Last month 111 people signed up for my newsletter. Welcome! 👋👋 That's my best month evahh!! And in a summer month to boot!

For readers new and old, here's how to get the most out of my newsletter….

Since it's difficult to tie many nonprofit/for-profit partnerships to an actual boost in sales for the corporate partner (we all struggle showing this, right?), do partnership teams need to focus on the more nebulous "branding" benefits of supporting a nonprofit event or cause?

If so, can nonprofits learn from how stadiums market naming rights opportunities to corporations? Apparently, studies show that buying the naming rights for a stadium doesn't improve the bottom-line either! Yet companies line up for the privilege to pay millions to plaster their names on stadiums and arenas.

I realize there's a big difference between the two.😬 Still, I think partnership teams could learn a few things...

Over the past month, I've spoken to multiple partnership teams and my eyes literally rolled into the back of my head 🙄 when they told me...

✍️ They began their prospect emails with "Dear Prospect..."

📆 It took them a month to thank a partner for renewing their partnership.

💥 They never scheduled a time to discuss the impact of the partnership on them or the partner….

A working paper out of Stanford University's School of Business - and reported on in the Wall Street Journal - looked at millions of rides from NYC Yellow taxi cabs and how much riders tipped.

The research may help cause marketers develop better monetary asks for point-of-sale programs….

Here's a question I get a lot: "Joe, should we include a call-to-action (CTA) at the bottom of our partnership case studies?"

A CTA is a directive that encourages the prospect to take a next step...

"Schedule a call with a member of our partnership team"

"Sign up for our corporate partnership newsletter"

"Download this case study"

I don't recommend sending cold emails to prospective partners. I have a rule I've been teaching people during my coaching sessions that you shouldn't email a prospect unless you have...

• An overwhelming value proposition that must be shared (e.g. "The audience that attends my event is the perfect audience for your business...")

• A personal connection or referral that can put you on the prospect's radar screen. (e.g. "Joe Waters suggested I contact you...")

However, sometimes people just want to send that cold email to see what happens. It's like pulling the lever on a slot machine - it's irresistible for some people! 🎰

Here are my suggestions to improve your chances of hitting the jackpot with a cold email….

Did you miss me? I certainly missed you!

Thanks to everyone who replied to my last newsletter congratulating my daughter, Cate, on her graduation from George Washington University. And, wow, there are a lot of fellow GW graduates out there!

What a trip!…

①②③ Three things this week...

💰 Join me and Accelerist CEO Brittany 'Brit-Bit' Hill 💁🏻‍♀️ Tomorrow, May 12th @ 3pm EDT for the unveiling of the very latest research on giving at the register (aka Point-of-Sale fundraising).

Are you serious about cause marketing? If you are - and you should be! - you have to be serious about POS! Sign up now….

"When it comes to cause marketing, if you're not at least trying to land and execute a point-of-sale fundraiser, you're kind of wasting your time. You probably shouldn't be doing cause marketing in the first place."

👆This is what I tell people about cause marketing and point-of-sale.👆

Why?

Because point-of-sale (POS) is where all the money is, folks. Not focusing on POS when the right opportunity presents itself is like...

Elon Musk's buyout of Twitter will be bad news for the platform and the world.

This is too bad because you all know how much I like, use, and recommend Twitter Like you, I would also like to see a better world.

With the election in 2016 with the pandemic in 2020 I said the same thing: "It won't be so bad."

No more pollyanna for me. I'm preparing for the worse, and you should too.

I got two great questions last week....

🙋🏻Regarding my post on case studies, several readers asked: "Should I put my case studies on my web site?"

Yes! Last week, I pointed out that case studies help mostly in the middle and at the bottom of the sales funnel. However…

These days I'm writing a lot of case studies for partnership teams that are eager to use "social proof" to recruit more corporate partners.

It's a wicked smahht strategy.

Again and again, case studies come up as the #1 way to engage prospects - especially in the middle (evaluation) and at the bottom (conversion) stages of the sales (aka partnership) funnel.

Most nonprofits have enough happening at the top of the funnel - the awareness stage - for the initial attraction. What they lack is anything afterward to keep the process moving along and to the prospect engaged. That's where case studies can help….

Last week I shared an article on Twitter and commented that if enough of you showed interest in the research - by clicking on the link! - I would explain how it changed my thinking on how to use Twitter for partnership prospecting.

The article had nearly 60 "clicks" last week and was the fourth most popular link in my newsletter last week. So here's my explanation…

I think David Hessekiel is on to something.😮

(I should say on to something AGAIN because it was 20 years ago that he was "on to something" and founded the ground-breaking Cause Marketing Forum, which is now called Engage for Good.)

As corporate partnership professionals we're always looking for opportunities to raise money from businesses. A corporate grant here. A cause marketing program over there. You know the drill. But the truth is there is a whole ocean of money RIGHT IN FRONT OF US that we're missing….

Three things 🎶☘️🕒 this week...

🥳 Case study success story. A big shout-out to the gang at the National Park Foundation🏕 who did a great job creating a wonderful landing page to showcase the case studies I wrote for them. I love all the images and social media posts they included. Nice work, team!

👏 EFG is back to in-person! Can you believe the Engage for Good Conference is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year…

I came across the above graph when I was reading Big Duck's newsletter. You should really sign up for it. I always find something useful and interesting!

While Big Duck uses the graph to illustrate how your nonprofit should think about its audience when it comes to communications (a smahht strategy BTW), I also think it's applicable when your nonprofit is thinking about corporate partnerships too.

Let me explain….

I always assume that people aren't listening to me - it protects my fragile ego.😆 But I know of at least one person who is: Katie Price, Senior Director of Philanthropy at Second Helpings in Indiana.

Last month - on Valentine's Day no less 🥰 - Katie wrote to me:

"After reading your email for several years, we were finally able to put together our own corporate e-newsletter. I’m so thankful to you for this idea….

We've gotten some great questions for our Cause Docs clinic 🩺🥼 Tomorrow, March 2nd at Noon EST.

We have three distinguished partnership experts!

🔥 Diana Hovey, Senior Vice President, Corporate Partnerships, ShareOur Strength / No Kid Hungry.

🔥 Charisse Brown Marcus, President, Good Scout.

🔥 Stefanie Mathew, Vice President, Corporate Philanthropy & Partnerships, National Geographic Society.

You won't want to miss this clinic with the Cause Docs!👨🏻‍⚕️👨🏻‍⚕️