Cause Marketing for the Small Shop

In part one of this series “Sponsorship and Cause Marketing: Common Mistakes” we took a look at sponsorship and some of the things holding back the small shop in that area. In this article, we are going to turn our attention to cause related marketing for the small shop.

Cause Marketing Definition

Simply put, cause marketing is an activity that brings a company and a charity together in a way that promotes a marketing activity by aligning that company with that charity or cause.

I think of cause marketing as a tool to trigger a purchase based on connection to a cause close to the customer’s heart. Under the broadest definition, all of corporate fundraising is technically cause marketing but in this case I am referring to things like “buy product X and we will donate $X to charity X.” This can be in the form of a product purchase, a point of sale pinup campaign or a social media campaign.

Can a Small Shop Really do Cause Marketing?

If you think that cause marketing can only be done in big shops, you’re wrong! Will a major national brand use a small local charity as its main focus for a national campaign? Sometimes, yes! But rather than looking for a major partnership between your small charity and a major national brand, focus on leveraging your local brand power instead.

I have built cause marketing campaigns for small organizations with a regional presence that have involved product sales, social media campaigns and everything in between.

Cause Marketing Campaign Examples

Rather than focus on theory, let’s look at some case studies that are based on small shops with a regional presence.

Point of Purchase Cause Marketing Campaigns

The organization I was working for relied heavily on government funding and grants and focused on social justice issues. Not exactly a good candidate for a cause marketing campaign right? Wrong!

We noticed that we attracted a strong following of local business owners, stores, restaurants and cafes. We pulled together a group of the most active supporters and asked them how we could engage the community in general and their network specifically.

We landed on a typical “buy this product and $X goes to the charity” program. The item sold for $14, $1 coming back to the charity. In order to make $10,000 we would have to sell 10,000 units. Not a great ROI and a ton of work!

Here’s what we did:

We brought together a larger committee around the core group. Those committee members together knew every shop owner in our city! They got dozens of retailers to sell our product at their stores at the point of purchase. We then sold low level sponsorship on the product and displays to local service providers and wholesalers, who sold products to the stores featuring our products.

The store owners got to show their customers that they cared about a local cause, and the service providers got to show the store owners that they cared about a cause important to them. And the charity? We raised $50,000 with a local, time limited cause marketing campaign. We did sell 10,000 units in the end but by adding sponsorship to the mix, we raised five times what we would have otherwise!

I have run national cause marketing campaigns that raised half of that amount. This was a big victory for a small shop, and everybody in the city heard about our cause.

Social Media and Cause Marketing 

While working with a very small regional chapter (think .5 FTE!) we connected to a marketing company with an equally small local presence. Their goal was to grow their regional presence but they didn’t want to work with a charity where they were one of a 1,000 corporate supporters.

We met for coffee to talk about their goals and we decided that we would run a social media campaign together. For every “like” they got on Facebook they would give $1 to our charity to a max of $2,500.

The company did their research and knew this charity appealed to their target demographic and so they used the brand of the charity to grow their database.

The result? They got over 5,000 likes! The charity got $2,500 as promised…and 1,000 Facebook likes themselves, which they converted into attendees at their next big event (well, not all 1,000…but a good portion of them).

Did the charity undersell themselves? Perhaps, but both parties were happy and five years later, that marketing company is a major supporter of that (now much larger) regional charity.

Cause Marketing Only Works if You do it!

Start with Goals

Thinking of cause marketing the same as any marketing campaign means you need goals to begin with.

Does that mean you should shoot for the stars right off the bat? Not exactly. Like any beginner marketer would start with a simple campaign just to get a taste of success, you should do the same.

I recommend tailoring your goals to your small shop. Start with something you know is within your reach but requires a bit more effort to obtain. Then, as you begin smashing your smaller goals, you can increase their size and scope.

Choose a Good Cause

While sponsorship is not cause-dependent, it’s different with cause marketing. I mean, it’s called cause marketing for a reason. Your cause gets to feature more prominently here.

 

This is your opportunity to finally double down on your cause, so make sure you choose one that’s worth the time and effort.

You should have conviction behind the cause you focus on, so make it something you feel passionate and strongly about. Your enthusiasm will be contagious, which will make it easier to get others onboard.

Create a Message

What is the message you want to share as part of your cause marketing campaign? It needs to be streamlined, polished, and catchy. A slogan or hashtag is a surefire way to get attention on your cause in today’s digital age.

Once you’ve hammered home your message, you can then select the platforms that will best amplify it. Maybe that’s email, SMS, or perhaps it’s…

Get Social

Social media is an excellent platform for spring boarding your cause marketing goals, even as a small shop. It helps if you already have a presence, as this way you won’t feel like you’re screaming into the void.

That said, you don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers to make an impact. It’s enough to have a few hundred or even a few thousand.

Begin using that slogan or hashtag in your posts. Encourage others to share your content, as spreading your campaign to new audiences can help get the message out to more people.

If you have the budget, you might also consider social media advertising. However, I would only recommend one or two platforms, tops. Determine where the biggest share of your target audience is, then target those platforms.

Brand Your Marketing Materials

Another important facet of cause marketing success is branded materials.

Let me backtrack for a moment here. Before initiating cause marketing, you should have your brand nailed down 110 percent. You can’t focus exclusively on your cause, because the time is going to come when sponsors and other business partners will want to know about the organization or nonprofit behind the cause.

You need to have the ability to tell them who you are. Internally, you need brand elements like tone (friendly and welcoming or informative yet cool), colors, logo, and typography.

The key to success in branding is consistency. If you have a large team, train them all on how to maintain your brand voice and design on social media, emails, your website, and your marketing materials.

Here are some suggestions to land your first small shop cause marketing campaign:

1. Start with your prospect. Something you will notice here is that both of these case studies didn’t start with the charity creating a campaign and then shopping it around. In fact, it was the opposite. We went to our prospects and asked them what they valued, who they wanted to reach and how we could work together.
2. Know your value. It’s important to know what you are comfortable selling your brand for. Don’t be influenced by the million dollar campaigns you hear about. Instead, focus on what feels right for you and your organization.
3. Set a minimum and maximum Even if the campaign isn’t successful, you should still get paid (unless you don’t fulfill your end of the bargain)! Setting a minimum recognizes that your brand has intrinsic value and benefits the company, even if the company never makes a sale. Setting a maximum protects the company, so expect your prospect to ask for one, though they don’t always.
4. Know when to say “no”. If it sounds too good to be true, it is! If it sounds like too much work, it will be. If it demands that you sell products yourself, walk away. If it doesn’t fit your ethics, say no thank you.
5. Get ready to work. Be ready to engage and mobilize your database. This means that there is a natural cap as to how many campaigns you can take on as you can only go to your database so many times. You want to be able to show the company that you did everything they asked you to do…and they will ask you to do a lot, so be ready!
6. Measure and report back. The other reason you are going to do everything you said you would is because at the end of the campaign, you will prepare a report outlining everything you did to make the campaign a success. This includes things like social media impressions, web traffic, product sales, media interviews and everything else you promised.

What Are the Benefits of Cause Marketing?

Although not always necessarily easy to implement, cause marketing has many advantages that make it an optimal choice, even for the small shop.

Boosts Morale

Your employees or volunteers want to put their time into something meaningful. By relying on cause marketing to spread your message and achieve more of your goals, you can reinforce that what you’re doing has value.

Increases Donations or Sales

How do you bulk up your sales or donations? It’s simple – use cause marketing. Yes, even for small shops! Your charitable intentions, now backed by the power of marketing, will put your organization or charity in front of new eyes and inspire more money to come your way.

Helps You Stand Out

Although most people don’t think of nonprofits as very competitive, think again. You have others in your industry or niche who want donations as much as you do, and donors only have so much money to give.

Using cause marketing can help you strengthen your branding and find a way to stand out, ensuring you get a bigger cut of the donations.

FAQs 

What are some benefits of cause marketing for businesses?

Cause marketing is an advantageous choice for businesses for many reasons. For one, the company looks good for getting involved in a charitable cause and giving back, which will bolster its reputation.

Additionally, the business can try a new role, increasing its audience reach and brand awareness, which should translate to more website and social traffic, conversions, sales, and customer retention.

Which metrics are most important to measure in cause marketing?

Pay attention to numbers revolving around customer acquisition, customer lifetime value, average order value, conversion rates, and overall sales to determine if your cause marketing plans panned out.

Wrapping Up

Cause marketing is a lot of fun, builds your presence in the community and is one of the few remaining sources of unrestricted revenue for charities. Don’t miss out because you see cause marketing as primarily a “big shop” strategy. In fact, why not get started right now? Book a meeting with three corporate prospects just to talk about how you can work together to build their brand – don’t bring a proposal, just grab a coffee. I bet you will be surprised by the outcome!

Originally published by the good folks at Charity Village.