a good experience. But what happens when you cannot understand their perspective? You lose sight of the real goal. Even worse, you insert your own desires into the process. Solve this by recharging your empathy.
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Make Exits Helpful and Not Awkward

We do not want to think about members leaving the church. But we must admit that it happens. Sometimes they just want to switch churches. Other times they are leaving their faith behind. Regardless of the situation, we should provide an easy way for them to exit. This article explores how to create an easy and accurate method for members to leave your church.
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Updating and Validating Personas

After creating your initial draft of personas, you need to confirm your guesses. I know you already did this with internal ministry leaders. But this is with actual users. Validating personas against users should uncover interesting details your ministry leaders missed. Or you may uncover larger problems. Regardless, you will better understand how people use your digital ministries.

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How to Quickly Create Personas for your Church

Personas are a tool to help focus discussions on users rather than yourself. Ideally, you do a lot of research first. Yet that is not always possible. How can you create something meaningful, but in a short period of time. Start with good guesses and help from church leadership. Present your findings to your larger team for minor edits. Then start moving forward on your projects!
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Focusing Your Church’s Digital Strategies

So much to do, such little time. Where do you invest your precious resources? Focus your church’s digital ministries in two areas. First is your stable market; already engaged church members. Second is your growth market; or who will best expand your ministries. Both are important, and need unique attention in the digital space. Here are a few tips on how to engage each.
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Digital Solutions to Reduce Social Anxieties

Being out in public is not enjoyable for everyone. There are many situations and reasons why. What we need to remember is not to punish anyone because of it. Nor should we deny them the Gospel. Solutions exist to allow for personal connection that is not face-to-face. Here are a few scenarios and some possible solutions for these anxieties.
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How A Lighthouse can Help Your Ministries

Starting social media for your entire church may feel daunting. Making even a small change to a current social media strategy feels overwhelming. Use the concept of a lighthouse to ease those fears. A lighthouse is a partner for developing or enhancing your digital ministries. This article will further define lighthouses, as well as how to prepare for one.
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Get the Most from a Church App on Wearable Tech

Wearable technology, namely watches, are the latest craze. They have become popular for a good reason. They can perform many simple tasks and have a wide range of functions. Essentially, smartwatches have become an extension of your smartphone. Many churches have, or are thinking of creating a mobile application. In this article I will discuss four critical points on how church apps should interact with wearable technology.
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The ABC’s of AB Testing

Decisions based on personal opinions, speculation, or hearsay can often lead to disaster. An objective test can help when you need the best solution. One easy and effective test used in the digital world is the AB test. It is literally a test where a participant selects one of two options. This article will help you formulate a solid plan for your test. There are plenty of fancy tools you can use. Yet without a solid plan, your test will only set you up for failure. Given the cost of some tests, that is a loss you want to avoid.

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Style Guides and your Church

A style guide is an essential tool for unifying your church’s website, social media presence, and email campaigns. It establishes all the small pieces of your church brand. It not only helps you understand everything your have, it informs all future web projects. You can even use it for design elements in your physical spaces!
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Text and Images: Combining Artforms

Your website and social media campaigns can learn from architects. Their craft is a mix of engineering and art that mirrors web professionals. There is a reason the most effective social media posts follow this principle; photos with overlayed text. You should see an example of this above this very post! Telling churches to just add text to a photo is easy advice. This article will explore the many combinations of these two art forms that can yield great results. Yet, I wanted to take the time to dive deeper into this tool and see where there is room to expand.
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Optimizing Buttons

We all use buttons in our digital assets. They are our most critical element in creating a call to action. We want people to subscribe, join, download, and give. We are even so demanding to put “now!” with those requests. Yet we often miss the mark. We design and place buttons in ways that make them difficult to understand. Use these four tips to create the best buttons for your website and social media platforms.
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