| |
Off
Target
By Jill
Gremmels
I’m in the car with
my significant other, a marketing
consultant, when we hear a fast-food
chain’s new ad on the
radio. Pounding rhythm, catchy
tune, baffling lyrics. “I
don’t get it,” I
say. “Is that supposed to
make me buy their food?” “Not
really,” he explains, “you’re
not the target market.”
Apparently I’m not the target market
for ELCA congregations in my area,
either; the last church to offer
traditional worship late on Sunday
morning has just changed its
schedule. There is now, as far
as I can tell, nowhere to go for anyone
who wants a traditional service later
than 8 or 9 a.m. People who’d
like contemporary worship before 10:30 or
11 are likewise out of
luck. It seems night-owl
traditionalists and early-bird
contemporaries aren’t the target
market.
But fast-food restaurants and churches
aren’t the same. For one
thing, retail establishments live and die
by market share, designing strategies
expressly to lure customers away from
other franchises. When I was
on church council, our pastors stressed
that evangelism efforts seek unchurched
people, not members of other
congregations. In addition,
the fast-food enterprise whose ad
bewildered me has done extensive market
research. Its advertising and
the products it offers are calculated to
attract its target market. I
doubt the worship boards who decide
schedules of services get much
information beyond anecdotal feedback
from parishioners. Their
understanding of the target market is, I
suspect, little more than a
stereotype: Older people like
traditional worship, and they get up
early; younger people prefer contemporary
worship, and they want to sleep
in. No marketing expert would
recommend basing business decisions on
such simplistic assumptions.
Clearly, fast-food restaurants will never
work together to expand the array of
available dining options, but churches
can and should cooperate. If
diversity of worship is the goal when
congregations add contemporary services,
why not collaborate with others in the
area to offer both contemporary and
traditional worship at varying
times? Wouldn’t that
create even more variety and increase the
likelihood of reaching everyone?
My significant other emphasizes “the
value of a lifetime customer” and
encourages his clients not to neglect
loyal friends when pursuing new
prospects. Churches would do
well to heed his advice. My
attendance has declined from weekly to
rarely. Surely I’m not
the only one. A little
collaboration could solve my problem and
potentially bring me
back. But I’m not
the target market.
Jill Gremmels is the
college librarian at Wartburg College.
|
