Have you heard all the buzz flying around about social impact, cause marketing, loyalty marketing and the impact it is having on a business’ bottom line?

What it aligns with is a bigger concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ways to leverage that impact. Small businesses and entrepreneurs can also get the same benefits.

Leveraging Business Social Impact Through Cause Marketing

Cause marketing aligns a brand with a cause in the community, such as sustainability, helping children, rescuing animals, or homelessness. When executed strategically, cause marketing can have a measurable impact on the business, cause, and customers – building goodwill and loyalty. In fact, 87 percent of consumers say they would switch from one brand to another if the other brand were associated with a good cause, according to a national survey by Cone Communications.

The best cause marketing initiatives go beyond mere philanthropy to build mutually beneficial alliances between brands, nonprofits, and consumers to increase sales, awareness, donations and customer loyalty.

Small businesses can use cause marketing to differentiate themselves from their competitors and form a stronger connection with customers. Click To Tweet

Small businesses can use cause marketing to differentiate themselves from their competitors and form a stronger connection with customers. Here are ways to get started.

1. Stay true to your business – this is key.

Generally, a person would find a cause that speaks to their heart. That may be true, but this is about leveraging social impact for your business. It may sound backwards, but first identify your customer base (target audience) and where their interest may be, then choose a cause or nonprofit that aligns well with them.

For example, a plumbing company knew their prime customers were adult females; when a leak happens, they call a plumber right away. No trying to fix it themselves. So, this company aligned with a breast cancer organization and event. They even added pink ribbons to their website.

Look at your own business’ purpose – what problem do you solve and what are your core values? Alignment could be with either of those and it creates authenticity because without it, and all the good intentions, cause marketing is guaranteed to fail.

The closer the cause aligns with your brand; the more likely customers will make a clear connection. As with any partner, make sure the nonprofit you choose is a good fit for your business. Do they have events or volunteer opportunities to capture your businesses engagement? Additional examples of alignment might be a restaurant with hunger or pet services with animal rescues.

The best cause marketing initiatives go beyond mere philanthropy to build mutually beneficial alliances between brands, nonprofits, and consumers to increase sales, awareness, donations and customer loyalty. Click To Tweet

2. Set measurable goals.

Build your campaign around specific goals, creating a clear understanding of why you are employing cause marketing and how you hope it will affect your bottom line. This will allow you to develop and execute tactics to meet those goals.

The goals might include:

• • raising awareness and increasing positive brand reputation (for business and nonprofit),
  • educating the public about the cause and nonprofit, and
  • driving appropriate social change.

By setting measurable goals, you can track milestones and see how effective your campaign is for both your business and the nonprofit.

3. Enhance the experience.

We’ve all heard the term ‘customer journey’. Cause marketing is no different and most effective when it engages your customers. Enhance the existing customer experience by weaving the story of the cause and its relationship to your brand into existing communications efforts, such as in-store signage, e-newsletters, your website, social media and more.

4. Align with your overall marketing and communications strategy.

It’s essential for cause marketing to align with your overall marketing and communications strategy. Incorporate your campaign into your existing strategy by making sure it is communicated through the channels you are already using and educating your most informed and trusted advocates: your staff and partners. Don’t make more work for yourself… or it won’t get done.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

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This is a guest post from Dr. Victoria Boyd, Nonprofit Marketing & Fundraising Strategist at The Philantrepreneur Foundation. Learn more about Dr. Boyd below!