Tag Archive: point-of-sale

AMA Presentation: Cause Marketing During Challenging Times

Written on February 24, 2010 in Cause Marketer's Journal, Cause Practices
2 Comments

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!).

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Countdown to Halloween Town: Pinups to the People

Written on September 11, 2009 in Cause Marketer's Journal, Cause Practices
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2009 HT PinupThis 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.

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Phantom Gourmet Cooks-Up Cause Marketing Success

Written on May 4, 2009 in Cause Marketer's Journal, Cause Marketing In Action, Cause Practices
4 Comments

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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