In a continuation of my interview with Chris Sharpe, marketing lead at Subsplash and The Church App, we talk about the most important question: Return on Investment. In addition he shares his top pieces of advice for any church looking to develop a church app as well as advice for making sure an app deployment is successful. (You can find the first part of the interview here.)

Cindy Davis: What are your top three pieces of advice once a church decides to go ahead and have an app developed?
Chris Sharpe:
1: Make sure you have a plan on what you want to present in the app.
2: Make sure you do it well! Don’t waste your time creating something that people aren’t going to use. We have people that come to us all the time that had built an app elsewhere or in house that just didn’t meet their standards.
3: Promote your app! You can have the greatest app in the world, but make sure you let people know about it.

Davis: Within the church organization, whom do you recommend should be involved in the process of the creation of a mobile app for the church?
Sharpe: Most commonly we are working with someone within communications or media, but someone involved with the church’s IT is usually involved, and depending on the size of the church, we work with everyone from senior pastors and youth or worship leaders to graphic designers and programmers.

Davis: What level of involvement is needed by internal church organizations that choose to develop an app through your company, The Church App?
Sharpe: Our system is so simple that it can be managed by any one in the church, even a volunteer, but it always helps to have someone with a vision for the look and feel of the app. We often say if you can use Facebook, you can manage an app using The Church App.

Davis: After the app is built, are their any special skills that would be helpful to have on staff?
Sharpe: Media and graphic designers

Davis: Scope-creep: With new technology it is easy to want put everything but the kitchen sink in there. What are the top features a church should consider — and others they should not?
Sharpe: An app is not just a recreation of your website. Don’t put everything in there, but focus

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Church App Advice from The Church App Guy: Part Two

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About the author

Cindy Davis

Cindy Davis has had a passion for A/V and technology since taking apart her first transistor radio. She found it fun to write macros in DOS while at Lotus, but really loves her countless Apple products. Between 2000 and 2008 Davis was the editor-in-chief of Electronic House magazine. In 2011 she helped bring life to TechDecisions Media as editor-in-chief.