For decades, marketing has revolved around a familiar question: How can businesses persuade people to buy? But as technology gives companies unprecedented access to consumer behaviour, preferences and personal data, a new question is emerging: What should businesses do with the power to influence people?

That question lies at the heart of Spiritual Marketing, an emerging approach that seeks to place purpose, values, humanity and responsible value creation at the centre of business and marketing.

According to Oluwafemi Adeniba, one of the researchers advancing the concept, Spiritual Marketing is not about selling religion or abandoning conventional marketing. Rather, it is about creating value without losing humanity.

At its core, Spiritual Marketing challenges businesses to see customers as more than data points or sources of revenue. Behind every transaction is a person whose money, trust, aspirations and circumstances matter.

This represents a subtle but important shift in perspective. Traditional marketing may ask how businesses can get people to choose them, while ethical marketing may focus on what is right to do. Spiritual Marketing goes a step further, asking why businesses do what they do, whom their actions affect and what value they ultimately create.

Adeniba argues that this approach is particularly important in an age when sophisticated data analytics can reveal not only what consumers want but also their fears, weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

The ability to exploit such information, he suggests, should not automatically justify doing so. A financial institution, for instance, may have the technology to identify customers most likely to accept a loan. Spiritual Marketing would require the institution to consider whether the loan is suitable for the customer’s circumstances and whether the customer fully understands its implications.

The objective, therefore, is not simply to complete a successful transaction but to ensure that the transaction creates genuine value.

The philosophy also extends beyond customers. Adeniba describes Spiritual Capital in terms of moral, social, cultural and human capital, arguing that businesses can accumulate intangible assets such as trust, credibility, relationships, knowledge and goodwill.

A company may record strong profits while gradually depleting these assets. Similarly, an organisation that consistently meets its targets by exhausting its employees may appear financially successful while weakening the very foundation on which its future growth depends.

This is why workplace culture matters within the Spiritual Marketing framework. Employees who experience dignity, fairness, trust and purpose are more likely to extend those qualities to customers.

As Adeniba explains, businesses cannot consistently deliver a positive customer experience if their employees do not experience the same values within the organisation.

For Nigerian businesses, the concept may be less unfamiliar than it initially appears. Consider a household appliance retailer. Rather than simply pushing the most expensive refrigerator, a salesperson could ask about the customer’s budget, household size and electricity supply before recommending a product.

The business still makes money, but through creating value rather than merely extracting it.

In a market where trust and personal recommendations often influence purchasing decisions, such relationships can also become commercially significant. Customers who believe a business understands their needs and acts in their interest may be more willing to return and recommend its products or services to others.

Ultimately, Spiritual Marketing challenges the assumption that business success can be adequately measured by revenue alone. Profit remains important, but Adeniba argues that businesses should also consider whether customers are better off, employees are developing, relationships are healthy, values remain evident when difficult decisions arise, and communities are positively affected.

The idea, therefore, goes beyond another marketing tactic. It proposes a different lens through which to understand business success, bringing purpose, people, principles and prosperity into the same conversation.

In Adeniba’s formulation, the journey moves from transaction to relationship, and ultimately from relationship to stewardship.

For an industry that has become increasingly sophisticated at persuading people to buy, Spiritual Marketing poses a more fundamental question: What is all that persuasive power ultimately for?