If you would like to bypass flash detection CLICK HERE
THE BRIDGE FELLOWSHIP
Known for their casual and relaxed atmosphere, The Bridge Fellowship is a high-impact church located in Sugar Land, Texas, a master-planned community on the southwest corner of Houston.
Contemporary music, powerful messages, friendly people and Starbucks coffee are 4 elements you're certain to encounter each and every week. People from all walks of life visit The Bridge Fellowship every Sunday, looking for an authentic sense of community, uplifting worship, inspirational messages... and a place to call their church home.
While the quality of ministry, programs, outreach and community were at an all-time high, the leadership team was acutely aware that their website was in no way an accurate reflection of their vision and brand. They invited the team at LOUD! Creative to enhance their ability to more effectively communicate, connect with prospects, provide ministry resources... and market The Bridge Fellowship online. We accepted their invitation.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The leadership team wanted a new look that was modern, sleek, simple to navigate... and stylistically understated. The Bridge Fellowship leadership team embraces creativity in everything they do. We knew in advance that colors, styles and foreground elements were certain to be changing frequently in the weeks, months and years to come. Knowing this... everyone agreed that a strong use of contrast and neutral grayscale color tones would be the optimal choice for the interface, navigation and background graphics, which provided their communications team the greatest flexibility to creatively leverage new styles and color palettes down the road.
TECHNOLOGY WITH A MEDIA FOCUS
A widely accepted statistic suggests that most people will not visit a church in person without first checking them out on the web. Time is valuable, and people don't want to risk wasting it by visiting a church that doesn't align with their doctrinal beliefs, personality-type and personal preferences. A prospective visitor wants to know in advance whether they can expect a positive experience or a negative one.
The new Bridge Fellowship website features a strong use of media resources for those very reasons. Prospects will be able to view galleries featuring large and easy-to-see images of the various leaders, people, events and ministry environments of the church.
A new Video & Audio Media Center has been added to the new website, allowing the church staff to upload and stream valuable sermon content online. This Video & Audio Media Center will not only allow prospective visitors to gather an even broader glimpse of what to expect during a first-time visit, it allows the church a wonderful opportunity to provide a robust collection of online ministry resources to the community. Imagine that!
Online guests can easily and conveniently stream messages right to their personal computer that will both inspire and empower them as they choose to learn and grow. Sermons can even be tagged with unique keywords... allowing users to search for message content topically... like family, addiction, financial stewardship, or perhaps a specific Bible passage.
And of course... this entire site is powered by XChange CMS 4.0. XChange is an affordable and easy-to-use content management system that allows the Bridge Fellowship team to easily add pages, update content, upload files, secure pages, add forms and surveys, collect payments and event registrations... and manage their online streaming media content. There's no software to download and most new XChange users are up and running in about 20 to 30 minutes.
CULTURAL RELEVANCE & SOCIAL MEDIA
This new website also boasts the appropriate tools for engaging and connecting with an ever growing generation of social media users. The Bridge Fellowship is committed to being culturally relevant, and this new website only highlights the evidence of this commitment. A Twitter Feed has been added to the Home Page allowing online guests to view up-to-date posts on upcoming opportunities and events... as well as inspirational thoughts and behind-the-scenes activities of the church. Users can also click on the feed to be directed to the church's Twitter page where they can immediately follow along on their personal computers and mobile devices. Twitter is a great way to stay directly connected with church members, friends and the community alike.
Additionally, online guests can utilize the host of social media tools for telling others about the church and the church website. Word Of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) is statistically by far the most effective form of marketing.
On the new website, a single click allows users to easily "Email A Friend" with a pre-formatted message inviting them to visit a specific page of the site. Users can post a page to their Facebook profile, Linked-In profile... they can even tweet about the page to all of their Twitter friends.
A WORD FROM CHRIS ESTES, CREATIVE & TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
"Our research has shown that a strong presence on the web that allows visitors to "experience" the Bridge Fellowship before ever entering our doors is key to reaching our goals. Initially, our excitement was fueled by the thought of this renewed web presence and the benefits it would provide. As we have now begun working daily with our new site, we see all these benefits and a list of unexpected bonuses.
We have been very pleased at the ease in which we can consistently provide great-looking, fresh content to our pages. No longer do we hassle with complicated processes to simply update a page or graphic. Now, with the easy to use XChange CMS 4.0, we basically plug in our text, upload a graphic, and XChange walks us through each simple step.
An additional bonus has been the attention paid to Search Engine Optimization. As we began working with LOUD! Creative, they helped us understand how search works, and provided tools to optimize our search rankings. I'm excited to continue our SEO processes and experience first-hand the increase to our improved ranking.
I've also been very impressed by the LOUD! Creative's desire to continue to add and refine the tools available in XChange. It seems that every time I turn around, they have come up with some new and great tool that increases functionality or simplifies a process. This constant refinement helps me to know that LOUD! is keeping current with the seemingly constant changes in the web landscape and that they care about the user experience.
Working with LOUD! is a real pleasure. Each step of the way is carefully thought out, quickly executed, and the quality of work is unlike what we've seen in the past. Our relationship with LOUD! is a much easier, faster, more intuitive process than any of our previous experiences, and we are very happy at our choice to use LOUD!"