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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

September 25, 2009 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update

U.S. Church Growth In its ’07 study, the Pew Forum found 3.6 million Americans raised without an attachment to any organized religion converted to evangelicalism later in their lives. American evangelicalism has spawned a “church growth” industry driven by a class of preachers—some of whom call themselves “pastorpreneurs” highly skilled in building megachurches that target the religiously disaffected with “seeker-friendly” services and family-friendly facilities, replete with on-site daycare, basketball courts, and fast-food restaurants. Willow Creek is so successful that it has become the subject of a Harvard Business School case study. (God Is Back by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, Penguin, 2009)  

Word-Of-Mom Mom is a marketer’s best friend. If you can’t reach a specific type of woman directly, tapping her friend may serve the same purpose. 75% of mothers research a product before buying it, about the same as men at 74%, but 90% of moms prefer brands recommended by other moms. That’s nearly double the average consumer at 50%, according to the ’05 Consumer-Generated Media and Engagement Study. (Engage Moms 9/2/09) 

Marriage is Good for the Brain We’ve known for some time that married people live longer. Now a new study suggests matrimony may also help keep the mind sharp—warding off age-related issues like memory loss or dementia. Finnish Researchers reported in the British Medical Journal that individuals with the greatest risk of Alzheimer’s are those who are widowed or divorced at midlife and remained so. Being single at midlife is also a risk factor. The researchers suggest having a partner might provide additional mental and social challenges that somehow stimulate the brain and delay the onset of dementia. But getting a complex disease like Alzheimer’s is not dependent simply on lifestyle. (Parade 8/9/09) 

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) 

Sexual Misconduct by Pastors A Baylor Univ. study finds 1 in every 33 women (3%) who attend worship services has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader. More than two-thirds of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance. At least 36 denominations now have official policies that identify sexual relations between adult congregants and clergy as misconduct, subject to discipline. (WashingtonPost.com) 

Old-line Protestant Congregations confront a special challenge. Their memberships are significantly older than any other faith family. In fact, in nearly 6 of every 10 old-line congregations, 25% or more are 65 or older. This is nearly twice any other faith family and nearly 3 times as great as evangelical Protestant congregations. One unfortunate corollary of a congregation’s age structure is that on average, the more seniors, the lower a congregation’s vitality. (HIRR Notes 9/9/09) 

The Average Depreciation of a new car during the first year can be up to 31% of the price you paid for it. With most new cars, you lose $6,000 as soon as you drive it off the lot. (The Little Book of Big Savings, Ellie Kay, WaterBrook, 2009) 

Technology & Work A Kelly Services workplace survey of people in 34 countries finds 75% of respondents appreciate the opportunity provided by smartphones and laptops to remain in constant contact with work, even though 35% are working longer hours. 55% are happy with their current work-life balance. 87% say the ability to work anywhere, at any time, is a motivating force and provides a better work and personal life balance. Gen-Y workers (18-29), are at the forefront of the technology-driven lift in productivity, but Gen-X (30-47) and Baby Boomers (48-65) are each experiencing significant efficiency gains.  (Kelly Services 8/1/09) 

Less Vitality According to FACT surveys conducted by Hartford Institute for Religion Research, between ’05 and ’08, fewer congregations report they are spiritually vital and alive, have seen worship attendance growth of 2% or more, or have a clear mission and purpose. Just 19% say their current financial health is excellent vs. 31% in ’00. (Note the survey predates the late ’08 market collapse.) (HIRR Notes 9/9/09) 

Restoring Trust You’ve heard the story; JetBlue angered a lot of people when they cancelled a thousand flights in the course of a few days. Negative customer reaction was enough to make the average CEO want to hide. Instead, JetBlue CEO David Neeleman took the pilot’s seat and responded quickly with sincere atonement, hitting every media outlet he could, issuing apologies not just to every inconvenienced flier but also to his airline’s own crew members. The company also posted a public video apology on its Web site. He and the airline seem to be making a supreme effort to recover the public’s trust and confidence. The first step? Taking responsibility! It’s amazing what a little humility will do toward recovering customer and/or donor trust. Neeleman has said that the operational catastrophe may end up costing $30 million, but the short-term pain is part of his long-term vision of success. “I’m not focused on the first quarter,” he said. “I’m focused on the second, third and fourth quarter and rebuilding our reputation in the eyes of our customers and crew members.” When companies mess up big time (and it could happen to any company or ministry), the most important steps are those designed to recover trust in the most direct, straight-forward way possible. Customers and donors will usually forgive incompetence, but not bad character. Good behavior is the single most effective way to restore trust after an episode of bad or untrustworthy behavior. Only time will tell how this situation develops. JetBlue is trying to do the right thing. I can help you craft an effective trust recovery plan. Contact me at 419-238-4082, gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. (1 to 1 Media 12/27/07) 

Coupons Though online couponing is on the rise, Sunday newspapers remain the leading source of coupons for U.S. households (51% get them there), followed by in-store couponing (33%) and mailed coupons (31%). (AdWeek 8/31/09) 

More Businesses Launched Of job seekers who gained employment in Q2 of ’09, 8.7% of them did so by launching their own businesses, according to outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. That start-up pace is up from 6.4% in Q1 and is twice the rate in Q2 ’08. With 6.9 million jobs lost since December ’07, nearly all believe they have enough energy and ambition to succeed, but statistics for success aren’t on their side. Even in non-recessionary periods, about half will fail in their first 5 years, according to the Small Business Administration. In ’08, an average of 320 out of 100,000 adults created a business each month. This represents about 530,000 new businesses per month, a slight increase from ’07. (USA Today 9/14/09) 

Risk Aversion Managers are reluctant to encourage risk-taking by their workers, finds to a nationwide survey of workers by BlessingWhite. Just 26% of respondents say they often are asked by an employer to seek new solutions, and 41% report they are never encouraged to take risks. (Inside Training Newsletter 5/31/07) 

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. 

Living With Less Americans are continuing to choose to live with fewer material possessions, according to a new Zogby Interactive poll. Only 20% of the 41,175 U.S. adults polled did not give away any of their belongings. 58% gave away up to 10% of their belongings because they were no longer needed. The remaining 22% have given away more than 10%. People who frequently attend church services were more likely to give away their possessions than those who attend less frequently or not at all. (Christian Post 9/7/09) 

Pointless Babble Pear Analytics randomly sampled 2,000 messages from the public stream of Twitter and separated them into 6 categories. The “pointless babble” category led the way, accounting for 40.5% of messages sampled. Next was “conversational messages” (tweets that go back and forth between users) at 37.5%, followed by pass-along value (messages that are “re-tweeted”) at 8.7%; self-promotion by companies at 5.8%; spam 3.7%; news 3.6%. (Breitbart.com) 

Wal-Mart Stores President and CEO Mike Duke claims Americans are under more financial pressure than many retailers realize. He says, “Most of our stores are open 24 hours, and we’ve seen an increase in sales just after midnight on the first of the month. And sales of the most basic items, even infant formula, spike on the 1^st and 2^nd day of the month. Our customers have been under a real strain and are having to manage very, very carefully. This new focus on frugality, and especially on the deferral of purchases for things that aren’t needed right now, are the new normal. People are putting a tremendous emphasis on shopping smarter.” (Media Post 9/11/09) 

Affluent Women Back to Work The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics has found evidence of affluent women returning to the labor force after having left to raise families, most without intending to return. But because so many men lost their jobs due to the recession, during the first half of ’09, 78.4 % of women with a college education aged 25 to 44 and living with a spouse are working or looking for work vs. 76% in early ’07. Economists say this is surprising, because the percentage of people in the work force usually drops as unemployed workers grow discouraged and stop looking for work in a recession. Over the same period, the proportion of men of the same age and circumstance inched down from 97.4% to 97.1%. (NY Times 9/19/09) 

Google is giving 2 million books in its digital library a new life as paperbacks through On Demand Books (ODB), whose high-speed publishing machine can manufacture a 300-page paperback-bound book in under 5 minutes. The new service is an acknowledgment by Google that not everyone wants their books on a computer an e-reader. Google initially will only publish out-of-copyright books but is seeking rights to publish out-of-print titles. The books will have a recommended sales price of $8 per copy, although the final decision will be left to each retailer. The high-speed publishing machine itself sells for about $100,000, although ODB is willing to lease the equipment to retailers instead.  (USA Today 9/17/09)

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