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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

August 25, 2008 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update 

August 25, 2008 

ChurchQuake David T. Olson, author of The American Church in Crisis (Zondervan 2008) does not believe between 37% and 43% of Americans go to church each week. His study of nearly 300,000 churches gives evidence the total attending services is closer to 52 million each week (vs. over 100 million), and instead of 40% attending each week, it is more like 19.5%. He also reports 26.7 million attended church on a given weekend in ’05 of which 9.1% are connected with the evangelical church. New and large churches are the leading growth factor.. (The American Church in Crisis, David T. Olson, Zondervan 2008) 

New Media According to Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s annual Communications Industry Forecast, newspapers, long the dominant U.S. advertising platform, have fallen behind broadcast TV this year, which itself is poised to be usurped by the Internet within 3 years. In ’02, traditional media was 95% of the total; now it’s 85% and will be 68%by 2012.VSS projects ad spending on new media will climb 21% to $81.67 billion in ’08 and will account for 17.7% of total advertising and marketing spending vs. just 6.9% in ’02. Traditional advertising and marketing will inch up only 0.4% in ’08 to $378.48 billion, notes the report. (MediaDailyNews 8/6/08) 

Tech Savvy Kids Read Books Packaged Facts reports in The Kids and Tweens Market in the U.S. that while the “vast majority” of 6- to-11-year-olds use the Net, 55% of 9- to-11-year-old boys and 46% of girls used the Internet for less than an hour or not at all during the past week. A substantial majority of kids of all ages read books other than schoolbooks. Multicultural kids are as likely as non-Hispanic white kids to read books outside of school. In general, girls are more likely than boys to read books, and interest in reading books is highest among girls age 7 to 9. (Marketing Daily 8/12/08) 

Hispanics There are now 44 million U.S. Hispanics (15% of the population) with an estimated spending power of $1.2 trillion. Nearly 4 million have annual incomes of $75,000 or above, per the U.S. Census Bureau. (Brandweek 7/14/08) 

Customer/Donor Loyalty According to the 2006 1 to 1 Customer Loyalty Survey, 87% of corporate executives say their companies understand loyalty is driven by the overall customer experience created, yet only 38% have a system in place to identify the experiences that are most important to loyal customers or donors. Do not put it off if you want to close the gap between customer expectations and delivery. I can help you make customer/donor loyalty the center of your corporate strategy. Contact 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. 

Christian Retail Myths Busted • Men don’t buy Christian books—33% of customers buying books in Christian bookstores are men; more than double the widely accepted myth of 10% to 15%. • Young people do not shop Christian stores—21% of book buying customers are ages 13-29. That means more than 1 in 5 are Gen-Y or in their teens. • Christian bookstores are not price-competitive—The #1 reason people shop in America’s Christian bookstores is product selection. Reasons #2 and #3 are convenience and price. • Discounters and mass marketers make it impossible for Christian retailers to compete—While selection is the top reason for choosing a Christian retail store, the #1 reason for actually making a purchase there is title availability (selection again)  and #2 was price/discount (value). (CBA Retailers+Resources 8/08) 

Women Are Happier than Men Until ... The Journal of Happiness Studies reports women are happier than men, but only until their late 40s. The study, which analyzed data from 47,000 people, found that in their 20s women are happier than men. Young men’s lackluster love lives and low-paying first jobs are blamed. The gap closes with age and by 48 men are happier. The study suggests it’s because by then men are married and better off financially. (cbsnews.com 7/08) 

Marriage Killer 49% of American adults believe cohabitation can be good for marriage, finds a USA Today/Gallup poll. In reality it tends to set people up for marital failure in terms of high divorce rates, more marital conflict and less happiness. 47% believe cohabitation has no effect on children. Univ. of Virginia Sociology professor Brad Wilcox claims, “Kids who are exposed to cohabitation are more likely to be physically abused, to be sexually abused, to have trouble with depression and delinquency and a number of other negative social outcomes.” The Census Bureau reports there are currently 6.4 million cohabiting couples in the U.S., up 1.4 million from ’06. (CitizenLink 7/29/08) 

Christian Product to Market I can help you craft a cost- effective marketing plan for any Christian market channel: trade, institutional, church or consumer direct. Contact 419-238-4082, gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. 

Tween Dating Abuse 28% of kids and 26% of parents say full-scale sex, or “going all the way,” is part of tween (ages 11-14) relationships. A survey commissioned by Liz Claiborne Inc., loveisrespect.org and the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline reports a surprising number of tweens experience dating violence and abuse. 72% said boyfriend/girlfriend relationships usually begin at age 14 or younger; 37% said they have been in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. (Pastor’s Weekly Briefing 7/18/08) 

Nonmarital vs. Marital A fall ’07 study of televised sex references reveals broadcast networks show sex between married couples as negative or nonexistent while depicting extramarital sex as positive, according to The Parents Television Council. During prime time, verbal references to nonmarital sex outnumber references to sex in marriage nearly 3 to 1, and scenes implying sex between unmarried partners outnumber those between married couples 4 to 1. (Advertising Age 8/5/08) 

Working Moms A Cambridge University survey suggests growing numbers of people are concerned about the impact of working mothers on family life. In ’98, 51% of women and 45.9% of men believed family life would not suffer if a woman went to work. This had fallen to 46% of women and 42% of men in ’02, amid “growing sympathy” for the traditional view that women should be in the home, not the workplace. Women’s changing role is viewed as having costs both for the woman and the family. (BBC News 8/6/08) 

Fewer Miles In response to $4-a-gallon gas, Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May ’08 than in May ’07, a 3.7% decline, the largest drop of any May on record. (USA Today 7/28/08) 

ChristianTrade Assoc. Intl. will be hosting its 2nd Annual Marketsquare International, 1/15-17/09, at the Atlanta Sheraton Gateway Hotel. Exhibitors who sign on by 9/15 receive a $200 early-bird discount. Sponsorship opportunities and special incentives for international attendees are also available. International sales is one of the highest growth areas in today’s challenging business economy. Marketsquare International is designed to give the worldwide Christian trade the perfect forum for international sales, rights negotiations, training, networking and fellowship. For more e-mail info@ChristianTrade.com. (Foster Network 8/11/08) 

The 191 Largest Assemblies of God Churches have a combined Sunday attendance of 378,450. 1.5% of AOG churches account for more than 21.4% of the total denomination’s church attendance. (Christian Post 8/14/08) 

Methodists have the highest positive ratings of religious and spiritual groups in the U.S., finds new Gallup research. 96% of Americans polled had either a positive or neutral view of Methodists. 4% had an overall negative view. Methodists are 1 of the 4 U.S. religious groups with strongly positive ratings. The others are Jews, Roman Catholics and Baptists. Broader groups of “evangelical Christians” and “fundamentalist Christians” did not fare as well but still rated more positive than negative. (umc.org 8/08) 

Less Media Time For the 3rd year in a row, the time Americans spend with media declined, according the 22nd edition of Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s Communications Industry Forecast. Although the declines are just 0.1% in ’06, ’07 and ’08, they suggest the shift toward digital media is enabling consumers to compress the amount of time they spend accessing and consuming media. The declines are impacting traditional media, especially print such as newspapers, magazines and books, though even traditional TV usage is projected to decline this year. In ’08, VSS projects the amount of time the average American will spend consuming media will decline 0.1% to 3,493 hours. However, time spent by institutions on select media, such as professional information, b­-to-b magazines, and outsourced corporate training, will climb 4.2% in ’08 to 301 hours per employee. Consumer media usage will  grow only 0.2% in ’08 to 3,713 hours per person. (MediaDailyNews 8/5/08)

 The New Golden Rule for business, first developed by Fred Reichheld, loyalty expert and author, is the one statistic that increasingly is taken most seriously by investors. Originally dubbed the Net Promoter Score, it could also be called the Customer Evangelism Score. It may be the most revealing question any business, ministry or church can ask its constituents. So what is this measure of success? Would you recommend us to a friend? I can help you find appropriate ways to ask this question to your customers and constituents. Contact me at 419-238-4082, gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com.  (The Gospel According to Starbucks, Leonard Sweet, WaterBrook, 2007) 

Adoption A CDC report says among women 18 to 44, only about 1% and 2.3% of men have adopted children. Minority women are currently seeking to adopt children more often than white women. Although women who have never married adopt children much more often than single men, overall men adopt children at more than twice the rate of women. This is largely due to men marrying women with children from a previous relationship. Overall, nearly 1.3 million men have adopted a child vs. 613,000 women. Among singles, 100,000 women and 73,000 men have adopted. (Associated Press 8/7/08).

Health & Marriage In ’72, the widowed were about as likely to report good health as the married, but in ’03 they were 7% less likely to report good health than were their married counterparts. (cbsnews.com 8/08) 

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