Celebrate the Fourth with Cause Marketing that Supports Troops

Tag Archive: cone

Celebrate the Fourth with Cause Marketing that Supports Troops

Written on July 4, 2011 in Cause Marketing In Action

Happy Fourth of July! I’m celebrating the day with these three cause marketing promotions that support our troops – a great cause to support on the day we celebrate freedom.

I didn’t find these promotions. I asked you to send me your examples of Indendence Day cause marketing and you responded!

These three were the best.

In first place, Joey Leslie in San Luis Obiscpo, California sent me this promotion from Which Wich Superior Sandwiches. Which Wich will be filling the decorated bags with treats for troops overseas. This is a great example of cause marketing and shows that ANY company can find a creative way to support a cause.

Congrats to Joey Leslie and Which Wich! Joey will be receiving a copy of my new book Cause Marketing for Dummies. Which Wich will be featured in the second edition of Cause Marketing for Dummies in the chapter Top 10 Cause Marketing Promotions We Wish We Could Take Credit For.

In second place, Colleen Cronin of South Boston who’s a huge fan of Great American Cookies, shared this promotion with me. When you buy the “Uncle Sam Hat” or “US Flag”, GAC will donate $2 to the Yellow Ribbon Fund, a nonprofit committed to helping injured troops and their families.

This promotion kicks off TODAY and runs through September 16th!

This program is a model example of a purchase-triggered cause marketing program. A cookie purchase triggers a $2 donation to the Yellow Ribbon Fund. While Great American Cookies, not the consumer, ultimately makes the donation, the company hopes the program will make cookie sales rise, which in turn increases the donation to the fund. It’s a win for the company, for the cause and for consumers.

In third place is Chris Mann, a cause marketer at Boston’s Cone, Inc. who pointed me to a client promotion involving Budweiser and Folds of Honor Foundation. FHF supports the families of fallen soldiers with scholarships and other kinds of assistance. Budweiser cans will display the flag this summer, and for every case sold, Budweiser will donate five cents to Folds of Honor. This ain’t no tin can promotion. Budweiser’s goal is to raise $2 million for Folds of Honor.

Congrats to Joey, Colleen and Chris for great submissions!

Tags: budweiser, cause marketing, cone, great american cookies, independence day, veterans, which wich

Cone Study to Local Nonprofits: Now is the Time for Cause Marketing

Written on September 20, 2010 in Cause Marketing News

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One of the conclusions that can be drawn from the 2010 Cause Evolution Study is that at no point in the history of cause marketing has there been a better time than now for local causes and companies to work together on point-of-sale and cause-related products.

Here are the reasons why.

Americans want MORE cause marketing

83%. That’s the number of Americans that wish more of the products, services and retailers they used would support causes.

Americans also think that company support for causes is acceptable (88%) and they reward those companies with a positive image (85%) .

Cause Marketing Differentiates Brands and Drives Sales

The number of Americans that have said they bought a product because it was associated with a cause has doubled since 1993 (41%).

Cause adds value at every turn. 1 in 5 consumers will pay more for a cause-related product. A cause will prompt 61% to try a product they’ve never heard of. And a whopping 80% of consumers would switch to a brand that supports a cause when price and quality are equal.

Moms & Millennials Rule Cause Marketing, and Are Ruled By It

Moms are the household shoppers and Millennials are the hipster shoppers of the moment and the household consumers of tomorrow. Both are heavily drawn to cause marketing and are fans of the practice. They are the key consumers for many businesses and the donors of today and tomorrow.

Consumers Want Companies to Act Locally

46% of Americans believe that companies should focus on issues that impact local communities. While this is down from 55% in 1993, it still represents the largest area of interest for Americans. National is 37% and global is 17%. I suspect that the declining percentages in local may just reflect what consumers are seeing in the marketplace, which is lots of national (e.g. Komen) and global (e.g. Product RED) cause marketing.

But it’s clear from the Cone Study that consumers prefer local cause marketing. 91% said that companies should support an issue in the communities where they do business.

Consumers Prefer Transactional Cause Marketing

Shoppers prefer point-of-sale (81%) and cause-related products (75%). This is great news for local nonprofits and businesses as they both have an easy point of entry for causes and businesses of all sizes.

Frontline Employees are the Key to Cause Marketing Success

70% of Americans said they are more likely to make a donation if an employee recommends it, which makes employees critical to the success of point-of-sale and cause-related products. Employee education and training in causes is key and causes with a local presence have the edge, if they will only take advantage of it.

Hyper-Local is the Future of Cause Marketing

As Cone reports, CauseWorld, Foursquare, Facebook Places and QR codes (ahem, thanks for reading guys) will change the in-store cause marketing experience for consumers. More importantly, the tools and opportunity they offer will be as much available to local nonprofits and businesses as they are to national causes and retailers.

IF YOU’RE A NONPROFIT THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW

Focus on building your brand. Nothing will be more critical in distinguishing your cause from other causes, both local and national, and building your connection with consumers.

Learn how to do transactional cause marketing. Shoppers prefer point-of-sale and cause-related products, which is great news because these are the two most lucrative tactics for raising money for your nonprofit through cause marketing.

Here’s an example of our last transactional cause marketing program.

Here’s how you can learn to do transactional cause marketing for a very reasonable price.

Frontline employees are key. Focus on educating and motivating your partner’s employees. You might also want to consider using incentives. Creative and proven ways to successfully work with frontline employees is a key part of the Six Figure Cause Marketing program.

Check-in with location-based marketing. Not only will LBM be a huge part of cause marketing moving forward, but knowing it will give you an edge over other causes, again both local and national, who are stuck in an offline world.

Start by reading these posts. If I could recommend one location-based service it would be Foursquare. If you have time for a second, Facebook Places. I’ve written on both.

IF YOU’RE A COMPANY THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW

Choose a cause. One that you really care about and want to share with your customers. Some companies make the mistake of starting with a cause their customers care about. But if your management team and frontline employees don’t connect with the cause they won’t promote it to customers. Work inside out.

Choose a cause marketing program. Will it be point-of-sale or a cause-related product? Do some research and email me your questions.

Here’s an example of my last transactional cause marketing program.

Here’s how you can learn to do transactional cause marketing for a very reasonable price.

Frontline employees are key. Focus on educating and motivating your employees. Working with your cause partner, you might also want to consider using incentives. Creative and proven ways to successfully work with frontline employees is a key part of the Six Figure Cause Marketing program.

Join the location-based marketing bandwagon. It will be worth it. You’ll find lots of ways to use LBM in addition to cause marketing. LBM will be a big part of small business marketing moving forward and knowing how to use it will give you an edge in business.

Start by reading these posts. If I could recommend one location-based service it would be Foursquare. If you have time for a second, Facebook Places. I’ve written on both.

A simple cause marketing promotion for Foursquare is to set up an offer so when customers check-in they get a notice that the sale of a product will benefit a cause.

Cone’s newest study is exciting news. The Evolution Study will hopefully spawn a new generation of cause marketing partnerships between local causes and businesses. Their success will be a test of the survival of the fittest. Will you be one of the winners?

Tags: 6fcm, cause marketing, cone, cone evolution study, location-based marketing, Six Figure Cause Marketing

Raising Cause Marketing

Written on June 9, 2010 in Cause Practices

11 Comments

“Lazarus! Come Forth!”

Attending Cause Marketing Forum’s annual conference, which happened last week in Chicago, is always a big rush for me because I get to see lot of friends from the field I don’t normally get to see.

It’s also a great recharge because it gets me pumped for the cause marketing work that obviously lies ahead.

But this year was a little different. On the eve of the Cause Marketing Forum Conference, AdAge published The Day Cause Marketing Died by my friend Mike Swenson, CMO at Barkley in Kansas City.

Like Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, Mike didn’t paint a pretty picture of cause marketing’s future if we continued our wicked ways.

It wasn’t a natural death. It was murder…. From the moment consumers awoke each day until they fell asleep at night, they were inundated with opportunities to give back every time they made a purchase. In between, regardless of what store they were in, point-of-purchase shelf talkers virtually screamed at consumers every 10 feet to buy this or that product and help this or that cause. Consumers were under siege at every checkout lane of every store they shopped to give a dollar for this or a dollar for that.

One talk I was looking forward to at CMF10 was Ed Chansky’s Cause Marketing Legal Issues. Now I know it was like looking forward to a root canal. I was surprised by how many things the law says you can’t do in a cause marketing program. Simple things, like a nonprofit asking its supporters to shop at a retailer that’s supporting the cause is a no-no. Huh? What do you mean you can’t do that, Ed?

My head spinning from Ed’s presenation, I stumbled into Mike Lawrence’s Transparency: Cause Marketing’s Dirty Little Secret. The name alone had me reaching for a Xanax. Mike’s point was that when consumers aren’t confused by corporate cause marketing efforts they’re pretty sure companies aren’t giving them enough details about their programs. Not surprisingly, this isn’t helping Joe and Jane Consumer’s perception of cause marketing one bit.

Mike Swenson had me feeling that we were shelling shoppers with inauthentic cause marketing campaigns. Ed Chansky had me wondering if most cause marketing was ”legally questionable”. Mike Lawrence left me thinking that even if I did things right I was still fighting a losing battle against waning public opinion.

Oy. Any positions open in major gifts?

Each one of these can deliver a potential death blow to cause marketing.

To make sure the day would never come that cause marketing would take to its deathbed gasping for breath, I took a Scrooge-like oath to keep what I learned from these three spirits not just after CMF, but all year long. This is what I plan to do.

Strive for authentic programs. The cause needs to come before the promotion. This is harder than it seems as it often is the promotion that sells the program, not the cause (especially for smaller charities like mine). But Mike is right on this count. If you don’t put the cause first, cause marketing is just plain marketing and you’re on the road to irrelevance.

Know the law. I know the basics of cause marketing law, but there’s still a lot to learn and Ed Chansky is a great resource. Before I left CMF10 he gave me a great packet of info on cause marketing law that he said he’d send electronically to anyone who gave him his business card that day. I think he would send it to you too if you asked him. I plan to learn everything I can about cause marketing legal issues. It’s in my best interest, and the interest of my partners, that we know and follow the law.

Continue to be transparent. Whatever cause marketing program my nonprofit executes, we always try to be clear on where the money is going so there’s no confusion for the consumer. On those few occasions when we’ve done percentage-of-sale programs, we’ve also tried to be transparent on the breakdown of funds. Like Mike Lawrence, I see this as a critical issue for cause marketers. You can’t just slap a “portion of proceeds” sticker on a product or pinup and expect shoppers to fork over their money anymore. We need to either hold ourselves to a higher ideal, or someone else will it for us.

Like Mike Swenson, Ed Chansky and Mike Lawrence, I want cause marketing to be around for a long, long time. Authenticity, legitimacy and transparency may be the closest thing cause marketers have to a trinity. Amen.

Tags: authenticity, cause marketing, cause-related marketing, cone, legitimacy, mike lawrence, transparency