Serving the Christian Market Since 1968

14732 Middle Point Road Van Wert, Ohio 45891 - 419.238.4082

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

June 25, 2007 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update

Relationship Strength Pays A new study for Hallmark and Barnes & Noble titled, Carlson Relationship Builder 2007: Getting It Right in Retail, finds when relationship strength is high, the customer is 49% more likely to remain a customer than when it is low, and 55% more likely to shop at the retailer within the next year. In addition, a customer in a strong relationship is 1.82 times as likely to recommend the retailer to others. Strong relationships are characterized by trust, commitment, a two-way dialog that meets mutual expectations of the company and customer. Customers with high levels of relationship strength aid a retailer's bottom line. Ed Note: This same principle of relationship applies to any business or ministry. (1 to 1 Weekly 6/18/07) 

College Not The Enemy University of Texas researchers found that college attendance appears to prevent young adults from losing their religion, contrary to common assumptions that students leave the church or their faith during their college years. Surprisingly the research discovered those who never attended college have the highest rates of decline in church attendance (76.2%), diminished importance placed on religion (23.7%), and disaffiliation from religion (20.3%). Students who earned at least a bachelor’s degree, had the lowest rates on those factors with 59.2% indicating decreased church attendance and 15% placing less importance on religion and disaffiliating from religion. 62% of Evangelical Protestant young adults attend a religious service less often than they did as adolescents, but just 19% indicate a decline in the importance of religion and 16% disaffiliate from religion. Only religious participation suffers substantial declines in young adulthood, researchers noted. 82% of college students maintain at least a static level of personal religiosity in early adulthood and 86% retain their religious affiliation. So, are colleges really a breeding ground for vital religious practice and teaching, and not one for apostasy? (Christian Post 6/14/07) 

Spare Time Online According to Media-Screen, broadband users spend 1.66 hours (48% of their spare time) online in a typical weekday, and more than half of that is entertainment-and communication-related. Search engines and social networking sites are gaining in popularity, influencing an equal number of people as magazines and newspapers. Currently, the proportion of advertising resources devoted to the Internet (about 7%) is nominal relative to the value it generates among fans and consumers, on a typical weekday. Sending email and visiting Web sites for personal reasons are more popular than watching TV. (Center for media Research 5/23/07)

Wal-Mart is expected to lose $3 billion in ’07 due to shoplifters, employee theft and paperwork errors. (AP 6/13/07) 

Today’s Dads are spending more time with their kids, finds a study from youth market researcher Smarty Pants. The study focused on fathers of kids between infancy and age 12. 64% of dads are certain they spend more time with their children than their own fathers did. On average, they report spending 5.2 hours with their kids on weekdays, and 6.6 on weekends. Half say they’re “much better” fathers than their own dads were, while 40% say they’re “on par” with their own fathers. Most enjoy the role of nurturing father, and 33% say they are a day-to-day mentor or role model. Marketers need to address the reality that dads (particularly younger dads) are present and involved in their kids’ lives, including shopping and develop marketing materials that appeal to males. (Marketing Daily 6/13/07) 

Be Careful What You Post Wall Street Journal reports nearly 25% of human resources decision makers have rejected job candidates because of personal information found online. One of the most important background checks an employer can do these days is to Google prospective job candidates, and then scour the social-networking universe for their personal profiles. The conventional wisdom is that as those who grew up with the Net get older, they’ll pay the price for their youthful indiscretions that can never be removed. The big sociological question: Will society simply adapt to the dichotomy between “public” Web life and one’s private offline life? Will job candidates really be held to task like politicians for something they wrote on a MySpace page 15 years ago? (WSJ Online 6/4/07) 

Churchgoing Fathers are 95% more likely to be married when their child is born, significantly more likely to rate their partner as “supportive,” and more likely to have “excellent” relationships with their wife and children, finds a Univ. of Virginia study. Men turn their hearts and minds to the needs of their spouses when they are regular churchgoers, in large part because churches foster a code of decency that makes them more responsible and considerate. (Center for Marriage & Families 5/07) 

Database Negligence 40% of organizations do not monitor their databases for suspicious activity or don’t know if such monitoring occurs, according to the results of a study by Ponemon Institute, an information and privacy practices researcher. (BtoB Straightline 6/11/07) 

Online Church At South Korea’s largest church, Yoido Full Gospel Church, some 135,000 people a day listen to sermons on the church’s website. In comparison, only 40,000-50,000 regularly attend its Sunday services. Popular internet portals report an increase in numbers of religious websites. Naver, South Korea’s largest Internet portal, says there are 5,394 non-Catholic Christian church-related websites, 815 Catholic-related sites and 1,439 Buddhist-related sites. About 70% of South Koreans have broadband access. The country is also composed of the largest Christian population in East Asia, after the Philippines. Christian Post 5/30/07) 

Book Videos—Online Hit Once a novelty, book videos are increasingly common and, publishers say, essential. No one makes definitive claims that videos increase sales, but publishers and booksellers agree they can help, especially if they catch on at YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet. Publishers want videos to be lively, but not too slick, and to help readers get to know the author and get a feel for the book. (USA Today 6/14/07) 

Family Chores are shifting. It used to be take out the garbage and walk the dog. Now 75% of kids 8 to 14 say they have completed an online transaction, reports researcher Stars for Kidz. Nearly 25% of kids shop with their parents’ credit cards, 26% use gift cards, and 8% use their own credit card. 48% help with electronic transactions because their parents are “clueless” online. 33% help because their parents don’t have enough time to shop. Parents still make the decisions, but kids have more and more impact than ever before. (USA Today 5/24/07) 

National Projections indicate the U.S. population 65 and older will increase from 1 in 8 people to 1 in 5 by 2030. (Census Bureau Report 6/18/07) 

What NOT To Do With Social Networking When building a social network for your customers, donors or prospects don’t… Misunderstand your target audience: The demographics of users on MySpace differ greatly from those on Facebook, Friendster and other social networks. When creating any site, be very specific about whom you want to reach. Be impatient: Like any marketing strategy, building a social network takes time. With the potential of exponential growth (members reach out to each other and tell others), the time it takes to build a membership base is worth the benefits of having a captive audience ready to experience the brand and hear the message. Assume people will discover it on their own: Success requires outside promotion either online, offline or both. Some advertise their sites in various media, or on the product donor communication itself. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, but there had to be someone there first to spread the word. I can coach you and your team through this strategic marketing effort. Contact me at 419-238-4082, GFosterCns@rmi.net or www.GaryDFoster.com. (1to1 5-6/07) 

Average Tuition, room and board (for in-state students) at the nation’s 4-year public colleges and universities for an entire academic year in ’05-06 was $13,425 vs. $36,510 at private institutions. (Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008) 

Religion is playing a larger role in companies, especially because people spend more time at the office. A Gallup Poll finds 45% of Americans talk about their faith at work. Gil Stricklin, Marketplace Chaplains, observes, “The benefit for the companies that allow religion in the workplace is clear—they have fewer people calling in sick and a lower turnover rate of employees.” (Incentive 6/07) 

Stores In Crises CBA member stores reported total sales of $4.34 billion in ’04, $340 million more than in ’00, yet nationwide, 623 Christian book and supply stores closed between ’05 and ’06. Demand for Christian products is greater than ever. One factor is more consumers are shopping online. Sometimes patrons use a brick and mortar store to view the item they want before buying it online. In many cases, consumers aren’t even shopping online. They’re downloading or copying what they want freely from sites like Bible.com and Biblegateway.com. Wal-Mart’s Web site directs Christian book shoppers to a range of specific sub-genres and lists organized by denomination. The books are often discounted 20% to 40% and shipping is typically 97¢. At Amazon.com, most purchases over $25 qualify for free shipping. Just as vexing to small Christian stores are mega-stores, such as Wal-Mart and Target. Business owners say customers who used to buy crucifixes, Bible software and Christian music at their shops now get those items the same place they buy shoes, groceries and electronics. The competition is in not only books and Bibles, but inspirational gifts and cards also. Many once-healthy Christian stores are struggling to survive in a difficult economy along with increased competition. Some of what’s hurting them stems directly from the nature of Christianity itself. Because most Christian bookstore owners are also devout Christians, it is said they’re often loath to engage in hard-nosed competition like other business owners. Retailers say they practice the kindness their books preach, routinely referring customers to each other. (Religion News Service 6/7/07) 

Religious TV Nearly half of all Americans tune in monthly to a religious TV program. Evangelicals are the dominant religious TV presence, reports PBS. While critics say TV preachers spend the bulk of their airtime asking for money, a ’04 study found TV preachers spend an average of 17% of their airtime in fundraising and promotion compared to the 28% commercial TV uses in ads and promos. Some of the largest ministries use at least 95% of their program time for ministry. They include Day of Discovery, Ever Increasing Faith with Frederick Price, Billy Graham, and EWTN Live. Today, fundraising and promotion “remain at their lowest level” since ’81. Alongside highly visible TV programs are smaller, local ones, with some estimating there to be 10,000 TV ministries, mostly local churches. (The Christian Post 6/9/07) 

XXP The developing field called experimental existential psychology, or XXP, explores how people find meaning and purpose in their lives. Researchers say the topic can now be examined under the cold light of science. How people deal with existential concerns could help explain a broad spectrum of behavior, from political and religious leanings, to altruism and the pursuit of riches, to patriotism and terrorism. Already, experiments have shown that when people are reminded of their own deaths, they become more patriotic, more conservative, more family-oriented, more security-minded. The fear of death also provokes a need to feel connected to others, to have a clear sense of identity, to know how one fits into the world, and to feel one has free will. Researchers call it the psychology of the soul in the sense of looking at the deepest things we rely on in our lives. It is a sense of inner being that helps us function and feel secure in a scary world. We all want to feel we’re significant beings in a meaningful world. (Chicago Tribune 3/26/07)

For information on how to become a subscriber to the entire 3-4 page Foster Letter---Religious Market Update, E-mail us at: subscribe@garydfoster.com