Cause marketing is an incredibly valuable tool for both your business and your community. When you decide on cause marketing, you start by selecting a highly relevant cause that reflects your brand values.
Through cause marketing, you help make your brand more visible to the local community and support a movement or charity that matters. As a result, people will connect that mission with your company. Many businesses find that this simple strategy can improve consumers' opinions of their brand while making them more memorable.
Western Mass News Marketing offers several cause marketing opportunities to take advantage of when you partner with us. Take a look at these strategies to learn more about how you can make the most of them for your brand.
1. Get Involved With a Cause You Love
Choose a cause that aligns with the same values your business does. Get involved with an organization, charity, movement, or local event that is compatible with your business: one that will naturally make customers think of who you are and what you do when they see that partnership.
For example, if you have a footwear business, donate shoes to children in need. If you own a restaurant, contribute to feeding the hungry. By choosing a cause that connects with your brand, you reflect what's important to your business. In turn, consumers will trust and believe in your company.
2. Work With a Local Charity or Business
Take a look at local charity options in your specific community. Often, there are cause marketing opportunities--and causes that need your support--in the same neighborhood as your target audience. Take a look at local food banks, fundraisers, schools, non-profits, disadvantaged groups, and more. You may also want to consider local businesses or non-profits that are already looking for assistance.
Partnerships help broaden your brand’s audience. When you connect with a local business or group, you have the potential to reach their target audience as well as your own. Through that association, you can build a higher degree of trust with consumers.
Cause marketing in partnership with other organizations can help build stronger ties and expand your business. The visibility gained from missions to serve helps position your business as a public leader--and you'll see growth as a result.
3. Communicate Effective Awareness in Your Messaging
Make your contributions part of your messaging by making it clear who you are supporting and why. Your customers should know your purpose, with no confusion about the cause and how you're helping. Many of today's customers are value-driven. They have learned the importance of voting with their wallets, and they want to "vote" for businesses that back causes that matter to them.
Customers like to see how their businesses are connecting to the local community. When your messaging clearly reflects your contributions, customers are more likely to choose you so that they can support your efforts and feel like they are making a difference, too.
4. Invite Your Audience to Support the Cause Along With Your Business
Build trust and loyalty with your audience by inviting them to join the cause. Try incentives to donate to the cause: like a percentage-off coupon, for example. You might want to develop a specialty product that supports the cause when it’s purchased or an offer that when an item is purchased, a portion goes to the cause.
Furthermore, produce content that builds awareness and shows the audience how you're helping. Create social media campaigns that connect to the cause or help raise awareness. You may even want to invite your audience to help you conceive that important content, which will help enhance their sense of connection to it.
5. Work With a Media Partner to Ramp Up Cause Marketing Efforts
Delegating some of the workload to a media partner is a highly effective way to expand your cause marketing efforts without putting unnecessary strain on your business. It can help you save time, save money, and decrease your marketing campaign mistakes.
A media partner already has community connections and can place more resources at your fingertips, which you can use to expand your efforts and more effectively meet your goals. What’s more, a media partner may already know about local cause marketing opportunities and which ones will help you achieve the best results for your business.
Cause marketing is a powerful tool for your business. It helps put a face on your brand and align you with the local community. Luckily, you don't have to manage cause marketing alone. Western Mass News Marketing can help connect you with thriving charities in your area, expanding your reach and helping you make the most of those efforts.
