Cause Related Marketing Benefits Business Whatever The Economy
Social Entrepreneurship
Cause-Related Marketing was coined as a term in the early 1980′s by American Express. The idea, however, has been around since the beginning of society…
Reciprocity.
The benefit for your business is more sales…
Giving service makes the world go round. For a graphic demonstration of the power of reciprocity, watch the online world. Unless you have been in a cave you cannot but help see terms such as “Mass Control Marketing”, “Product Launch Formula” or “Moving The Free Line”.
What is the same amongst them? In each of them is the core concept of giving to potential customers in the hope these prospects/people become clients. I know what you’re thinking “Risky”, right?
There are lots of free-loaders flying about, yes?. True enough, there are a lot but there is little or no risk involved for these smart businessmen and women.
They know how people in general think, how we all ‘tick’. We all feel indebted to another person who does us a favour or gives us some kind of gift (some more beholden than others mind).
It may seem off the wall to suggest giving – especially in the current economic climate – will help with your business bottom line. You may think it is in fact a risky idea.
American Express did not. On the contrary, they knew when they started the pledge to give a penny to the refurbishment of the Statue of Liberty for every transaction made by customers, this would money invested.
Great publicity cannot be purchased, customer happiness cannot be purchased, better employee morale cannot be bought (usually). Instead they found out this can be “given”.
As a result of the American Express cause-related marketing drive, use of Amex cards increased by 28% and new users increased by 17%. In the intervening years, many more companies have had stellar successess with cause-related marketing. Names like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Avon, the list goes on and on… are heavily involved. And it’s not just big companies either who are savvy to the positives cause-related marketing can bring to the balance sheet of a company.
Do you think this is a good idea? Allow me to tell you a short story in answer…
While appearing on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” to publicise her character of the sex-crazed assassin Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye, Famke Jansen asked him if he would like a demo of her characters signature move (involving her getting astride Conan on his desk and squeezing him with her thighs). Conan responded with “This is what we in the industry call a ‘no-brainer’.”
Giving ends with more receipts, it is a no brainer.
JointWinWin.com is a free cause related marketing business directory. As a business you can submit unlimited website listings for no cost giving you extra sales channels for your business. Watch this video for more info: http://jointwinwin.com/IntroductoryVideo-BlogPost
[...] Original post by Marketing Man [...]
I found your site on Google and read a few of your other entires. Nice Stuff. I’m looking forward to reading more from you.
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]