Benchmarking religion: how to create a marketing strategy as good as people who invented religions?

At the risk of getting down-voted into oblivion by people who are religious...

What can we learn about marketing from the way all religions were created?

If you really think about, there is no marketing strategy that "converted" more people than religions.

Try reading some books by Joseph Campbell like the Power of Myth.

Religions began with myth. Myths then turned into rituals (or rather rituals were derived from myth). Then came religion. If you were a hunter or herder, you ended up with a religion focused on animals as deities. If you were a planter, you ended up with a religion based on birth/death/resurrection. The names of the characters are, of course, different (Buddha, Jesus, etc.) but the stories are similar and all point to man's desire to understand (and cope with) death and the meaning/purpose behind one's existence.

So first you need a myth that everyone would subscribe to. Once you get that wrapped around your primary story for marketing purposes, the religion will ultimately derive itself later if you're successful enough.

Take Inbound (in a sense) as an example. The myth was that the old way of marketing was dying, people were really hating the way companies would spam them with calls and irrelevant offers; therefore, the industry needed a new way to execute marketing that would really connect with other human beings more effectively. Then came the rituals of blogging with calls to action, etc and how the sales team would interact with prospects. One could argue now that Inbound is a religion with thousands of followers (and growing).