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The Foster Letter —

Religious Market Update

The FOSTER Letter is a bi-weekly e-mail religious market intelligence report targeted to Christian market channel and ministry leaders.  Each issue reports on news, trends, events and research that will directly or indirectly impact your audiences and businesses in a convenient summary format  Better informed leaders make better choices!

Researched, Edited & Published by Gary D. Foster

Excerpts from the

April 25, 2011 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update 

eBooks February eBook sales totaled $90.3 million, up from the record $69.9 million in January ’11. In February, eBooks became the single largest-selling format, reports AAP. As eBooks rose, print book shipments fell across the board by significant percentages, with adult hardcover suffering the most, declining 43% compared to 2/10. Net trade print book sales for the month among the reporting AAP members were $215.2 million—down 30%. The increase in eBook sales did not make up for the decline in trade print sales either month. Overall, eBooks comprise 29.5% of the reported trade sales for February. (Publisher’s Lunch 4/14/11) 

Cause Marketing Hurts Giving Charitable organizations may want to think twice before allowing a marketer to link its product to their cause, says a University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business researcher. Cause marketing reduces overall charitable giving by consumers, according to Professor Aradhna Krishna. She found charitable giving is lower if consumers buy a cause-related product—even if the consumer planned to buy it anyway, regardless of its link to a cause. Krishna thinks cause marketed products should be required to clearly identify to consumers how much exactly will be donated to the cause from each item sold. Cause marketing also can decrease consumer happiness, Krishna says. “Consumers appear to realize that participating in cause marketing is inherently more selfish than direct charitable donation, reducing their subsequent happiness (vs. a direct donation). Unfortunately, this doesn't prevent them from substituting it for charitable giving, which reduces the overall charitable donation,” Krishna says. (Marketing Daily 4/4/11) 

Moral Issues Least Important A new national survey of registered U.S. voters by the Barna Group reveals the issues most likely to influence which candidate voters will embrace in the 2012 presidential election are health care (64%), tax policies (60%), terrorism (50%), and employment policies (50%). Secondary influential issues are immigration policies (45%), education policy (44%), the wars in the Middle East (43%), and America’s dependence upon foreign oil (38%). Issues least likely to influence how voters feel about potential candidates were domestic poverty policies (37%), abortion (27%), environmental policy (26%), and gay marriage (24%). (Barna Update 4/5/11) 

Smartphones Indispensable According to the 21st Century Mobile Mom Report by BabyCenter, mobile phones and smartphones in particular have become indispensable to moms, who are 18% more likely than average to have one. Smartphones among moms has risen 64% over the past 2 years, and 51% of moms say they are “addicted” to it. The majority sleep with their cell phone next to their bed, and more than half check it first thing in the morning and last thing before they go to sleep. 53% of women surveyed purchased a smartphone as a direct result of becoming a mom. The most important features of her phone changed from address book and text messaging to the camera and video camera. (Center for Media Research Brief 4/14/11) 

Never Assume You’ve Arrived When companies achieve success, they usually quit innovating and become guardians of the status quo. But yesterday’s perfect processes are obsolete tomorrow. Vinyl records were replaced by 8-track tapes. 8-tracks were replaced by cassettes. Cassettes were replaced by CDs. And now CDs are being replaced by MP3 players. The same is happening with business practices. Lesson: Success, like failure, is a temporary condition. Don’t get leapfrogged by the competition! Let me be your innovation advisor. Contact me at 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. (Monday Morning Memo 12/8/08) 

Shopper Stress One of the highest sources of stress for moms is buying gifts for spouses, according to a survey conducted by Totsy.com and BSM Media. (Engage Moms 4/6/11) 

Too Connected? 1 in 5 kids in kindergarten through 2nd grade own a cellphone, according to new study cited by ReadWriteWeb. Nearly 30% of 3rd through 5th graders own their own phones vs. just over 50% of middle schoolers. Meanwhile, 34% of middle schoolers and 44% of high schoolers have smartphones. Also 67% of parents said they were willing to buy their children a mobile device for school if the schools allowed it, and they seemed particularly interested in their children using gadgets to access online textbooks. However, school administrators were not supportive of cellphones in the classroom, with a full 65% of principals saying “No way!”  (Around the Net 4/4/11) 

Frightening Fact The fiscal position of the U.S. in ’09 was worse than that of Greece. With a debt-to-revenue ratio of 312%, Greece was in dire straits. According to Morgan Stanley, however, the debt-to-revenue ratio of the U.S. was 358%.” (Why the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins, 2009) 

Encouragement According to Hallmark, 90% of consumers want more choices in encouragement cards that will allow them to share support in unique ways for real-life situations. Do you have an encouragement strategy for your communities (board, team, clients, customers, or donors)? It won’t happen if you don’t plan it. I can help you craft one. Contact me at 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. (CMA e-Newsletter 4/2/07) 

Millennials are more likely to give to charitable organizations that they or their friends trust and believe in rather than those endorsed by celebrities, finds the Millennial Donors Survey. 93% of people 20 to 35, who are often characterized as self-centered and disconnected, gave to non-profits. The bulk of those gifts were small—58% of respondents said their maximum gift was $150, although 10% gave $1,000 or more in ’10. 85% of Millennials were motivated to give to an organization because of a compelling cause or mission, while 56% had a personal connection or trust in the leadership of the organization. 85% also said they were very or somewhat interested in contributing to organizations they trust and gave most often as a result of more traditional, personal requests, although they said they prefer to give using online tools. And while 90% said they’d stop donating once an organization lost their trust, the next biggest reason to stop was over-sharing. 71% got info about nonprofits through Web searches. 62% prefer to get information via e-mail, and 56% got info from peers.  33% used Facebook to gather info. 70% of Millennials looked to an organization’s Web site to understand its mission and values; 56% wanted to determine its financial condition. Only 2% said celebrity endorsements or pleas motivated them to donate to a cause. (Marketing Daily 4/8/11) 

State of the Industry According to CBA’s 2011 State of the Industry survey, the industry saw a net loss of 63 stores, with 14 new stores opening last year. The average length of time in business for reporting stores decreased slightly to 20.09 years. While overall sales were down 3.07% in ’10, more than 30% reported sales increases. Retailers said key strategies to success last year involved community and church outreach events, such as Christian Store Day; discount and bargain strategies; new marketing, such as social media and focusing on specific customer groups; inventory management disciplines; and intentionally developing customer-service tactics and improving in-store experiences. 33.7% had a church relations strategy in ’10.  (CBA 2011 State of the Industry Report) 

Multi-Channel World We live in a multi-channel world. Your customers/donors might choose to interact with your brand and communications via radio, TV, newspaper, direct mail, catalogs, email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook pages, YouTube, mobile apps, telephone, and more. How you allocate resources to each of these and other channels varies not only by your business lines and markets served but also by the goal of the communication and stage of the individual customer or prospect relationship. (E-Mail Insider 4/7/11) 

Religious Trends According to the 4/11 Newsmax, these are the 7 top religious trends changing the nation’s spiritual and political landscape: 1) Social Networking, 2) Political Ecumenism, 3) Rise of Nondenominational Churches (the Baylor Survey on Religion reports nondenominational congregations represent the fastest-growing segment of Protestant churches in America), 4) Spreading Secularism (the percentage of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled in the past two decades—8% to 15%), 5) Rise of Mixed-Faith Families, 6) “Bliss” of U.S. Religious Ignorance (religious leaders are rethinking their teaching methods to combat the startling degree of religious illiteracy), 7) Strong Christian Tea Party Identity (nearly half of Tea Party members are also Christian conservatives). (Pastor’s Weekly Briefing 4/8/11)

The Best Actions to combat brand-deterioration are product innovation, refocusing marketing efforts on growth, exploring new targets, analyzing the root cause of the deterioration, and completing a deep qualitative study on brand issues. I can bring objectivity to your brand issues.  Contact 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. (Advertising Age 4/25/07) 

Churches Rebound from Economic Recession Results from the 3rd annual State of the Plate  survey of 1,507 churches revealed 43% of churches saw giving go up in ’10. In the previous year, only 36% reported increases in giving. Nearly half (46.5%) were also able to increase their budgets for ‘11. (Brian Kluth’s 2011 State of the Plate Survey)  

Tablet Habits 68% of tablet users spend at least one hour daily on their tablet, and 77% say their desktop or laptop use fell after they began using it, according to a Google survey of 1,400 tablet users. Google estimates more than 165 million tablets will ship during the next 2 years. (Around the Net 4/8/11) 

Universalist Confusion Many born-again Christians embrace certain aspects of universalist thought. In a recent Barna Group study, a quarter of born-again Christians in the U.S. said all people are eventually saved or accepted by God (25%), and it doesn’t matter what religious faith you follow because they all teach the same lessons (26%). An even larger percentage of born-again Christians (40%) indicated they believe Christians and Muslims worship the same God. (Barna Update 4/18/11) 

For information on how to become a subscriber to the entire 3-page Foster Letter---Religious Market Update, E-mail us at: subscribe@garydfoster.com