Ever wonder how you can improve your business and the community at the same time? The answer is Cause Marketing. The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Once Upon a Bottom Line: Harnessing the Power of Storytelling in Sales.
Take your business owner hat off for a moment and put on your consumer hat. Raise your hand if you have ever or would ever stop doing business with a company because they supported something you were really against? I don’t want to get political so we can we safely say that everyone reading this cares about the environment? Okay, so what if a company was dumping toxic sewage into our water supply? You’d probably stop giving them your money, right?
So let’s turn that around. Would you be more likely to use a service or buy a product from a company that supported things you do care about? Welcome to Cause Marketing.
If you exist in the corporate arena, you’ve probably heard the term “Corporate Social Responsibility.” That will be the last time you hear that term in my book. I’m just not a fan. I prefer to describe Cause Marketing as the sale of warm fuzzies.
Let me explain. Let’s say that you sell widgets. You started selling widgets because you saw a need for widgets in the market and you decided to meet that need. That’s not a very exciting Origin story (now if a widget saved your mother from certain death, you’ve got a good Origin story). Your widgets work and you’ve had many happy customers for whom widgets have made a true difference in their lives, so you’ve got some good Success stories. But let’s be honest, widgets are not exciting. Widgets are not sexy. Widgets are just… seriously, what are widgets? I feel like they were something in the Jetsons. Anyway, there’s nothing fun about selling widgets.
Thankfully, the owner of Widgetmart (we’ll call her Susan) is also very philanthropic. She fully believes in serving her community and finds the rates of food insecurity in her town, especially among children, to be unacceptable. Maybe she grew up poor and remembers those days of being called to the Main Office to collect the canned goods her classmates had donated.
Susan is about to discover the power of Cause Marketing. She pledges 1% of her gross sales to support her local food bank. She spends her Saturday mornings at soup kitchens serving the homeless. She has donation boxes set up in her employee break rooms and gives comp time to her employees who want to volunteer. And, she has switched her commercials from a description of the widget making process to a story about how her employees give back to the community and how they’ve served over 6000 meals in the last year. Susan is no longer selling widgets… now she’s selling warm fuzzies.
1) You do a good thing for the community. Whatever your religion, faith, spirituality may be, this is a plus. Yay for karma!
2) You develop a reputation in the community as being about more than just money. Customers gravitate towards companies that support their values and want to do business with people that are making a difference in the community and not just in it for the moola. The 2017 Cone Cause Evolution Study found that:
- 70% believe companies have an obligation to take actions to improve issues that may not be relevant to everyday business operations
- 92% have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a cause they care about3) You will increase your visibility, getting yourself in front of audiences that normally wouldn’t see you. Plus, the charities do everything in their power to advertise your product. People that have never heard of you, are now made aware of not just your product or your service, but your willingness to support a cause they love. The charity has a vested interest in promoting your business and driving customers to you.
4) You get to “borrow” a non-profit’s story which beefs up your own story.
5) You get to charge more.
If you live in Vegas and are interested in learning more about Cause Marketing, please join us at Businesses with Heart, the only networking group focused on growing your business and improving your community. If you’d like to save on Once Upon a Bottom Line, preorders are now available. A percentage of the sales will go to support Hearts Alive Village Las Vegas.
About the author:
Sheryl Green has always enjoyed writing, however, it wasn’t until a divorce shook her world, that she discovered the power of story. Having penned three novels, she now brings her penchant for storytelling to non-fiction and content writing, working with businesses and individuals who want to position themselves as experts in their field. She leverages the power of story through blogging, website content, book coaching and ghostwriting, and speaking engagements.
She is the author of the forthcoming book “Once Upon a Bottom Line: Harnessing the Power of Story for Sales.” Learn more at www.sherylgreenspeaks.com.
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