Cause Marketing is simple to set up with our point of sale system and something you might want to try. What you are trying to do is leverage a charity to help your business. I do suggest though if you are trying to do something like this that you do mean it, people are not fools. If they talk to you, it will not take long for them to see through you if it is false. Besides, it will mean something more to you if it is real.
I would suggest that the best and easiest way to do this is to piggyback on a charity collection day. This has the additional advantage in that it is temporary on a set day only as this makes going to take several shots to get it bedded down in your shop and the last thing you want in your shop is a long time commitment just yet.
Now pick a charity local has the advantage of bringing in, locals, if you think of yourself as a local, it is a big plus. On the other hand, a large national charity would probably supply you with better signage and mainstream advertising.
Make sure what you pick is a remarkably uncontroversial choice, eg heart, cancer or children suicide, etc. Try and selection one applicable to your business or person if possible. For example, we had a terrible night when my wife, who is a teacher got an email about 11 pm from one of her students that he was going to commit suicide. It took a dozen telephone calls to the police and the school and many hours till the student was tracked down and questioned by the police. After that, I assure you, I meant it when I said it was an issue that needed to be addressed by the community.
Here is an example that might surprise you how many people can be turned off by a charity, for example, this was a result of a study done by the research firm Roy Morgan on people views on the environment.
Now if in your shop you pushed the environment issue, you would have about 62% in favour and about 25% of the population in Australia in 2016 against you. I am sure the figure today would be more negative. Plus about 68% would think your product is overpriced. These are not good figures to cause marketing. I do believe that business is not an appropriate forum to push politics.
Now the next point you need to decide is how you are going to do it.
What I suggest and what works out well in practice is you offer to give an amount for a purchase of a product, eg $1 goes to charity for every purchase of this soap. A bonus here is if people do not like the charity they could buy a different soap in your shop and not have any issues. Some people put a cap on the total amount say only on the first 300 sales this money gets paid, but I would suggest not doing this.
Here are some more advantages
- Most consumers have a more positive image of a company then supports a charity
- Studies show that people tend to go ahead more with the proposed purchase by as much as a third if a charity they approve of is involved that is partly why companies like Amazon do it
- Customers faced by two alternatives which one has a charity they agree will pick the company or product that supports their charity. Studies have shown up to 26% more purchases.
- It helps people to become more aware of your shop and build a good image in the community.
- A bonus with cause marketing is that you can advertise before and the event how it went by showing your certificate etc.
- These donations are tax deductible
Try it and see what happens.
If you want to read more about it, click a case study here.
