June 30, 2009

Cause Marketing in the Age of Free

freeIn Malcolm Gladwell’s book review of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price (which I learned of from one of my new favorite bloggers and twitterers @danblank) he shares this study from a MIT economist.

He offered a group of subjects a choice between two kinds of chocolate—Hershey’s Kisses, for one cent, and Lindt truffles, for fifteen cents. Three-quarters of the subjects chose the truffles. Then he redid the experiment, reducing the price of both chocolates by one cent. The Kisses were now free. What happened? The order of preference was reversed. Sixty-nine per cent of the subjects chose the Kisses. The price difference between the two chocolates was exactly the same, but that magic word “free” has the power to create a consumer stampede.

I’ve seen and tapped the power of “giving it away” in my own cause marketing efforts, and gone so far as to launch a Free is For Me program that guarantees our corporate partners do direct costs. None. Zip. Zilch.

The benefits of giving away cause marketing programs to businesses has three important benefits.

It moves you to the front of the line. Suddenly you’re that free Hershey Kiss that everyone wants to pick! In dealing with businesses that are constantly being pitched to pay for local radio, TV, print and other marketing vehicles, an opportunity that costs nothing but can deliver is quite attractive to business owners, especially in this economy. In short, free gets people’s attention.

It makes you competitive. Although cause marketing has been around since the early 1980’s, it’s still a new idea for many businesses, especially smaller ones. I’ve always said that if a business owner has the choice between paying for advertising or paying for cause marketing, they will always, ALWAYS choose advertising. Not because it works, mind you, but because it’s familiar to them. Giving cause marketing programs away to businesses dissipates the anxiety that comes from unfamiliarity and uncertainty and makes it easier for businesses to give it a try.

You tap the real money. Gladwell poses an interesting question: where will the real money be made on the iPhone, in selling the phone or the apps? Apple may ultimately decide that’s it’s better to give away the phone because they could make more money selling apps.

Up to now, most fundraisers look at corporate support through the narrow lens of philanthropy and sponsorship, both of which require money from the corporate checkbook.  Cause marketing looks beyond corporate giving to a much more lucrative prize: the customers that patronize these companies.

There’s a story about U2’s Bono that when he went to speak to corporate leaders about Product RED they were so impressed they offered to write him a check on the spot. But Bono refused. He didn’t want the easy money. He wanted a product from which Product RED could receive a percentage. The risk was greater, but so was the reward. Last count, Bono had 130 million reasons why he chose wisely.

But, as Gladwell points out, free also has its drawbacks, and they certainly strike home with cause marketing.

“Free is not important to me.” A prospect said this in response to my Free is For Me program. She was right. Not surprisingly, people value the things they get for free less than the things they pay for. I’ve certainly seen this from less committed partners who signed on for a cause marketing program and then let it flop because they had “no skin in the game,” as my boss likes to say. That’s why it’s important to screen your partners carefully, and to make sure that they recognize the real, valuable benefits of the program–for both partners.

There are costs to free.  It’s expensive to give it away and to recoup your money somewhere else. Gladwell points to Youtube, one of the most popular services on the web yet it will lose $500M this year. Cause marketing has its own expenses. In percentage-of-sales programs (i.e. pin-up, mobile, paper icon, etc.) there are design, printing and shipping costs just to name a few. This drives up the cost of executing a “free” program for a corporate partner that you’re relying on to reap a return from its customers. And because we also pride ourselves locally on extending additional benefits to our partners in the form of event sponsorships–at no additional charge–this layers on more expense. Never was free so expensive, or so risky.

Gladwell’s right in his summation that free isn’t the only way to do business. The New York Times gives away content on its web site but The Wall Street Journal has a million subscribers who pay for it. Network TV gives away programming and is suffering a slow death. Cable is doing better charging viewers hefty monthly rates. Free or paid, either can work, or not. I think this is true of cause marketing too. It’s striking the right balance in the given situation.

Free is a great way to get in the door and to start a conversation. But I’ve had many meetings end with a partnership that was sealed by a company check (despite my protests!). The important rule for every cause marketer is to be open, entrepreneurial and to exercise the discipline needed to seize the best opportunity for your organization.

Be like Bono. Be passionate. Be bold. Reach for the greater good. You can be the rock star of your organization. But please: don’t wear your sunglasses indoors.

Posted in Cause Marketer's Journal, Cause Marketing 101 | Comments (7)
June 24, 2009

How You Can Be a Part of Halloween Town

jack-skellington-tim-burtons-nightmare-before-chrismas-posterLike Jack Skellington my cause marketing team lives in Halloween Town twelve months a year. No sooner is Halloween over and just like in the movie the Mayor of Halloween Town (aka Joanna MacDonald) is hustling through my door, arms full, with plans for next year’s “big event.” 

This year is no different. But unlike Jack I haven’t grown tired of the same old routine year in and year out. It’s because every year Halloween Town has some new facet that keeps it interesting and challenging. This year it’s the economy.

The good news is that we already have a number of great sponsors in place, including iParty, Valvoline Instant Oil Change, Zipcar, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Clif Bar, Hershey’s, Energy Star, Uno’s Chicago Grill and Citizen’s Bank. We continue to work a number of solid leads, and just welcomed Fuddruckers aboard today!

But we’re always brainstorming on how we can raise more money from Halloween Town. And that means involving YOU! Here’s what we’ve come up with:

Nonprofit partnerships. We’ve taken the enlightened path of working with other nonprofits to raise money. It happened earlier this year when we worked with the nonprofit arm of the Boston Bruins, the Boston Bruins Foundation, on a point-of-sale program involving iParty and Fuddruckers. It raised $41,000, which will be presented to us by the Bruins Foundationduring a check presentation at the beginning of next season at the “Gahden.”

We want to work with more nonprofits that have corporate and retail connections but are unsure how to leverage them–something we’re really good at. Our team can create a cause marketing program, build-in benefits for the sponsor at Halloween Town and execute a flawless program. Then our two nonprofits can split the monies raised. Uneasy about splitting funds with another organization? We were too. But consider this. It’s not money we would have been able to raise without each other. And, ultimately, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

Host your fundraiser at Halloween Town. One thing we’ve always wanted to do at Halloween Town is have a Saturday night Halloween party that would use the sets we create each year for the event. But being a small team we’re already stretched just organizing the two-day event. We’re open to another nonprofit or group using Halloween Town after hours for their own wicked awesome Halloween Party. We have everything you need. You just need to supply the people, pay us a fee for using our space and you keep the rest having given folks a Halloween party they’ll never forget.

For-profit partnerships. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Halloween Town just isn’t for big sponsors and their “brandland” experience. Every year we have more and more sponsors starting at $1,000 and up participating the event. If you check out this link from last year, Halloween Town by the Numbers, you’ll know why. Halloween Town offers an excellent demo of what I jokingly call the “four-legged, four-eye monster.” Better known as mothers with kids. And with the average stay of the Halloween Town attendee around four hours, they are sure to connect with your product or service at some point. We’ve created a lot of layers to our sponsorships this year so there really is something for every business and every price point.

The colors of Halloween Town this year will be orange and GREEN! Of course, the traditional colors of Halloween are orange and black, but this year you’ll see a lot of GREEN at Halloween Town. That’s because as part of their Change the World Tour, Energy Star is bringing there super energy-efficient home exhibit to Halloween Town. But this just won’t be any boring green home. Greeting you will be a haunted first family! It should be a lot fun and will encourage some additional sponsorship angles we couldn’t explore in previous years.

So, what do you think of these ideas? I would appreciate your feedback on them and would love your input on other ideas that might work at Halloween Town. Also, if you have anything that might be of use to us at Halloween Town (e.g. a prop, a talent, an activity, an uncle who runs a candy factory or 3,000 pumpkins lying around your yard in October) let us know.

The foundation of Halloween Town is strong. Last year we had 41 sponsors and 15,000 attendees, up 15% from ‘07. It’s an event that kids mark on their calendar and even moms and dads come dressed up!

But the challenges of the past year have made Halloween look a little more scary than it was. It’s like trick-or-treating at the house on your street that everyone is afraid of. When you tip-toe up the stairs to ring the doorbell you want to make sure someone’s got your back. There’s strength in numbers. Who’s going with me?

A few resources that will be helpful to you:

The 2009 Halloween Town Sponsorship Video

Halloween Town 2008 in Pictures

Halloween Town 2008 by the Numbers

Information on the Halloween Pin-Up Program

Interested in really talking turkey? Don’t call me. Call Holt Murray, 617-414-2866, holt.murray@bmc.org. You can also find Holt on Twitter at @holtmurray. Be sure to tell him Jack Skellington sent you.

Posted in Cause Marketer's Journal | Comments (2)
June 19, 2009

With the Tide in Our Favor, Powell Tells Us to Row Together

tideAd Age: Marketers, Nonprofits Grapple With Definition of Cause Marketing  Great piece here from Brian Powell (Twitter id: @goodconcepts) that really contributes to the discussion that Professor Eikenberry launched and I continued on my blog with Defending Cause Marketing and Cause Marketing Defended. Now What? Please read Brian’s piece, tell your friends and leave a comment at Adage!

Also, Brian wins a Tide Loads of Hope tee for meeting the challenge I set forth in “Cause Marketing Defended.” He tackled a thorny issue confronting cause marketing. Great work, Brian! Take on your own issue with cause marketing and win your own tee! 

Posted in Cause Marketing Links | Comments (0)
June 16, 2009

Cause Marketing Defended. Now What?

braveheart

With success comes the void. When I posted Defending Cause Marketing last week, I have to admit that while I knew cause marketing had many friends, I also knew it had its detractors, and I thought the latter just might win the day. They didn’t. The comments were overwhelmingly positive.

But Professor Angela Eikenbery’s article did make me think twice about how cause marketing is practiced and how it can at least be improved. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still a dyed-in-the-wool cause marketer, and would gladly pick Angie for a turn of “Dunk the Punk” (Need to talk to David about adding that to Cause Marketing Forum’s Annual Conference. Maybe I could get Angie by telling her we’d like her to sit on a [collapsing] panel.). She and I do agree on one thing: there are things about the industry that bug us and should be addressed.

 

But I need your help. (Judging from your comments last week, you’re all a lot smarter than I am.)

 

Here’s how it will work.

 

I’ll start. Today, I’m going to write on something about cause marketing I’d like to see changed and offer a step in the right direction, in this case, one that I can implement.

 

You’re next. You try tackling a challenge. You can address it in the comments section of this post. You can post something on your own blog and link back to mine. Or you can write a guest post for my blog. And, please, don’t sweat this one. It needn’t be long. John Haydon keeps telling me the ideal length is 300 words so start with that.

 

Scotty Henderson over at Media Sauce has graciously agreed to follow-up my post with his own on the subject. Thanks, Scotty. I owe you a cheese plate.

 

A special incentive. Because I would like to keep the dialogue going here at Selfishgiving.com (hence the name), I have prizes!

 

You’ve probably heard of the Tides Loads of Hope program that brings free laundry services to victims in disaster areas. It’s actually one of my favorite cause marketing programs. It’s well executed and fulfills a really important, basic need in hard hit areas. When the folks at Tide offered me a few vintage tees last week I asked if I could use them for this promotion and they kindly agreed.

 

The first three people who agree to guest post on Selfishgiving.com about tackling the thorny issues of cause marketing and how they can be solved will a get a free Tide tee.

 

Debugging a Bug in Cause Marketing

 

Something that drives me as crazy as ants at a picnic about cause marketing is how, for the most part, it’s dominated by the big nonprofits.

 

Komen for the Cure, Product RED, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, American Heart Association, Childen’s Miracle Network raise tens of millions of dollars from cause marketing every year. Their success with cause marketing is so impressive, so awe-inspiring and seemingly so sophisticated that there’s a moat around cause marketing that seems impossible for smaller causes to cross over.

 

But the good news is that the moat that looks so murky and deep is easy to cross when there is someone on the other side to lower the drawbridge. Many of the same cause marketing strategies large nonprofits use can be employed by all nonprofits, regardless of size. It’s just a matter of scale and setting realistic expectations.

 

That’s what I’ve learned over the past five years running a cause marketing program for my no-name Boston hospital. This year we’ll raise close to $500k just from cause marketing (which for us is mainly point-of-sale programs and does not include the money we raise from any associated events).

 

It’s not the millions the big causes raise, but it does make a difference. For instance, a cause marketing program this month with four retailers has already raised over $100k to keep our prescriptive food pantry serving 6,000 clients a month.

 

We raise decent money from cause marketing, and plan to grow our revenues. But we also want to help small nonprofits like yours raise money from cause marketing like the larger nonprofits do. That’s the bug I want to debug in cause marketing.

 

Some of you know that I’ve been toying with a new cause marketing program for small nonprofits called Six Figure Cause Marketing. I had planned to launch this program with my colleague, Joanna MacDonald, for personal profit and glory, but I have a new plan (you better let me tell Joanna).

 

  • Instead of pocketing the $299 from each participant I’ll donate the money to my nonprofit, Boston Medical Center. You may be asking why I’m charging anything if I’m so eager to help. Why not just give it away. Two words: job security. This allows me to justify spending work time helping nonprofits with their cause marketing programs.
  • Once I have a suitable recorded version of the program in hand (Remember, the original program will be a live webinar series with Joanna and me and include individual attention), I’ll drop the price for 6FCM substantially. Again, the money will go to my nonprofit. I promise you Joanna will not see one red cent.

So that’s one bug in cause marketing I plan to squash. No more cause marketing elitism. Power to the people. And all for charity.

 

But the bugs are everywhere.  Which one are you going to chase? 

Posted in Capplause, Cause Marketer's Journal | Comments (7)
June 8, 2009

Defending Cause Marketing

testudo1Assistant Professor Angela Eikenberry has written a thoughtful and provocative article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled The Hidden Costs of Cause Marketing. In it, Professsor Eikenberry makes her case against cause marketing or “consumption philanthropy,” as she calls it.

Consumption philanthropy individualizes solutions to collective social problems, distracting our attention and resources away from the neediest causes, the most effective interventions, and the act of critical questioning itself. It devalues the moral core of philanthropy by making virtuous action easy and thoughtless. And it obscures the links between markets—their firms, products, and services—and the negative impacts they can have on human well-being. For these reasons, consumption philanthropy compromises the potential for charity to better society.

On both Twitter and in the comments section to her article, Professor Eikenberry and I debated the benefits of cause marketing, something I’d like to expand upon here.

First, Professor Eikenberry argues that cause marketing distracts our attention from the neediest causes. This no doubt seems the case from the St. Jude’s, the Komen’s, the American Heart’s of world that seem to monopolize the public’s attention with their campaigns. But I believe cause marketing reflects a reality more than it contributes to it.

The fact that some causes get more attention than others is simply an unavoidable fact. Before cause marketing arrived on the scene in the early 1980’s there wasn’t a philanthropic Eden where charities were given equal time and equal resources. Causes like The Muscular Dystrophy Association had star power and network agreements that raised tens of millions of dollars for a relatively obscure disease, all at the cost of funding more important causes. Nevertheless, star power and TV ruled the day.

Also, doesn’t the money that flows to a major fire, earthquake or other disaster scene sometimes come at the expense of funding more worthy, but less media-worthy, charities?

In short, cause marketing doesn’t create a rivalry among charities. It reflects that reality.

Yet another reality about cause marketing is that while it may enhance it doesn’t create powerful brands. As a matter of fact it’s usually just the opposite. Brands like St. Jude, Komen and AHA had already overshadowed other causes before they ever took up cause marketing. The fact that they were so well known to begin with was their main reason for entering the cause marketing space.

Second, Professor Eikenberry chides cause marketing as “making virtuous action easy and thoughtless”. I have to admit that when I’m shopping and someone asks to give a buck at the register I don’t give it much thought beyond that I know I’m helping a good cause. But does all charitable giving have to be moving and thoughtful? If so, the good news is that most is. A nonprofit generally raises only 5 to 15% from corporate giving, INCLUDING money raised from cause marketing. So even if cause marketing is “easy and thoughtless,” and that’s making a big assumption for all those people who carry their cause items to or donate at the register, it really doesn’t represent that much. Even cause marketing powerhouse Komen that raises close to $40 million from cause marketing raises ten-fold that amount from other sources.

Finally, Professor Eikenberry says that cause marketing obscures the link between markets and consumers in ways that can be harmful to human beings. Like all the “cause crap” I see in stores that ends up in landfills. This bugs me too, Angie. Fortunately, many cause items are useful parts of everyday life. Like you, I have an iPod (which I would be hard pressed to live without!). I bought mine in red to benefit Product RED. I like soup. I buy the brand with the pink ribbon. I needed a new vacuum cleaner. What the hell, no one will see me: I bought a pink one from Oreck that supports Komen. The point is that there is a lot less waste out there than you think.

Also, cause marketing just isn’t percentage of sale, it’s also point of sale, which involves selling pin-ups at checkout, and licensing. Now, pin-ups are wasteful, but folks like St. Jude are leading the push with paperless point-of-sale program. And, well, licensing is a great area of cost- and consumption- effective growth for nonprofits, as the folks at the Arthritis Foundation have shown us with their easy-to-open medicine bottles.

Yes, we need to raise awareness of the plight of the neediest charities. I know, I work for one: a safety-net hospital that is blessed with grateful patients, but not the grateful patients with money most hospitals have. But removing cause marketing from the toolbox of fundraising tools isn’t going to help. It’s the right tool for too many situations.

There’s room out there for the easy gift–for the buck or two at the register or the ten bucks that goes to Product RED when you buy a red iPod. There’s plenty of thoughtful giving that happens within and without cause marketing. Finally, the wasteful side of cause marketing is small and societal pressures are pushing it toward less not more. (Believe me, I hear it from my own sponsors and one way we’ve responded is with smaller pin-ups and more targeted shipments to conserve resources.)

Professor Eikenberry calls her article “The Hidden Costs of Cost Marketing,” but cause marketing is a lot more transparent than other forms of philanthropy. Gifts aren’t negotiated behind closed doors, in someone’s posh office or over a t-bone steak at some swanky restaurant. Cause marketing gifts are given, generally anonymously, by consumers like you and me at registers across America in full view of the world. They are open, public and optional.

Like jazz and baseball, cause marketing is distinctly American. Born from Wall Street capitalism and heartland generosity, it reflects our market culture and is a natural way to support our favorite causes. And while Professor Eikenberry shows the ways to making cause marketing better, there’s one thing she can’t hide: the costliest thing would be not to do it at all.

Posted in Cause Marketer's Journal, Causerants | Comments (42)
June 1, 2009

A Halo for Winners, A Crown for Cause Marketing Forum

crown3I just returned from a great outing at Cause Marketing Forum’s 7th Annual Conference in Chicago last week. Despite the economy that has impacted us all, David Hessekiel, Founder & President of CMF, pulled together a great show. (Check out the Twitter feed from the event here). The conference featured some wonderfully entertaining and informative speakers, and CMF honored some incredible businesses and nonprofits with their signature “Halo Awards” for outstanding cause marketing.

My takeaways from the event this year included:

Social media works. Since the last CMF conference in May 2008 I’ve really worked hard to connect with other fundraisers and cause marketers via social networks (Linked-In, Facebook, but especially through Twitter). Turns out, it hasn’t been a waste of time. Not only was it a blast to finally meet many of these people in person at CMF, but our ongoing social media connection allowed us to accelerate conversations when we did meet. We had better conversations that led to more useful introductions at the conference. In short, social media helped me to deepen and expand my business network.

They don’t call Carol Cone the “Mother of Cause Marketing” for nothing. Carol is our industry’s best thought leader. In addition to being an incredible speaker, she has a wonderful sense of where the industry is headed and what all cause marketers, nonprofit and for-profit, large and small, need to do get out in front of the business. It was worth going to CMF just to hear from her.

The way speakers present and attendees listen needs to change–NOW. Looking around the room at the conference, it blew me away to see speakers droning on and on and hiding behind their PowerPoints. Meanwhile, conference-goers pecked away at their Blackberries, talking quietly into their iPhones, getting up and walking in and out of the conference hall. AND I WAS A PUBLIC OFFENDER #1! Speakers need short (20 minutes max.), human, varied, powerful presentations and attendees need to check their electronics at the door and give the speaker a chance to earn their attention. They need to follow that up with good, thoughtful questions afterwards.

While interesting, engaging and vibrant, cause marketing seems stuck. This year’s conference had 300 attendees. Last year’s had 500. Despite the obvious hit in attendees because of the economy, I still wondered: where the hell are all the cause marketers? Our annual conference should have over 1,000 attendees. But cause marketing continues to be very niche. How many blogs cover the field, 3 or 4? Sure, mine and Paul Jones’ blogs are fabulous–we know–but there’s room for more, lots more.

So I left the Cause Marketing Forum Conference thrilled that I had been there, happy that David Hessekiel decided seven years ago to start one, proud that I was involved with something so innovative, creative and, yes, charitable. I also left pleased that I was genuinely impressed by the people I had met. People who were generally smart, personable, kind, and, yes, funny.

But I also left thinking that as an industry we need to do better. We need to grow our ranks with new professionals, and rally existing professionals, both on the non- and for-profit side, to our banner. We need to teach smaller nonprofits the benefits of cause marketing and how to raise money from it. (And, yes, the key word is money because if we can show them that cause marketing can do that–with realistic expectations of how much–their attention will be ours.) Finally, we can’t put this all on David’s shoulders, or on our “Mother” Carol Cone.

It’s up to people like you and me who sat and listened last week and knew what we were hearing was good and useful and interesting. But realized that we each knew three people who would have felt the same way but we never asked them to join us.

Posted in Cause Marketer's Journal | Comments (10)
May 23, 2009

links for 2009-05-23

  • Chicago Cause Marketing Forum Tweetup
    If you're planning to attend the Cause Marketing Forum Conference this coming Wednesday & Thursday, there's a Tweetup planned for Wednesday night. Some great cause marketers will be there, including @scottyhendo and @michael_hoffman who are leading a session on social media and cause marketing on Wednesday. Hope to see you there!
Posted in Cause Marketing Links | Comments (0)
May 19, 2009

How to Raise $2 Million in One Night

2009-may-9-bmc-gala-2801

“That’s easy. Start off as a billionaire and buy an airline.” – Sir Richard Branson’s reply when asked how to become a millionaire.

I felt like I had a similar answer when someone asked how we were going to even come close to raising the $2.1 million we raised last year at our Gala, the hospital’s biggest fundraiser. Easy. Do exactly what we did last year but in a lousy economy and we should raise close to $2 million in one night!

My strategy seemed to be working heading into weekend of the event. We had over $1.7 million raised thanks to gifts from individuals and corporations.

But our hopes of breaking $2 million hinged on our silent and live auctions. With the former our strategy was simple. Despite the generous stimulus checks our guests had received earlier this year [not], we knew we’d have fewer bidders and lower bids. Guests would be looking for “deals” not making ”donations” when they were cruising the auction tables.

To boost our silent auction returns we focused our efforts on items that commanded the highest bids. And in Boston, that means anything related to the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins. And in that order! Red Sox tickets, for instance, regularly go for two or three times face value, regardless of where the seats are! We also solicited more auction items, going from 200 in 2008 to 263 this year. Yes, we would raise less on each item, but we would raise more overall.

The live auction presented a different challenge. While our Gala had 1,150 attendees this year, it doesn’t draw a large, affluent crowd. The bidding on the cars and private jet trip to Bermuda we auctioned-off last year was limited to a handful of guests. And with fewer unique items this year, coupled with the downturn in the economy, the potential for hearing crickets during the live auction had us all cringing.

Fortunately, my boss got a better idea from a donor of ours who bids on those pricey live auction items. Instead of a live auction she suggested a Wishlist Drawing. Here’s how it worked.

  • We took six fabulous items from our pool of silent and live auction items and put them into a drawing from which anyone could win if they donated a minimum of $100.
  • The rest of the live auction items went to an exclusive premium silent auction table with other select items.
  • As part of the Gala program, guests watched a moving video on the hospital’s Birth Sisters Program and were asked to make a wishlist gift of $650 to support the program.
  • To support the wishlist giving, the emcee unveiled the items in the drawing. For $100 or more you were automatically entered to win six fabulous items (e.g. all expense paid trip to Florida to see the New England Patriots play the Miami Dolphins).

I have to admit I was skeptical that it would work. We were betting that a good portion of our 1,150 guests would fork over a $100 or more to be part of the drawing. Obviously, people attend these events as couples so that halved our pool of potential donors. Still, if 500 people put in $100 that’s $50,000. We also knew that some people would do more than $100. The donors we count on every year to raise their hands for the live auction don’t really care about the stuff they bid on; they want to help the hospital. They come expecting to give and would do so whether they took anything home or not!

The results from the Wishlist Drawing were pretty impressive.

  • 26 people donated $1000 or more with the largest gift being $10,000.
  • 300 people donated $100, which raised $30,000.
  • Together with the rest of the donors to the Wishlist Drawing we raised a total of $131,000.

I realize there are a lot of auctions that do better than this, especially in a town like Boston. But raising this much from a drawing in this economy was a big surprise for us. It also helped us break the $2 million mark.

The Wishlist Drawing worked for three reasons:

  1. We had a large, committed crowd in the room. It wasn’t the richest crowd, but we had loyalty and numbers on our side and the Wishlist Drawing was a great way to tap this energy.
  2. The messaging on our Birth Sisters Program that preceded the drawing was perfect. And don’t forget it was Mother’s Day Weekend. Watch the video we shared with our guests that evening. One story in particular was sad and touching. I think it really moved people to give.
  3. We provided guests with just enough incentive to participate. When they heard they and 17 of their friends could sit behind the dugout at a Red Sox game, or cruise around in a Porsche Caymen for a weekend, people thought $100 was a good bet.

I often say that the key to fundraising success is a pound of self-interest and a teaspoon of idealism. But I actually think the two ingredients in our Wishlist Drawing were quite equal that evening. We had a great crowd of motivated supporters who cared about the hospital and were further moved by the powerful stories we shared with them. But we also had people there who had quietly sat through many past live auctions who now could join the action and potentially win a fabulous item for just a $100 gift to their favorite cause.

I too wanted to take part in the drawing but being in charge of the silent auction I got busy and missed my chance. But I’m glad we didn’t balk at our chance to try our hand at the Wishlist Drawing instead of sticking with our traditional live auction.

Sometimes you have to roll the dice, and this time we rolled a winner.

Posted in Cause Marketer's Journal | Comments (2)
May 4, 2009

Phantom Gourmet Cooks-Up Cause Marketing Success

phantom2I’m not much of a foodie, but I love to listen to the three Andelman brothers of Phantom Gourmet banter on their weekly radio show here in Boston. My friend and colleague Joanna MacDonald is an even bigger fan and shares my wife’s love for their weekly food and dining show on TV38. The show is really a riot and, of course, they review some great places to eat in Greater Boston.

Another pot simmering on the Phantom Gourmet stove of success is their annual BBQ Beach Party. While we have our hands full with our own events during the year, we’re always looking for other venues we can tap to sell through to cause marketing partners and Phantom’s BBQ Beach Party is a great opportunity. 

  • The Andelmans run a well established, successful event with a huge crowd.
  • The BBQ Beach Party is large enough to sustain a month-long cause marketing campaign.
  • Phantom Gourmet had several great promotional vehicles, including popular TV and radio shows and web site.

Dave Andelman, Founder of Phantom Gourmet, was very receptive when we met with him, and even accepted an invite from Sal Perisano, the President of iParty, to join him for a tour of the hospital. Dave liked the idea of helping a great cause–in this case the food pantry at BMC–while retail partners help him promote his BBQ event at the register with pinups that offer 50% off one ticket to the BBQ.

On our end, we took the exposure Phantom could offer partners on their radio and TV shows and web site and recruited these partners for the program, which will run May 23rd to June 27th.

iParty. iParty already does a late spring pinup program for us so we rolled their annual effort into the Phantom campaign so the party retailer would benefit from the extra promotion from the event and cross-promotion from other retailers.

Total stores involved: 50. Foot traffic: Good. Here’s an interesting factoid: after Halloween, graduation season is their second busiest time of year.

Ocean State Job Lots. Up to this year, Ocean State always did one pinup program for us in December, but being fans of both the hospital and Phantom Gourmet they agreed to a second pinup program!

Total stores involved: 89. Foot traffic: Good. Not as busy as December when they do their main pinup program for us, but with consumers looking for savings, a discount retailer like OSJL right now is a very popular destination.

The Upper Crust. A longtime partner of Phantom Gourmet, the Andelmans recruited them to sell the pinup.

Total locations involved: 15. Foot traffic: Fair. They do a lot of takeout and it’s unclear if takeout patrons will be asked to buy a mobile.

Tedeschi Food Shops. There’s a great story behind Tedeschi coming aboard as a sponsor! We’ve been working on them as a prospect for five years, and finally, thanks to the help of a board member, and a great offering from Phantom Gourmet, we’ll do our first cause marketing program with them this month.

Total stores involved: 188. Foot traffic: Good. Convenience stores are busy places so the quick turnaround at the register doesn’t give the register clerk a lot time to interact with customers. In short, pinups can be a harder sell. But all those locations!

That brings the total number of retail locations participating in our latest cause marketing program to 342!  If the key to cause marketing point-of-sale success really is lots of locations and foot traffic, this program should be a winner!

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May 3, 2009

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April 30, 2009

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April 26, 2009

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April 23, 2009

Selling Local Sponsorships for Nonprofits: Convincing Thinkers, Feelers & Deferers

42-15400753I’ve written five other posts to get you to this point: you’re sitting across from a decision maker and finally have your shot of actually selling a sponsorship. Of course, you may not be talking to just one person. You may be pitching to a whole group. If so, you should check out an earlier post I wrote: Analyze, Organize, Energize: Keys to a Powerful Presentation.

Rather than focusing on analyzing your listener(s), or how best to organize your key points ,or dealing with the butterflies that invariably come with public speaking (all important things, nonetheless) this post looks at the means of persuasion and what actually gets people to yes.

Since I started selling sponsorships I’ve concluded that decision makers can be lumped into one of three categories: thinkers, feelers and deferers. No decision maker is ever just one. It’s never that simple. Everyone is a combination of all three to some degree, but one dominates and that’s where you need to focus your pitch.

Thinkers. Facts and figures are the mainstays of thinkers. These are the folks that pour over my sponsorship packets, look at the graphs, ask me how we collected our data and are most interested in the bottom-line return on their investment. A lot of marketing directors are thinkers, which isn’t surprising. They constantly have to show their bosses how a campaign has achieved this goal or driven these sales. They’re looking for the same information from you that’s expected from them everyday. The biggest question you need to answer for them, although they may never tell you this directly, is “does this sponsorship make sense for my business?”

To demonstrate how you might mix and match appeals for feelers and deferers with thinkers you can present the facts and figures they love with creativity and passion. Another strategy is to use evidence from sources you know they know and respect. For example, pick a well known and respected business that invests in cause sponsorships and use them as a case study.

Feelers. Emotions drive the decisions of feelers. Going back to the sponsorship packet, they don’t fixate on the graphs and charts and numbers. They look at the pictures from the event, listen to the anecdotes I tell them as they insert themselves into the narrative of the opportunity. It’s not about the sponsorship making sense, it’s about it feeling right for their business. Do they emotionally connect with you as a person? Is your cause right for their business? 

Because most nonprofit professionals are well versed in emotional appeals, we tend to do well with this type of decision maker. But there are hazards. We tend to overdo the emotional appeals and desensitize the prospect. Instead of saving them for the knock-out punch, we flail our arms until the prospect surrenders–or leaves the ring. Your uppercut may be your signature punch, but you won’t last long if that’s all you’ve got. Mix it up with appeals that speak to the heart and the head and you’ll increase your chances for a knock-out.

Deferers. Of the three types of decision makers, deferers fascinate me the most because they are men and women of deference and faith. When the sponsorship packet is opened in front of them they don’t look at the pictures like a feeler or pour over the stats like a thinker. Nope, they linger over the page where all the sponsors are displayed. They make their decisions based on what others have already decided, even if they don’t even know them! If X company is involved, they want to be involved. If you can get Mr. Smith to tell them it’s a good idea to buy a sponsorship, well, that goes a long way with them. They’re not patsies, mind you, but credibility and reputation mean a lot a to them–certainly more than it does to thinkers and feelers.

But here’s the rub when it comes to deferers. Sometimes the person they’re deferring to is YOU. Deferers want to work with people they admire, respect and trust. And it’s not enough that you as a nonprofit professional bring good tidings from others. You must be that man or woman. Just as they are trustworthy, you must be trustworthy. Just as they are competent, you must be competent. And just as they are professional, articulate and polished, you must be those things too.

You are a surrogate for the great men and women deferers to look up to for their decisions. The king’s messenger just doesn’t carry his seal, he too is finely dressed and well spoken. Be the king’s man.

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April 13, 2009

Selling Local Sponsorships for Nonprofits: Reaching Out to Prospects

suit_executive_head_237912_lNow that you have a some strategies for finding qualified prospects, let’s look at making some progress at getting some extended face time with new prospects that are neither current sponsors nor aware of your organization. Yep, I’m talking about prospects in that outer ring and making cold calls.

Regardless of the channel of communication (e.g. phone, email, in person at say a networking event), the following rules apply:

Your #1 goal is to stay prospect-centric. Always be prepared to adjust your messaging with prospects to meet their needs, interests and goals. You may have just spoken to three prospects this morning that were happy to talk solely about the event sponsorship, but can you make the shift when the next prospect wants to talk about your nonprofit’s mission? Not all sponsors commit because of the marketing benefits. You have to adjust your pitch accordingly if you plan to keep their interest and preserve their potential as a prospect for sponsorship.

Stand out from your competition. Let’s face it: most business people have pretty low expectations of nonprofit types. They expect you to ask for money, and to bring little else to the table except your empty, cupped hands . But if that’s all your hear from every fundraiser that passes through your office day in and day out, that gets a little old. Be different. Ask them about their business. Start by offering them something. Enlighten them on how supporting a cause can deliver a competitive edge and boost employee morale, among other things. Show them you know a little about their industry and competitors. You know what the average fundraiser does (that person may even be you!) step out from that mold and you’ll get the attention you want and deserve.

Don’t give them an excuse to say no. This is my pet peeve. Mailing prospects reams of information. Not calling people back when they ask you to. Designing sponsorship packages with little creativity and even less flexibility. These are all excuses (no, good reasons) for prospects to say no. I always say that you never want to get to a point with a prospect when she gives you a flat-out “no.” Psychologically it’s a big threshold for a decision maker to cross and when they do, well, they generally mean it (Think mom: “No means no!”). So why would you want to do something stupid that will hasten a fatal, perhaps unalterable response? Think about it.

Persuasion is incremental. Dude, these things take time. It isn’t going to happen with one call, or one email, or one meeting. You need to plan for sponsorship success and how each interaction will bring you a closer to your goal. So if the objective of that first call isn’t to close the sale, what is it? It’s a question you should know the answer to before you pick up the phone. Then get busy with steps 2 through 22.

With all the uses of technology these days, the phone is still probably the first thing you pick up to contact prospects. Here are some of the most common questions I get about working the phones.

Should I leave a message? Depends on who on my team you talk to. @holtmurray very rarely leaves a message. He’ll call and call until someone picks up. He believes leaving a message just gives a prospect a reason not to pick up their phone the next time they see your number. I, on the other hand, like to leave a message. A quick one that includes info about why I’m calling and a couple benefits to him or her. I think a message softens up the prospect so when you do get them on the phone it’s not a total “cold call.” They know why you’re calling and, if you’ve left a good message, may be neutral or mildly inclined to your proposal.

How should I deal with gatekeepers? Do your best to make them your friends. They are valuable allies in getting to the prospect. It can be a long, hard slog to success without them. Another tip: they want something too. Sometimes it’s something that will save them from the boredom of their jobs. Other times it’s talking to someone who has similar challenges in their life (juggling work and kids, a long commute, difficult roommates, etc.). Yet another is for someone from all the organizations they work with to remember them–and not just the boss–around the holidays! Sending over a half-zip sweatshirt with our logo on it to a prospect’s assistant has gone a long way in securing a new friend and ally. As Malcolm X said, “By any means necessary!”

When should I stop calling? If they are bonafide prospects, never. This goes back to never giving a prospect a reason to say no. As long as you never drive the prospect to the point that they tell you to get lost, you should be able to call from time to time to pitch them on new programs, to follow up on emails, to invite them to events, etc. We just recruited a prospect that we had been calling for five years! Qualifying them as a real prospect and being persistent paid off!

The phone is the most popular way to reach prospects. But email is another great communication tool and  I have some suggestions for using that as well:

Keep it short. There’s nothing worse than a long email. Keep it to a 150 words or less. Think about it: how did you feel the last time you opened an email and had to scroll down to finish reading it? Did you want to get another email from that person?

Bullet everything. Attach nothing. To make it easier to scan your email for key info, bullet, bold, underline the things you want your prospect to read and remember. Also, everything you want your prospect to see should be in the email itself, rather than risking putting anything vital in an attachment. That doesn’t mean you can’t use attachments, just make sure what’s in them is not vital to the goal of your email (FYI: I attach things all the time, but it’s additional, not important, information).

Use email to accelerate and entrap. Like you, I use email to get information to people quickly. For our annual Dinner Gala that I’m selling sponsorships to right now, I threw away the sponsorship letters years ago and rely on emails and the phone to recruit sponsors. In addition to accelerating the process, email also entraps when prospective sponsors tell me on the phone they haven’t received the info. “Really? Well, I’m sending it to you right now. Is it in your inbox so you can open it and I can walk you through the sponsorship? Yep, I love email. It’s like an electronic speed trap for prospects. And like we use to say when we were teens, “You can beat the cop car, but you can’t beat their radio!”

The next stop in our sponsorship series will look at how to craft winning presentation for prospects. Faceless phone calls and emails are history. It’s show time.

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April 7, 2009

Selling Local Sponsorships for Nonprofits: Prospecting Circles, Part II

magnifying_glassPart two of Prospecting Circles will focus on three areas: where to look for prospects, using social media for prospecting and better results with prospect management software.

Top ways Joanna, Holt and Ashley find prospects. Back to the circle strategy I discussed in part one. Just as some prospects are better than others, some prospecting strategies are better than others and should be used first. This is according to my three sales people on the team: Joanna, Holt and Ashley. 

In the bullseye, non surprisingly is prospecting among current sponsors and donors. The latter has proven especially useful to me lately as we just landed a company we’ve been chasing for four years–but only after I found out one of our key donors was neighbor to the company’s president. It was a amazing how quickly things moved after she interceded on our behalf and we dealt directly with him, instead of dealing with his lieutenant and gatekeeper at corporate.

In the second circle, Joanna, Holt and Ashley put vendors and past business relationships. The former is not applicable to every nonprofit, but if you work for a large institution business partners can be powerful (although sometimes complicated) assets for sponsorship. It’s a minefield, but one worth crossing in our opinion.

In the third circle the gang put business journals, competing fundraising events, networking events, Google and the advertisers they see and hear on radio, TV and print.

Prospecting using social media. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin are increasingly useful tools for some members of the team.

Blogging at Selfishgiving.com has given me an exclusive cause marketing platform to share with prospects. I can educate them about past programs, discuss trends in the industry and present myself as a credible thought leader on cause marketing. In short, blogging has been a great way to create, continue and steer cause marketing conversations with prospects.

After blogging comes microblogging using Twitter. Warning: I’m a Twitterholic so you can’t really take my word for it’s usefulness. You’ll need to try it out for yourself. And while there aren’t a lot of CEO’s twittering their days away on Twitter, there are a lot of marketing, branding and PR people to connect with. I’ve begun some good relationships that are just starting to lead to connections for sponsorship. Twitter has been another good tool.

While I’m not as active on Facebook and Linkedin as I am on my blog and Twitter, I can see the benefits of both in making new connections. I especially like how my activities in social media, whether it be a blog post or a tweet or link to de.licio.us become part of my Facebook or Linkedin page, which give my friends and connections new insights and perspectives on my work and interests. 

Meet your new sales assistant: prospect management software. You probably feel like you ”tolerate” your prospect management software more than you use it. You certainly don’t feel like it’s working for you and that it’s there to help you raise more money. This may be a function of the crappy software you use, or, maybe, with the crappy way you’re using it. But recognize this: your prospect management software can help you sell more sponsorships and raise more money for your organizations. Period. The sooner you view your prospect management software as the valuable, money-making sidekick it is, the sooner you’ll be welcoming a new member to the team. Here’s your new employee orientation.

  • Whatever you use, develop a system. We currently use Raiser’s Edge, but I developed my system in basic Outlook. Current sponsors are designated a “Prospect +”. Companies that aren’t sponsors are “Prospects”. Hospital business partners that are sponsors are “Vendor A”. Partners that are good candidates for sponsorship are “Vendor B”. Former vendors that are neither are archived under ”Vendor C”. 
  • Record everything. Any communication with or intelligence regarding prospects is recorded. Left a voicemail? log it in. Saw a recent story online on a company’s new product line. Paste the link into a note. Little bits of info may mean nothing, but a string information viewed together may reveal a useful direction or may point you to a more fruitful prospect. 
  • Let the software do the work. Leave reminders, calendar updates, to-dos and institutional memory to the software–backed up, of course! But the software can only do these things if you enable the system to do this work for you in the first place!
  • Track your team’s progress. One of the things I do like about Raiser’s Edge is that I have a dashboard that track’s the progress of each of my sales people, chronicles their activities, tells me how they’re progressing toward goal, both in activity and revenue. Your software should allow you to track your team’s progress in some meaningful way as well.

The next post in our series on Selling Local Sponsorships for Nonprofits moves from finding prospecting to pitching them. Considering that today is opening day for the Red Sox, a segue into pitching is fitting! I promise not to throw any curves, but that doesn’t mean everything I have to teach will be easy to hit. After all, it is only April and you are here for coaching.

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