Case Study 1
Brand & Audience Strategy
Reaching a changing audience
Tarrytown United Methodist Church was trying to attract and retain younger families in a changing Austin. Audience research led to a new brand identity and a new communications strategy built around how people moved from first contact toward deeper participation.
Context & Research
The audience was changing
Tarrytown United Methodist Church (TUMC) was a large congregation in central Austin with approximately 2,500 members. Its membership was increasingly skewing older as the church struggled to attract and retain young families at the same rate. I was asked to help address that problem through the church’s brand and communications.
I worked with leadership to better understand the people we wanted to reach. We examined local demographics, developed audience profiles, and interviewed young families who had recently joined TUMC to understand who the church was already connecting with and why.
What we learned
Nearly everyone I spoke with had grown up going to church and now wanted their children to have a similar experience. TUMC’s traditional campus was part of what drew them: it looked like a church. The identity needed to feel current and be attractive to younger families without losing the traditional character they valued.
We also heard that getting involved could be difficult if you didn’t already know someone who could help you navigate the church and its systems. Much of TUMC’s communication was built around members who already knew how to find out what was happening and take part, leaving newcomers to figure out how to get connected on their own. We needed a communications strategy that made those pathways clearer and helped move new families from first contact toward deeper participation.
Brand Identity
Making it look like the church
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Interviews revealed that many young families preferred the branding of more contemporary Austin churches and felt TUMC's identity looked old-fashioned. The old identity also had several practical problems that I knew well from years of working with it: its horizontal proportions were difficult in small spaces, its detailed illustration broke down at smaller sizes, and its colors limited how it could be used.
TUMC's original identity in color and grayscale.
As a result, I set a few constraints for the new mark: compact, recognizable at any size, usable in black and white or any color, and identifiable without the church’s full name. My first direction simplified the prominent sanctuary into basic geometric forms. Leadership and staff were ready to approve it, but one staff member was lukewarm. When I asked why, she gave me a simple answer: “It just doesn’t look like the church.”
(L to R) The sanctuary blueprint, my detailed interpretation, and the simplified version designed for legibility at smaller sizes.
Adding the right perspective
I went back to look at what wasn’t working. I had been working from architectural drawings, which showed the building without the perspective people actually experienced from the ground. After testing the idea with a quick mockup, I went outside, photographed the sanctuary from the point of view of someone approaching the main entrance, and rebuilt the mark around that familiar view. From there, I simplified and exaggerated individual features until the building remained recognizable at small sizes.
(L to R) The perspective mockup, the photo I used to rebuild the mark, and the final version.
Modern and Traditional
I approached the new identity as a balance between modern and traditional. I returned to Futura, which TUMC had used in the 1960s, and paired it with the new mark based on the sanctuary.
The ivory letterhead on the right was reserved for administrative or financial communications. All other correspondence used the white letterhead on the left.
The reverse side of the business card used a key phrase from the updated vision statement: "We are a community of Christians who join God’s work here and now by serving our neighbors far and near."
I gave the Sunday worship bulletin a more refined magazine feel with heavier paper, square-back binding, and A4 proportions.
Audience Strategy
Making a way in
TUMC’s communications had largely developed around people who were already engaged. The mailed newsletter went primarily to members, the bulletin presented a wide range of announcements with little hierarchy, and the website explained what the church did but offered few current ways to get involved. For a newcomer, finding a next step often meant knowing who to ask.
First, I created a framework to provide that missing hierarchy. I translated TUMC’s vision into a practical mission and strategy, developing "Worship, Learn, Serve" as a simple way to organize how we talked about TUMC’s programming and connect individual opportunities back to that larger purpose.
The back pages of every worship bulletin organized upcoming opportunities around Worship, Learn, and Serve, connecting individual programs back to TUMC’s larger mission.
Creating engagement pathways
I then began reorganizing communications around a progression from first contact to deeper participation. I mapped programming around stages of engagement, from exploring the church and becoming connected to growing and eventually leading, and developed audience profiles around where someone was in that process. The goal wasn’t to prescribe a single path, but to make the available paths clear enough that people could navigate them without already being insiders.
From there, I defined clearer roles for our communication channels and began matching them to different audiences and stages of engagement rather than using every channel to repeat the same information.
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(L to R) Personal notes outlining the engagement pathways and how I mapped communication channels to different stages.
Communication Strategy
Putting the strategy to work
Making the pathways clearer also meant being more deliberate about what TUMC communicated. Previously, announcements competed for attention regardless of who they were for or how they supported TUMC’s goals. I developed a four-tier framework that prioritized communications based on strategic importance, audience, and reach. Higher-priority work received more visibility, channels, and creative resources.
I built the same thinking into the request process. Instead of starting with a requested deliverable, staff were asked what they wanted to accomplish, how success would be measured, and who they needed to reach. The communications team could then determine the right channels and level of support for that goal.
(L to R) My four-tier communication framework and a page from the staff communication request form used to identify goals, audience, and measures of success.
Outcome
Reaching the audience
In the year following the rebrand, total worship attendance among TUMC’s priority growth audience increased 27% compared with the previous year.
The rebrand and communications strategy contributed to that growth as part of a broader initiative to attract and retain younger families. Together, they gave the church an identity better aligned with the audience it wanted to reach and a clearer way for newcomers to find their place in the community.
