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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

June 25, 2008 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update 

U.S. Children are too busy, too distracted, and in some cases too tired to read books for fun, finds a National Endowment for the Arts study. This suggests schoolwork, homework and Internet diversions keep kids from regularly enjoying a good book. From ’84 to ’04, the percentage of 17-year-olds who “never or hardly ever” read for fun rose from 9% to 19%. The new survey finds 1 in 4 children read for fun every day, but 22% rarely do, if ever. And as kids get older, the percentage who rarely read for fun grows from 8% to 37%. The reasons kids give for not reading for fun: about 1 in 4 have trouble finding books they like, 31% would rather do other things, 27% have too much school and homework, 19% read other things (magazines, newspapers or online articles) or already read enough for school, 18% don’t have time to read and 14% are often too tired. (USA Today 6/10/08)

Active Christians in the U.S. account for 19% of the Christian demographic. “Active Christians” are the group most likely to read the Bible in their spare time, be committed church-goers, accept leadership positions in the church and feel obligated to share their faith. They account for 57% of all Christian retail sales, finds a CTI and R.R. Bowker study. Other Christian types identified in the study included Professing Christians (20%), Liturgical Christians (16%), Private Christians (24%) and Cultural Christians (21%). 49% of Active Christians read Christian books vs. just 8% of Professing Christians. The top reasons given by Active Christians for book purchasing are store displays, a friend’s recommendation, online ads, direct mail or catalog and online digital media. (ECPA 6/08) 

Performance in the business environment can be traced to 3 employee qualities: mission ownership, a sense of urgency and personal commitment. I can help you assess employee performance in these areas and point your company to higher productivity and profits by maximizing existing staff talent. Contact me at 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. 

NIV royalty income to STL-IBS in ’07 totaled $7.8 million, including $6.5 million paid by Zondervan. Over 300 million copies of NIV Bibles and New Testaments have been sold. (Christian Retailing 6/9/08) 

E-mail Open Rates climb when the subject lines are in the 50-character range or 80-character range, but they fall when the length is 60 or 70, claims Dela Quist, CEO of Alchemy Worx. His conclusion is based on research culled from 250 million messages 660 different subject lines sent over the past 2 years. One theory is that the longer the subject line, the better chance a marketer has of presenting different concepts that may appeal to different consumers.  (Online Media Daily 5/27/08) 

Mixed Marriage Among married adult Americans, 27% are in religiously mixed marriages, according to Pew Research. If marriages between people of different Protestant denominational families are included, the number increases to 37%. Hindus and Mormons are most likely to have a spouse with the same religion (90% and 83% respectively), while a majority of the unaffiliated population, members of the “other faiths” category and Buddhists are married to someone of a different religious background. Young people are more likely to be in religiously mixed marriages than their older counterparts. (Pastor’s Weekly Briefing 6/6/08) 

U.S. Religious Organizations have a 1% “mortality rate”, the lowest among public organizations, according to a Univ. of Arizona and Duke Univ. study. The low rate of demise reveals that religious organizations are some of the strongest in the nation. Among volunteer-based social service groups, peace-movement organizations and other groups studied over the last 20 years, at least 5% shut their doors each year. The low rate of closures could mean “weak congregations limp along rather than die, whereas in other organizational populations weak units die rather than live on in a weakened state.” The main difference between congregations doomed to disband and congregations destined for revival is a willingness to adapt, to alter their congregational identity in response to change in the communities in which they are located. Whether a congregation is willing to adapt depends largely on the outcome of conflict between advocates of the status quo and advocates of change. Knowing the mortality rate of religious congregations is critical to understanding their social influence and relevance. (Christian Post 6/17/08) 

Longer Life Average U.S. life expectancy has risen to an all-time record of 78.1 years for babies born in ’06, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What’s more, the death rate for 11 of the top 15 causes of death (including heart disease, cancer and stroke) slowed in ’06. White and black males have seen an increased life expectancy to 76 years and 70 years, respectively. Black females enjoy a slightly longer lifespan at 76.9 years, and white females lead at 81 years. (WebMD.com) 

Word-of-Mouth 92.9% of consumers seek advice from peers at work before making purchases, according to a new BIGresearch study. “The American workplace has become the most lucrative marketing channel for advertisers looking to connect with consumers on where they eat, shop and socialize,” says Stephanie Molnar, CEO of WorkPlace Media. “Targeting consumers at work, where they make the majority of their spending decisions, is just smart business.” Since the workplace is full of conversation among peers, it presents an ideal environment to create buzz for product introductions and new store openings. A full 67.8% of at-work consumers report socializing with co-workers while on break, while 42.2% indicate they communicate with friends and family during the workday. (Media Post 9/20/08) 

Free Online Gaming could lead to the very real problem of gambling addiction. 33% of Oregon teens play free casino-type games online, according to the state’s Dept. of Human Services. The games may be prepping them and other teenagers across the nation for the real thing. (CitizenLink.com 6/5/08) 

Need to Control Costs by “right-sizing” your company or ministry? I can help steer you through this delicate process. Unless very carefully done, it can become a disastrous staff de-motivator. I can strategically assess your situation and craft a healthy implementation strategy. Contact me at 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. 

Marital Fidelity Predictor A Fuller Theological Seminary study reveals attendance at religious services predicts marital fidelity. Attending services can create a strong network of relationships within the religious community that can provide social support to spouses. It also exposes an individual to religious teaching on marital fidelity and the general importance of marriage. (Journal of Marriage and Family, 5/08) 

Senior Stats There are 37.3 million people in the U.S. 65 and older, 12% of the total population. Between ’05 and ’06, this age group increased by 473,000 people. The Census Bureau projects there will be 86.7 million seniors (21% of the population) in 2050. This is a 147% increase; the general population only increased 49%. It is projected there are currently 506 million seniors in the world today, they will increase to 999 million by 2030. The median ’06 household income for those 65 and older was $27,798.  5.5 million were in the labor force in ’06, projected as 10.1 million by ’16. In ’07, 76% had at least a high school diploma and 19% a bachelor’s degree or higher. 7.3 million (8%) are taking adult education courses. 53% are married, 32% are widowed, 64% live with relatives, 27% live alone, 5% live in group quarters, 2% with non relatives, 6% in their children’s home and 1% with unmarried partners. 1.6 million (4%) live in nursing homes. 81% own their own homes vs. 43% of those younger than 35. Seniors own 11% of U.S. businesses. (U.S. Census Bureau 3/3/08) 

Starbucks Strategy Starbucks may not be the first business to sell affordable luxury, but it’s hard to argue they haven’t been the most successful. The company is built on five principles every business or ministry can apply to their service quality: make it your own; everything matters; surprise and delight; embrace resistance; and leave your mark. For truly successful ventures, customers/donors are not merely customers/donors; they are customer/donor-evangelists. 80% of companies believe they provide good service, but just 8% of customers agree they’ve received such an experience. Contact 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com to ensure your customers/donors receive excellent service from you. (The Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary, Joseph Michelli, McGraw Hill 2007) 

Elderly Americans, swamped by debt and rising medical bills, have been seeking bankruptcy-court protection at sharply faster rates than other adults. From ’91 to ’07, the rate of personal bankruptcy filings among those ages 65 or older jumped by 150%, according to AARP. Among those ages 75 to 84, the rate soared 433%. (Pastor’s Weekly Briefing 6/20/08) 

Employers pay an average of 300% of a worker’s salary to replace them,  including recruitment, training, severance, lost productivity and lost opportunities. (Right Management 6/08)  

Money Woes A new LifeWay Research study finds 72% of Southern Baptist pastors report the difficult U.S. economy is negatively affecting their churches. 27% think their congregations will not meet their budget if current trends continue. Churches and ministries across the nation are reporting declines or flat donor revenues. (Miami Herald 6/4/08) 

New Gallup Poll claims 81% of Americans say U.S. moral values are getting worse while only 11% believe they’re getting better. Just 15% consider moral values to be “excellent” or “good”; 41% say the moral climate is “only fair”; and 44% consider the moral climate to be “poor”. 51% of U.S. households with an annual income less than $30,000 consider the moral state of the U.S. “poor” vs. 35% of those with an income of $75,000 and more. (Gallup Poll 6/12/08) 

Keywords A simple way to discover SEO keywords for your ministry or business is: choose 1 word you’d use to describe your ministry or business, and then chose 2 words, on up to a total of 5. This will give you the most common keyword, plus some long-tail variations. Next, ask yourself how you would search for your competition without using any of the words you’ve chosen. Typically this leads to synonyms, complementary services, layman’s terms, as well as competitor’s brand names. Now you've covered alternative and complimentary keywords, as well as branded and competitive terms. Finally, plug all the results into a keyword discovery tool.  (Media Post Search Insider 6/12/08) 

Religious Book Sales According to Book Industry Trends 2008, a comprehensive view of U.S. book publishing dollar and unit sales, the religion segment increased 5.6% from ’07 to ’08 after rising 6.3% from ’06 to ’07. However, Thomas Nelson Publishers President and CEO Michael Hyatt claims the Christian book market was inaccurately represented in the report, which lumped evangelical books with New Age, other religions and atheism titles. BISG statistician Al Greco said the report included data “on all religious books from all religious book publishers, not just Christian books.”  (Christian e-tailing 6/19/08)

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