Why Consider Cause Marketing For Your Business
For many businesses, the marketing budget is tight so we are looking for the biggest bang for the buck. Cause marketing can be a low cost good return strategy to consider.
Cause marketing is a type of corporate social responsibility, in which a business’s promotional campaign has the dual purpose of increasing profitability while bettering a community, not for profit and/or society as a whole. You may have also heard of cause-related marketing which is a type of cause marketing that involves the direct cooperative efforts of a business and a non-profit organisation for mutual benefit.
Cause marketing is not necessarily based on a donation. As it is a marketing campaign, it could relate to volunteering or supplying goods/services at a discount or pro-bono rather than cash donations that carry a tax deduction.
Cause marketing can be more successful if there is a direct link or story between the business and the non-profit organisation. For example (this example is fictitious), Fred is a partner of XYZ 2nd Tier Accounting Firm who’s 18 year old child became blind due to a car accident. When his child is at Braille House learning braille, Fred does gardening and handyman fix ups around the facilities as a way of giving back. Fred’s 14 year old is always taking pictures of Fred and posting on social media what a great Dad he is. Fred also organises a fundraising event each year where he encourages staff and clients to wear some sort of dotty clothing and donate $10 to Braille House for going dotty.
Here Fred is really only investing his time, however, the awareness of who he is, his story and his giving generates publicity for him and his accounting firm. Through this cause marketing, people are more likely to engage with him to then use him as their accountant.
Continuing the fictitious example, Fred has 30 staff through which he could expand cause marketing to engage his staff in volunteering or taking on a project at Braille House as a way of professional development. The staff then promote what they are doing to others which, in turn, promotes XYZ 2nd Tier Accounting Firm, not to mention the promotion of Fred and his staff’s generous involvement by Braille House.
A genuine and well-executed cause marketing campaign is one of the most useful marketing campaigns for both corporations and non-profits. A non-profit organisation can gain increased funding, exposure and reliability by aligning themselves with a trusted brand, while businesses see increased brand loyalty, boost employee morale, and raise sales by ‘sponsoring’ a worthwhile cause.
So, when you are thinking about your marketing think about throwing cause marketing strategies into the mix.
