Did you get that? It’s all about the ask at the register. The more people your cashiers ask, the more pinups you’ll sell, the more money you’ll raise. It seems simple, but motivating cashiers to ask everyone they meet can be challenging. We cover it at length in the Six Figure Cause Marketing program.

A great team and asking every customer to support the cause is how this iParty store in Quincy, Massachusetts raised more money than any other ($2,800 to be exact). This year’s campaign, which also included restaurants from Fuddruckers New England, raised $42,500, almost 20 percent more than last year!

Thanks to our roving reporter on our team, Joanna MacDonald, for swinging by iParty on her way home from work. It wasn’t a wasted trip, as she needed to replenish the the office’s supply of whoopie cushions and wax mustaches!

The Boston Bruins are teaming up with iParty and Fuddruckers again to raise money for The SPARK Center. This program was a great success last year, raising $45,000. You can read all about it here.

The B’s have been a great partner, as have iParty and Fuddruckers. While this year hasn’t proven to be the dominating season last year was for the Boston Bruins, the team is still first in the hearts of all the kids, parents and staff involved with The SPARK Center.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the AMA Boston event on Cause Marketing During Challenging Economic Times. It was a great event.

As promised, below are links to some of the topics I discussed.

What is cause marketing. One thing that was clear from everyone on the panel is that Bonnie, Erica Vogelei from Cone and I all had a different understanding of what cause marketing is. Here’s my perspective. If you’re a cause marketing skeptic you may want to check out my post on Defending Cause Marketing. Be sure to read the comments under both posts as they are very helpful.

The Power of Pinups. My cause marketing efforts revolve around two key areas, point-of-sale and percentage-of-sale, especially the former. For a primer on point-of-sale, or pinups as I like to call them, check out this post, which has lots of links. My last pinup program was with Ocean State Job Lots. But I’ve also posted on other programs by Hannaford Supermarkets and New Balance.

If you’re interested in learning more about percentage-of-sale programs, read this post about Starbucks & Product (RED).

Cause marketing and social media. One of my favorite topics. Be sure to connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. on the right sidebar! Here’s a good sampling of my posts on the subject. Also, check out my post on Foursquare and Harvard and how the latter can school cause marketers on how to raise money with location-based social media.

This presentation didn’t have any slides, but if you’re a PowerPoint-aholic check out these slides from an event I spoke at just a couple weeks ago.

Three final things.

First, if you have a question, leave a comment and I’ll reply to you. I might even write a post on your question! And you can make sure you never miss a post by subscribing to my email newsletter, which goes out twice a month.

Second, I’ve posted a whole series on Selling Local Sponsorships for Nonprofits that explores the selling process and how to prospect, pitch and close. It’s helpful if you work in nonprofit sales.

Finally, speaking of pitching, let me leave you with one. The team at BMC is available for hire.

Thanks again for listening. I hope my accent wasn’t too thick (a problem sometimes even for a Boston crowd!).

Back in September, I introduced you to my friend Beth Pfiel (@readerbean) and her nonprofit The Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Foundation.

Beth had asked for my help creating their first cause marketing campaign, a pinup program with Garden of Eden, a grocer and specialty food store with five locations in New York and one in New Jersey .

Beth had a busy fourth quarter, but we recently had a chance to catch up about the results of the program.

• With just six small grocery stores participating Beth raised over $6,000. Her best store raised $1,700.
• In addition to being the top pinup seller, the South Orange, NJ store did a great job promoting Jake’s Ride, which raised $204,000.

Overall, Beth felt that pinups were a great way to raise additional revenue and to educate Garden of Eden employees and shoppers about Bachmann-Strauss.

Beth stressed that it’s important to get store managers committed to the cause as they are the ones who ensure employees are selling the pinups at the register.

Beth’s already looking forward to next year’s event! She’s hoping to raise more money with her friends at Garden of Eden. But she’s not stopping there. She wants to build on her success and recruit other retailers to support Jake’s Ride and take advantage of the busy cross-promotion a grocer partner offers.

Beth realizes that successful cause marketing is largely a numbers game. If she raised $6,000 with six stores, she could raise more money with 20 stores, 50 stores, 150, etc.

Good luck, Beth!

Are you planning a pinup program for your nonprofit? My work with Bachmann-Strauss and Beth became the basis for my Six Figure Cause Marketing program. I hope you’ll check it out!

Two articles last week, one in America Public Media the other in the WSJ, bemoaned the incessant requests at store registers for a dollar or two for causes. You should read them. It’s a real bitchfest.

I’m not saying they’re wrong. These constant requests can be annoying. Although what they think is kind of immaterial considering that supermarket giant Safeway alone last year raised $50 million for breast cancer charities and the Special Olympics with register programs.

But I get tired of these charity requests too. Not so much because they happen so often, but because they’re executed so poorly.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Check-out-line charity programs (or pinup programs as I like to call them) can be a positive experience for the consumer and retailer. (I do many such programs during the year. Just search “pinup” in the upper right and you’ll bring up a bunch of posts.)

Here are six ways to make sure shoppers aren’t put-off by your next checkout program.

Walk the walk. Consumers can sniff out insincerity and disinterest a mile away. We’ve all been at checkouts and seen the signage from corporate, the unsold pile of pinups next to the register, the listless cashier with her half-hearted request. Do you hear the air hissing out of the balloon? If you’re really committed to supporting a charity with a checkout program, don’t just go through the motions. Involve your whole team from managers to cashiers, and instill them with a passion for the cause their efforts will support. And don’t treat your cause campaign like a stray dog you plan to care for one day and then drop off at the pound the next day. This cause belongs to you now. Treat it accordingly.

Keep it simple – for everyone. Don’t make the ask complicated. Just one sentence. “Would you like to donate a dollar to Komen for a Cure?” “Would you like to donate a dollar to help feed a poor family on Thanksgiving.” Also, make it easy for consumers to support the cause and cashiers to process it. Either have a special button on the register to easily record the transaction, or include a UPC code on the pinups so they can be scanned just like any other product in the store. Finally, bite the bullet and put the charity first. Reduce the number of asks cashiers are responsible for (e.g. “Have you signed up for our credit card?”, “Do you need batteries for that?”) so they can focus on asking shoppers to support the cause.

Avoid pinup fatigue. A simple fact. If you deluge shoppers with requests to support a different cause every month they will HATE YOU. A supermarket chain I work with that did five pinup programs a year for different charities recently eliminated all of them citing shopper complaints. There’s a shocker. They asked too often and shoppers grew to hate them, regardless of the cause. Every business is different, but I think one or two well run pinup programs a year is plenty.

Add perks for shoppers. In our pinup programs we include coupons that add value for consumers. Here’s the pitch. “Would you like to donate a dollar to help a sick child? To thank you we’ll include $175 in savings, including 10% off your next purchase here.” Some retailers will even offer an immediate discount at the register if you buy a pinup.

Incentivize cashiers. I”ve explored whether or not incentives really work or not. When they are appropriate, it doesn’t take much to incentives employees. A gift card to their favorite coffee house, a pizza party for the top performing store, etc. will often do the trick. And don’t forget recognition incentives, which I’ll be talking about in my next post. Bottom-line: incentives can make the difference between a good program and great one.

Try a passive program. If you think asking shoppers at the register to support a cause is too intrusive, try a passive program instead. Whole Foods is a leader in these programs. While you won’t raise as much money as with traditional “active” programs, they can definitely be more popular with shoppers.

But I’m not the only who’s done checkout charity. What tips would you add? Or just share how you feel about checkout programs in general. While it’s hard to argue against their lucrativeness, the pros and cons of pinups always seem to incite a lot of debate!

This week kicks-off the 6th year that Rhode Island-based Ocean State Job Lots will sell cause marketing pinups to benefit cancer care at my hospital.

You can read all about how a delivery of 40,000 pounds of frozen chicken in 2003 turned into one of the most successful corporate partnerships in our history here. It’s quite a story!

For all the different types of point-of-sale programs my cause marketing team executes this one is perhaps the simplest. There are no coupons. There are no cross-promotions with other retailers. The pinup is not connected with any special event.

Still, to date the OSJL pinup program has raised $640,000 for my hospital. Here’s how.

Top-down approach. Ocean State Job Lots is a privately held family business. The CEO, Marc Perlman, takes a keen interest in the success of the pinup program and personally monitors how each store is progressing. He praises those that are doing well, and encourages those that aren’t to do better.

Employees have drunk the cause cool-aid. Thanks to Marc and his family the employees at their 92 stores know how important my hospital is to the Perlmans and the community we serve. Marc monitors their progress, but this is really a self-motivated group. Here’s how I know. When some stores ran out of pinups a couple years ago they didn’t wipe their brow and exclaim “We’re done!”. No, they reprinted pinups on the store’s copy machine and kept raising money until they were restocked.

They ask for more than a buck. Pinups generally sell for a specific dollar amount–a buck, but sometimes more. OSJL cashiers ask shoppers to give what they can. And this often leads to more than a buck! Ocean State employees know that OSJL shoppers are caring and generous. They know their customers well.

If you read the article on my hospital’s blog you’ll see that pinups are just a small part of what Ocean State Job Lots and the Perlmans do for us.

One of the most welcomed sights here at my hospital is seeing a Job Lots eighteen-wheel truck backing up to our loading dock. Everyone knows it has food and coats and supplies for the hospital.

Ocean State Job Lots is a discount retailer with a premium reputation for giving.

As a fan of pinup programs, especially for small nonprofits, I’m frequently asked how important the “ask” is at the register. The ask happens when you’re checking out and and cashier says, “Would you like to donate a dollar to help _________?”

To understand why the ask is so important to the success of a pinup program, you needn’t look any further than the stores you visit everyday.

“Do you need batteries for that?”

“Would you like to try Via, our new instant coffee?”

“Would you like to supersize your meal?”

They ask because when they do you usually say yes and buy more. A lot more.

The same is true of pinups. The more you ask people to give a buck or two the more people will. I call this active cause marketing (ACM).

But ACM isn’t for everyone. Some retailers see it as pestering the customer. An example here in eastern Massachusetts, and I limit it to my area because I really don’t know what they do in other parts of the country, is Whole Foods. They practice what I call passive cause marketing (PCM). And for all the shortcomings of PCM, Whole Food does it pretty darn well.

They put the gift request in a can’t-miss spot near the register where customers can decide for themselves if they want to contribute.

I ran across the pictured Autism Special Education Center pinup program at my local Whole Foods in West Newton, Massachusetts. The pitch was in a great location. Right in my line of sight on the credit card machine where I swiped my card. All I had to do was pick the card for either the $2 or $5 donation and give it to the cashier who scanned it just like any other item.

While this approach won’t raise as much money as an active pinup program, it’s a hundred times better than most passive cause marketing programs I see. Usually the donation request is far beyond passive; it’s hidden behind the gum in aisle three, or worse.

But let’s not forget how much the type of customer that shops at Whole Foods contributes to the success of this PCM program. Their average shopper is affluent, educated and sophisticated (so far it hasn’t rubbed off on me), which makes them more open and progressive about supporting causes they care about.

While this program was for autism, other PCM programs I’ve seen at the register are for food pantries, homeless shelters and especially “green” causes. Again, right in line with the interests and concerns of their yuppie shoppers.

I’ve never had success with passive cause marketing programs, but that’s not because they didn’t work. I didn’t set realistic expectations for myself and was disappointed when they didn’t raise as much money as ACMs. Now I know better.

To date, I also haven’t worked with retailers with the kind of customers that are more responsive to PCM programs. I’ll have to keep looking because Whole Foods in Massachusetts has already said no to doing a PCM for my cause.

Fortunately for me, there are a lot of other places to shop.

My friend Beth Pfeil’s (@readerbean) nonprofit is the cause with the big name and the small staff. The Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Foundation has only four employees, but that hasn’t stopped them from raising millions for better treatments and cures for the movement disorders dystonia and Parkinson’s disease.

Since Beth joined Bachmann-Strauss three years ago as their Special Events Manager, she’s managed their annual golf tournament, New York City marathon team and a very special fundraiser called Jake’s Ride. Held in the Short Hills/Millburn area of New Jersey, Jake’s Ride is named in honor of 11-year-old Jake Silverman, who has dystonia, and last year raised $270,096.

I wasn’t surprised when Beth called me six months ago to talk about cause marketing. First, she was the first member of my cause marketing team when I joined BMC in 2004. And while she specialized in events, she played a key role in our early successes and saw firsthand the value of cause marketing. In a way, Beth was both a contributor to and first graduate of Six Figure Cause Marketing! 

Second, since joining Bachmann-Strauss we had talked enough to know she worked for a great cause with a lot of committed donors. I knew there must be a couple business owners among her supporters to launch a cause marketing program! Beth was calling to share the exciting news that she had finally found a partner.

11-year-old Jake’s aunt worked at Garden of Eden, a grocer and specialty food store with five locations in New York and one in New Jersey (separately known as Eden Gourmet). Thanks to the generosity of Garden of Eden and Beth’s great ability to explain the basics and benefits of cause marketing, the grocer agreed to do a month-long pinup programat the register to raise funds for Bachmann-Strauss and to promote Jake’s Ride. While the program just began on September 8th, I spoke with Beth last week about some of the early results.

Selfish Giving: In addition to printing pinups to be sold at the registers for $1, $2 and $5, what else did you supply the stores with?

Beth: We gave them register signs and posters. I learned during my experience at BMC that while register signs don’t replace a direct ask from the cashier, they do help drive customer curiosity at the register. The posters help promote the bike ride itself. I might have skipped them if Garden of Eden had allowed the pinups to be hung in their windows. But since they didn’t, I felt we needed them to promote the ride.

Selfish Giving: So what type of response are you seeing in the stores?

Beth: An excellent response from one store and good responses the other five. The biggest challenge is getting cashiers to ask the question at the register. When they do, you raise money. One store has been asking people like crazy and in just a few days raised $1,200, which is was as much as the five other stores have raised combined. The successful store has a strong top-down approach. Managers inspire employees to ask and customers to give. They’ve created a friendly competition among employees and even posted pictures of Jake on the credit swiper so shoppers can’t miss it. In short, they give cashiers fewer reasons not to ask and customers good reasons to say yes.

Selfish Giving: Are you using any incentives in your program?

Beth: We are. We have a $100 American Express gift card for each store and plan to give it to the cashier who sells the most pinups. For the stores that are just doing OK, I don’t think the prospect of winning a gift card is making a big difference. For the store that is kicking butt, yeah, I think it’s an added bonus. Pretty much the same results we saw with our programs at BMC, isn’t it, Joe?

Selfish Giving: It is! So to keep this program raising money, how do you plan on working with the stores moving forward.

Beth: First, I think it’s important to stay positive with employees and to emphasize that it is easy, fun and really does support a great cause. We plan to show the latter by having Jake visit some of the stores so he can thank them personally for their work. Second, I think it’s important to share best practices with stores. When something is working at one store, like the pictures of Jake posted to the credit card swiper, for instance, it’s important to share that with the others. Finally, it’s important that we work closely with the owners and managers of Garden of Eden so employees see and hear that they are fully vested in the program and committed so making it a success.

Selfish Giving: You’ve just started down the road of cause marketing with your current organization. Would you recommend it for other small nonprofits?

Beth: I would. It’s a great branding opportunity, and as you and I learned from Halloween Town at BMC, when you tie it in with a special event it’s a great way promotional tool. The other good thing about cause marketing is that it doesn’t require a huge upfront investment. The expenses for pinups, posters and registers signs were modest. But you also need to be realistic about how much you can raise–I’ll be thrilled if we raised $5,000. But money is just one way we’ll evaluate the success of this program.

Selfish Giving: Beth, this is a great first effort for your organization. Congratulations on showing both the leadership team at Bachmann-Strauss and at Garden of Eden the win-win benefits of cause marketing. I’m sure the program will be successful in raising money and promoting Jake’s Ride!

This pinup is our fifth and has been a close companion of the Halloween Town event since it began in 2005. Single handedly the pinup has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for my nonprofit!

I’ve written before on the merits of pinup programs in general and Halloween Town’s in particular.  Before I give you some additional reading, I want to admit that I’m guilty of one heinous crime: not using one consistent name for pinup programs. I’ve called them point-of-sale, paper icons, mobiles, paper plaques and probably several other names. I’m trying to stick to “pinups” from now on, but you’ll see these other names in the titles and posts I’ll suggest to you. Forgive me.

For a primer on pinup programs read:

Never Heard of Paper Icons? Listen Up (Also includes a link to an excellent post on “paper icons” by Paul Jones over at the Cause-Related Marketing)

To read about the development of our Halloween Town pinup program the past few years, check out:

Countdown to Halloween Town: The Power of Pinups (2008 Program)

Countdown to Halloween Town: Mobile Madness (2007 Program)

Secrets of a Mobile Master (2006 Program)

We just don’t do pinup programs in October. We do them throughout the year. Read about our most recent program here:

Phantom Gourmet Cooks-Up Cause Marketing Success

From reading these posts I think you’ll agree that our Halloween Town pinup program has a lot of great advantages.

It’s lucrative. This year we should top $800,000 raised since the program began in 2005 (at an expense of about 12 cents on the dollar).

Prospects can’t say no to it. Because unlike other kinds of marketing they pay for, this one is free. They only need to give us access to their stores and to motivate their register clerks to ask the all-important question: “Would you like to donate a dollar to help a sick child?”

Partners love the added benefits. Our pinup programs aren’t just glorified customer loyalty programs. We build them around multiple retailers–that offer valuable cross-promotion–and events, like Halloween Town that in 2008 had 15,000 guests. Retailers that sell pinups in their stores get a free sponsorship spot at Halloween Town that markets their product or service outside the “choir” to new converts.

It’s powerful advertising. We’ve never spent much money advertising Halloween Town. We don’t have to because the pinup does most of the promoting for us. Surveys collected at the event show that in some years as many as 1 in 5 attendees said they heard about Halloween Town from the pinup.

This doesn’t mean that pinup programs are easy to sell and are always home runs. They’re not. But over the past five years, my team and I have learned from trial and error what works and what doesn’t. We’ve boiled down all of our experiences, expertise and insights into a program that we hope to share with you just as soon as Halloween Town is over.

We’ve been successful AND lucky: six figure cause marketing has been a reality for us every year since 2005. And we’re convinced it’s not something unique to our nonprofit. Any nonprofit can do it if they are motivated, educated and in tune to the assets around them.

You can learn more about Six Figure Cause Marketing here.