Churches and Tyranny of Too Much

We like choices, right? Choosing between several options of say, toothpaste, gives us the feeling of control over the decision. Brand A is better than Brand X, and we’ll vote with our dollars.  But can too many choices be dangerous?

In marketing circles, it is well-known that too many options tends to paralyze consumers. This has been called the Tyranny of Too Much. Many studies have shown that consumer behavior differs greatly when offered a few choices compared to many choices. For example:

In one experiment, when researchers asked subjects to compare chocolate chip cookies from a jar of 10 cookies and a jar of two cookies, the subjects rated the cookie from the smaller jar better than the one from the larger jar.

And the cookie wasn’t just better. It was rated more valuable, more desirable to eat in the future, and more attractive as a consumer item, despite the fact the cookies were identical. More choice made the subjects feel that their sample was less desirable.

In another experiment (the source of which I cannot recall), when shoppers were offered 2 or 3 versions of a particular jelly spread, they were able to make a purchase. When the number of options jumped to 5 or 6, they left the store frustrated.

A culture of fear?

Seth Godin deals with a similar issue on his marketing blog. In discussing market-goer’s inability to decide between several kinds of apples, he highlights the inherit fear among the American public. He says that people are afraid of your offering for two reasons:

1. They don’t know about it.
2. They’re afraid of it.

What this means for churches

Imagine the paralysis of choice resulting from the number of churches in America. Not only are there myriad denominations, there are countless flavors of those denominations (I’m looking at us, Baptists).

How does the large number of choices affect peoples’ ability to choose which church to visit, and how do these options affect teh community’s perception of the value of Church?

In considering your church marketing efforts, all strategy must include  an acknowledgement of the plethora of choices and the effect it has on the people.

The “competition,” to borrow a business term, is not other churches bodies, but the shear number of churches as a whole. In one sense, you’re competing with yourself.

I think there are some tactics to address this issue and help clear things up for people in your town, but we’ll save this for another post.