In an increasingly competitive world, businesses and professionals need to consider more human and emotional actions as part of our visibility strategies. Specifically, cause (or social) marketing addresses this.
“Most companies become obsessed with numbers, without considering that with every visibility action we can also contribute to social causes for the common good (as well as our own).”
Ultimately, brand visibility actions can serve a purpose beyond competing and outdoing everyone else: raising society’s awareness.
If this makes sense to you, and you’re wondering how you could put it into practice in your business (whatever its size), keep reading, because you’ll want to know:
- The benefits of cause marketing for your business and society.
- Important considerations about cause marketing and success stories.
What is cause marketing?
You’re probably researching new ideas and strategies to improve your brand image, build customer loyalty and gain visibility to attract new customers.
However, you may not dare to step out of your comfort zone and embrace a more emotional kind of marketing that goes beyond statistics and sales. Don’t you think you should at least give it a try?
“Cause marketing seeks to provide a solution to a problem affecting part of society. And no one is better placed than brands and companies with visibility to get involved and make change happen together.”
Bearing all this in mind, do you now think you can make the most of this kind of marketing and gain benefits you may not have considered before? I believe you can — let’s take a look at what they are!
Benefits of Cause Marketing for Your Business
First of all, you should know that the benefit gained from applying cause marketing falls, first and directly, on your business. These are, specifically, the advantages you get:
- Building a highly loyal community around the brand: Conveying a message that cares about society’s well-being keeps the established community’s attention fixed on you, while also sparking the interest of new potential customers.
- Positive effect on consumer psychology and behavior: This benefit is more in line with a long-term outcome, achieved through the branding built up with each campaign, based on solid values of commitment. This makes consumers remember you for longer and have a very positive perception of your brand.
- Exceeding customer expectations: That act of solidarity touches consumers’ hearts, makes them feel involved, and gives them the feeling that they’ve done something good by being customers of a brand with responsible values. In many cases, all this added value exceeds any expectation.
- Opportunity to carry out co-branding initiatives: Co-branding is an ideal way to form a win-win alliance with another company and work together, allowing you to enter new markets, strengthen relationships and share costs.
There’s definitely strength in numbers, and collaborative marketing is essential for achieving the goals you want.
So remember that any cause marketing action can lead to partners who share your philosophy, values and audience.
On top of all these benefits, don’t forget that companies can also enjoy financial aid and tax benefits, such as the corporate tax deduction for recurring donations.
Benefits of Cause Marketing for Society
Now that we’ve seen the benefits from a commercial or business standpoint, let’s set hypocrisy aside and look at cause (or social) marketing for what it really is: a commitment to benefiting not just ourselves, but society as a whole. Let’s look at some of the most notable benefits in this regard:
- Support for the disadvantaged.
- Care for the environment.
- Reduction of waste dumping.
- Measures against child malnutrition.
- Medical research.
- Cultural restorations.
- Improvements in education.
- Cancer research.
- Stopping bullying.
- Anti-smoking campaigns.
- Responsible driving.
- Fighting gender stereotypes.
These are just a few of the most talked-about social causes, where companies have wanted to do their bit and, thanks to good use of cause marketing in their campaigns, have achieved amazing results (both financial and in terms of social awareness).
However, in addition to these social causes, there are many others. The idea is for brands to embrace solidarity and support social causes related to their values and brand philosophy.
“Only by joining forces for the cause can we make a positive impact on society and, in turn, gain greater acceptance among consumers.”
Features of Cause Marketing and its Application
Unlike traditional marketing, this type of campaign can deliver better sales results, on top of the positive impact generated in the consumer’s mind, as well as the social impact.
“Social marketing aims to stir consciences around the world and encourage the public to participate in achieving benefits for the common good, such as reducing waste dumping, supporting the disadvantaged, or funding medical research.”
As you already know, consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced to a greater extent by emotions, the more irrational side.
Therefore, developing a strategy based on a social cause will help awaken that emotion that had yet to be triggered in some users.
Things to Consider About Cause Marketing
Cause marketing is a powerful tool built on 3 solid pillars:
- The brand
- The social cause
- The people
It would only take one of these pillars to become unstable for trust and collaboration to break down.
However, the precise alignment of these 3 foundations fosters community social commitment and responsibility. Keys to achieving the desired economic and social goals.
Let me tell you that, before carrying out any cause marketing action in your business, you should keep in mind some basic considerations and features to get the most out of it:
Champion a cause aligned with your values
Look for a cause that fits your brand’s philosophy and values. In other words, research and identify a social problem where you believe you can help a group of people feel better.
This will also help third-sector organizations find companies related to their causes for co-branding purposes.
Factor in your customers’ opinions
Take into account feedback not only from your customers, but also from your employees, suppliers and distributors, since they’re the ones who will defend your brand through thick and thin.
Ask them which projects they think you should champion.
Choose the type of alliance you’re going to develop
For example, there’s the purchase-triggered donation, where, depending on how many products are sold, the company itself allocates a percentage of the money.
There’s also customer-led donation, where the company must provide the infrastructure to make the payment. And it’s also worth noting corporate sponsorship.
Set a solid communication and outreach strategy
Besides attracting traffic to your website, your goal will be to capture leads and persuade the consumer to make the purchase using the right persuasion techniques, helping them understand that act of solidarity.
To do this, get them involved, include conversion elements such as calls to action, even work together with NGOs and influencers, and spread your campaigns across the right digital channels to promote them.
Make yourself visible so other organizations can find you
Closely related to the first point is creating a section on your website detailing your corporate social responsibility policy.
This way, organizations and professionals who feel aligned with the cause you champion will get in touch to reach a strategic collaboration agreement.
Work with the long term in mind
This type of strategy delivers results over the medium and long term, since it requires following a methodical plan where goals are set, a budget is defined, and a timeline is established for the different phases of the campaign or tasks.
Examples of Cause Marketing Strategies
Now that you’ve absorbed the theoretical concepts, I’d like to show you, with concrete examples, some successful campaigns that have made headlines in many media outlets, so you can see the huge social change they’ve brought about for a significant part of society.
American Express
This campaign was one of the most talked about, as its goal was to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Do you remember it?
The famous financial products company got its start in cause marketing with its first campaign in 1983. It chose the “purchase-triggered donation” option, contributing one cent for every transaction made with its cards.
And for every new card issued, it contributed 1 dollar each, for 3 months.
They raised a total of 1.7 million dollars, and that’s not all… they also managed to clean up their company’s image, greatly improving their brand reputation.
Souji
This project was driven by an environmental engineer who set out to make the world a better place, proposing alternative ways of doing things better.
Today, Souji is an established company whose purpose is to transform used cooking oil into 100% eco-friendly soaps or detergents, giving the oil a new use.
As a result, the product contains no toxic elements and reduces the environmental impact, helping create a more sustainable world.
VisionSpring and Warby Parker
Warby Parker is a company based in New York with a powerful website for retail eyewear sales. Today, it has become one of the most innovative companies on an international level.
In fact, it has partnered with organizations related to the medicine and healthcare sector. And one of them is VisionSpring.
In its “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair” campaign, the model works as follows. For every two pairs of glasses sold, they donate a pair to their partners, covering the cost of one of them.
VisionSpring, for its part (its partner), is responsible for training people in low-income countries on how to perform eye exams and sell glasses at a low price.
Final Thoughts on Cause Marketing
Cause or social marketing is a highly effective technique that helps brands not only improve their social capital through high-impact actions, but also enhance their image and achieve social change that is sustainable and lasts over time. This builds trust and loyalty within the community.
In this article, we’ve seen why it’s so important to raise awareness among the rest of the world, be clear about which partner to strategically align with, and which cause (or causes) to champion so there’s consistency with your brand values.
My advice is to clearly define your proposal, be transparent at all times, create fluid communication and, of course, measure the social impact generated by your campaign.
Do you think cause marketing can be applied to any type of business? What cause do you champion, or would you champion?
