The Tour de France, the world’s most famous bike race wraps up this weekend–sadly, without our hero Lance in yellow. It’s been a tough struggle for the Tour the past couple of years. First, it didn’t have a big name rider like Lance involved anymore. But an even bigger problem has been the drug scandals that have knocked out some of cycling’s best riders and left a blemish on the sport.

And sponsors don’t like controversy. T-Mobile and Adidas are just two of the premium brands to exit the event. Not that the Tour ever attracted a lot of well known brands to begin with, at least ones we’re familiar with here in the states.

Faced with a tarnished image, the Tour regrouped for 2009. Lance was back, which helped I’m sure, but it wasn’t enough to bring back the big sponsors.

Reading all about this in a Business Week article that Kris from  @sponsorpitch sent me got me thinking about the connections between the Tour’s challenges and those we face as cause marketers, and what can be learned. Like the Tour, let’s do this in stages.

Stage 1: Reputation is everything. Professional cycling’s refusal to clean up its act has nearly killed the sport as sponsor money has bled out. No margin, no mission. Of course, in anything we do we have to mind our reputation (or character, as Scotty Henderson better describes it). But as cause marketers we need to leverage our strongest selling point: our hard fought reputations are springboards to enhance the reputations of others (aka “halo effect”). Said or unsaid, that’s why corporate sponsors align themselves with us. A marketing director once asked me if her company was spending tens of thousands of dollars on radio, TV and print ads, why would she invest in cause marketing? “Those other media give you visibility,” I replied. “I give you favorability.”

Stage 2: Target smaller companies. With the absence of large sponsors at this year’s Tour, organizers targeted smaller companies who were only too happy to pay a modest investment to reach an international audience.

Many teams operate on budgets of less than $10 million, and some of the cost is shared by secondary sponsors. So for a few million, companies such as Taiwanese mobile-phone maker HTC or the Netherlands’ Rabobank gain a global TV audience.

Fortunately, large companies aren’t fleeing cause marketing partnerships because of impropriety as they are with the Tour. But you’ve probably witnessed what I’ve seen: these big companies have found other things to do with their time and money than spend it on you. Learn from the Tour and target smaller companies that are better candidates and eager participants in your cause marketing programs. Most of the money raised in cause marketing now happens at the grass-tops–with the biggest companies in America–and not enough below. There lies the opportunity.

Some of the sponsors for the Tour de France include national lotteries, flooring-product makers and petro-dictatorships. As cause marketers we clearly have a long way to go (especially with the petro-dictatorships).

Stage 3: Even if you can’t win, go for the breakaway. Something you see all the time during the Tour are these yahoos who sprint off the front of the main pack of riders (called the peloton in cycling lingo) only to be reeled back into the pack a short time later. Why do that? Sponsors love it. When you’re the only one riding out front you (and your sponsor) get lots of TV time. The sponsor is happy because it gets some “alone time” in a sea of Tour sponsorships. The Tour organizers are happy because they can show next year’s sponsors just how much an individual sponsor can standout during the big race.

What about your cause marketing program? Do you give your partners a chance to breakaway from the pack for their moment of glory? Regardless of which program they choose, I give all my partners a chance to stand out from the crowd. All the pinup partners for Halloween Town, for instance, get a free sponsorship that includes a brandland experience at the event. A super-market chain sponsored the Pumpkin Patch where kids decorated their own pumpkins and had their pictures taken. The sponsor stood out from the other sponsors, who had their own unique event experience, and gave me a great sales tool to use with potential sponsors the following year.

The Tour de France isn’t three stages long, nor are the lessons we can learn from it limited to three. I know there are more. And I know I have a few cycling enthusiasts among my readers! Think of it as the team time trial, and it’s your turn to take the lead. Let’s shift this conversation into high gear.

In 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.