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Charitable Giving Offers Likability In Your Marketing Strategy
Randy Vaughn | December 11th, 2008 - 07:00 AM
(17) found this useful. Do you? 
During the holidays, we are bombarded by dozens of pleas for charitable giving. Especially during a down economy, nonprofits and charitable causes are typically suffering from low response because consumers tend to give when they are not preoccupied with how to pay their mortgages.
But what if you are a small business owner? Whether it is the holidays or yearround, does your small business give to charity?
I think we can assume that most people and small businesses give charitably out of genuine concern and care. People like to associate themselves with businesses that support meaningful projects. It’s makes us feel good. Thus, the marketing benefit is that this attaches a likability factor to your business. And, yes, consumers are looking for reasons to like you (because they typically don’t like your prices).
Big companies have long employed charitable giving into their strategy of getting customers to know, like and trust them. McDonald’s has a long history with Ronald McDonald House Charities and Subway is affiliated with the American Heart Association. As a father of an adopted daughter, I love Wendy’s because of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (OK, so it’s their Frosty, too).
How will your business share your success to impact your community and the world? Recognize the importance of rallying your team behind a passion greater than your organization itself. Differentiate your organization by focusing on selfless acts of community service.
Here are a few of the most common ways to participate philanthropically:
PERIODIC PERCENTAGE GIVER
Give a percentage of either revenue or profits for a specific time period. “From Memorial Day until Labor Day, we will give 5% of all sales to our local school.”
PERPETUAL GIVER
Give all year round (”Every month we give 1% of our sales to the local food bank”). Or pledge a specific dollar amount for each time there is a specific transaction. A colleague offers a marketing newsletter and every time someone signs up for her free marketing tips, she will donate $1 to charity. In addition to local charities, our marketing firm gives quarterly to an orphanage in Benin, West Africa.
PARTICIPATION GIVER
Help sponsor a local event, like a charitable 5K. Provide the food, the T-shirts, or the water bottles for the runners. Put together a baseball team that raises money for a specific charity (”For every home run, we will donate $100″). This typically gets you and your employees much more involved than simply writing a check.
SOCIAL CHANGE GIVER
You may wish to engage in various cause marketing practices that support your company’s values about social change. Warning: don’t try “going green” as a limited strategy just to appeal to a certain demographic. It will never work. Authenticity is critical for today’s cynical consumers. Participate generously in your community and you will enjoy the reward. I know one salsa company that employs developmentally disabled persons to handle all their packaging prior to shipping. It’s a win-win for both sides and speaks volumes about the heart of the company’s leadership.
MIDDLE-MAN GIVER
Perhaps your most effective role could be to leverage your business’ heavy traffic to impact a local charity by acting as a drop-off resource for donations. Each of a national tire chain’s local stores acts as a drop-off for customers to bring Toys for Tots. Canned food drives are equally common and engage your customers into your charitable focus. (It is best if you can ensure the participants that you also give to this drive.) Grocery stores have long presented consumers the choice to donate money to some charity at check-out.
There are some potential problems with your prospects’ perceptions. Cynical consumers are leery of greedy businesses somehow seeming charitable just because it is the holidays or they are looking for some tax deduction. Such “generosity” will inspire no one and your customers will see right through it (authenticity speaks volumes!).
Give out of a generous spirit and you will receive the proper recognition as a secondary benefit (the first benefit comes from giving and helping others). Does your charitable participation connect with your customers’ priorities on social initiatives? While some customers will simply ignore your cause and choose price first, many consumers will work with a company doing social good over one that isn’t every time. And yes, they will likely even pay a premium because the cause is that important to them.
Sure, there are those who give for exploitation or egotistical reasons. There’s a risk in mixing marketing and philanthropy. Pompous promotion and charity rarely mix. But If you are genuine in your concern for the charities or causes that you support, I don’t think you need to worry about your customers thinking you are arrogantly bragging. We live in a generous nation. Perhaps we are not generous enough, but still, we are by-and-large a giving culture when we see real needs. I believe when you act responsibly with what you have received, your customers and prospective customers will appreciate your willingness to use your resources to benefit others.
Randy Vaughn, Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coach located in Fort Worth, TX. Find out more at 1429creative.com
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Todd Schnick | December 11th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Great message - and I agree. I am always encouraging my clients to give back. Not only does it shed positive light on the business, the new people you interact with broaden your network!
http://intrepid-llc.com/2008/11/18/intrepid-marketing-giving-back-to-your-community-is-good-marketing/
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Maggie F. Keenan, Ed.D. | December 11th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Randy,
Good article… and small businesses can learn more about giving back so that there are mutual benefits, for them and the causes/community they give to in my soon to be released book in January:
“Small Businesses Give Big: Why charitable giving is a great business strategy”.
Regards,
Maggie F. Keenan, Ed.D.
Chief Giving Strategist
http://www.givingadvice.com
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| Marketing Twins: The Ultimate Marketing Blog for Inspiration and Ideas | December 14th, 2008 at 7:10 am
[...] Here’s my first published article on this site: Charitable Giving Offers Likability In Your Marketing Strategy [...]
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Fort Worth Marketing: AMEX Open Forum - Randy Vaughn - Duct Tape Marketing Coach | Marketing Twins: The Ultimate Marketing Blog for Inspiration and Ideas | December 14th, 2008 at 7:14 am
[...] Here’s my first published article on this site: Charitable Giving Offers Likability In Your Marketing Strategy [...]
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MarketingTwins-Randy | December 14th, 2008 at 11:08 am
@toddschnick - thanks for the comment - and I’m following you on Twitter now, too.
@Maggie - sounds like a great book!
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John Jantsch | December 15th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Randy - this is such a great marketing and referral strategy because everyone wins.
Business willing to create promotions that highlight and distill the mission of a charitable partner is something that every non-profit is hungry for.
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MarketingTwins-Randy | December 15th, 2008 at 11:27 am
@ducttape (John Jantsch) - of course I owe alot of this to incorporating my own personal background in non-profits with the power Duct Tape Marketing system. Thanks for the comment!
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Joe Dager | December 15th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Good advice and well put together. I think many small businesses wait till their asked. Stepping up to partner with a cause important to you may relieve some of the frustration.
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Adrianne Machina | December 15th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I like your comment about the authenticity in giving. I think what makes the business-charity link ring true is the story that you tell to connect them. For example, you give to an orphanage in Benin, because you lived there. You connect to Wendy’s because your daughter was adopted.
When your intention of giving with a generous spirit is clear, then you are doing both your business and the charity a service by promoting the charity.
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Charitible Giving and Small Business | Hot Ideas & Hot Air | December 15th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
[...] the master of “good cause” marketing, Randy Vaughn, wrote a great post recently for the American Express Open Forum about Charitable Giving. In his post he writes, Give out of a generous spirit and you will receive the proper recognition [...]
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Ken Partain | December 15th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Hi Randy - what a timely article. One thing that concerns a lot of people is whether the charity they have chosen is a trusted one and is using their money wisely. There are sites like http://www.charitynavigator.org that can help you out with that.
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Best Virtual Advertising » Blog Archive » OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | Charitable Giving Offers … | December 16th, 2008 at 2:18 am
[...] Randy Vaughn wrote an interesting post today onOPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | Charitable Giving Offers …Here’s a quick excerptCharitable Giving Offers Likability In Your Marketing Strategy. During the holidays, we are bombarded by dozens of pleas for charitable giving. Especially during a down economy, nonprofits and charitable causes are typically suffering … [...]
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MarketingTwins-Randy | December 16th, 2008 at 9:08 am
@joe, @amchina, and @ken - thanks for the kind words.
if you haven’t read it - here’s a latest article from Ken: http://blogs.openforum.com/2008/12/15/hows-your-online-reputation/
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Scott Campbell | December 16th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
This topic is missed so much by business owners. The ironic thing is that they tend to give anyway…why not just tie it to the business in some way?
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Donny-Marketing Twin #2 | December 16th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I like this post Randy. I love the fact we tie our giving/stewardship to charities that we have personal attachment to. It makes good business sense and helps us see the GREATER THINGS ahead.
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Matthew Scott | December 16th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Randy,
Great article.
I think your article is paving the way to remove the word “charity” and “giving” as part of our business vocabulary.
This article is helping to remove those words from our vocabulary and replace it with “how good business is done.”
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David (Marketing Integrity) | December 16th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Corporate social responsibility is indeed how good business is done! I agree with you and with some of the other commentators that the genuineness comes from the business having some personal contact with the charitable cause. This injects a passion internally for supporting that specific cause. If a business takes this seriously, they will provide on-going updates to their customers via their web site, e-newsletters, social media, etc. on the difference the partnership is making. That helps your customers realize the ongoing benefit of that partnership and then they understand that you are not doing it as a one-off thing but truly trying to affect change. Thanks for the insights Randy!
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MarketingTwins-Randy | December 16th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
@scott - excellent thought - they give it away anyway, why not maximize the giving?
@#2 - this is fun isn’t it - we get to live out a dream of not only working together but giving together (for everyone else, we give each quarter to a different charity that we’re already close to)
#menatpausecoach - Matthew I love your thinking. No more walls between “business” and “good business” - let’s let this be the norm!
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Cidnee Stephen | December 17th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Great article Randy and one that can make real impact out there as well. I like the different styles of giving you laid out. It gives small businesses many ways to give!
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Small Business Marketing: Your Marketing Story | Marketing Twins: The Ultimate Marketing Blog for Inspiration and Ideas | December 17th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
[...] his story on the AMEX Open Forum. If you missed my post from last week on AMEX, it’s on his story on the AMEX Open Forum. If you missed my post from last week on AMEX, it’s on charitable giving and small business, [...]
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Darrell Plemons | December 18th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Over the years I have been amazed at the frivolous spending on sales meetings - how about starting a meeting by telling the team a portion of that budget went for something good. Redistibution should not be a political message - it should be a choice and a lifestyle
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MarketingTwins-Randy | December 18th, 2008 at 7:43 am
@Cid - thanks!
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