During his sermon this Sunday, my pastor talked about how the church has evolved to meet the needs of the local community through understanding the people who attend the church and providing relevant programming, groups, and events. He mentioned that the church and parishioners participated in a survey to better understand their attitudes and behaviors. Being a lifelong consultant, I envisioned the framework that they had adopted to guide their analysis:

What I quickly realized is that the church serves its members in the same way as many businesses by:

1. Segmenting their customers (parishioners)
2. Understanding the unique needs of each segment (group worship, study guides, life applications of Bible verses)
3. Targeting products and services to each segment (baptism, small group study, mission trips)
4. Moving the customers through the life cycle (“Explorers” to “Committed Christ Followers”)

This is not a new concept for churches; many articles (including one in The Economist) over the past few years have chronicled the tremendous growth that churches have experienced by adopting business principles, and I was keenly aware that my last church in Michigan had adopted a customer focus to help parishioners along their spiritual journey (through the life cycle).

He also mentioned that they previously thought they could open a new church (a “branch”) and provide standard content, and that people would flock to the church – sort of a “build it and they will come” mentality. But once they adopted a more “customer-focused” approach, they experienced far more growth than they ever imagined.

Many companies have already adopted a rigorous, customer-focused marketing strategy to attract and retain customers, and to continually provide them with relevant products and services. But many companies that I have worked with either have not or need to become smarter about incorporating knowledge of their customer base into product and marketing decisions. If my local church can do this, surely most companies can as well.