Earth Day – 4 Key Elements of a Cause Marketing Campaign

Cause marketing refers to the alignment of a brand with a cause that produces profitable and societal benefits for both. Today, consumers want to know what your company stands for and what you’re doing to make the world a better place. As a result, for many brands, cause marketing is now becoming the norm rather than the exception. You may be surprised to learn that cause marketing was first introduced in 1976. The two trail blazers involved were the Marriott Corporation and the March of Dimes. They worked together to promote the Marriott’s family entertainment complex in Santa Clara, California while raising funds for the March of Dimes. The campaign was a success for both parties and cause marketing was born.

In celebration of Earth Day this April 22^nd, I’d like to encourage you to consider launching cause marketing campaign this year, and I’ve outlined the four key elements of one for you to consider:

1. Simple, inspiring message: What you call your campaign matters. It should be simple, descriptive of your initiative and inspire you to want to participate. Motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson teamed up with the environmental organization The Nature Conservancy with its cause marketing campaign “Renew the Ride”. This campaign was designed to mobilize Harley Davidson’s global community of riders to raise funds for the planting of 50 million trees worldwide by 2025 so that the open road can be preserved for future generations of riders.

2. Visual storytelling: Studies show that people read only about 20% of today’s web pages and are driven more by an image or short video than they are by anything else. Coke and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) teamed up to support the conservation of polar bears with their Arctic Home campaign. Who among you hasn’t been moved by the wonderful video spots that Coke and the WWF have created about polar bears? Those videos move us more than any written story could.

3. Social sharing, ‘earned’ media: The most effective cause marketing campaigns develop multiple media designed to maximize the effectiveness of each channel. Dell is doing a great job inspiring people to care more about the health of our oceans and marine wildlife through its support of actor Adrian Grenier’s the Lonely Whale Foundation. The campaign has gained great momentum thanks to Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms. And, Coke and the WWF used the web, apps, social media, text messaging and other technology to drive brand awareness for the Arctic Home campaign.

4. Big world issues, small personal action: While most cause marketing campaigns are calling people’s attention to a big issue, they need to inspire them to take a small personal action. Habitat for Humanity is working towards a world where everyone has a safe and decent place to live. They teamed up with Home Depot. As part of an employee engagement campaign, Home Depot employees can volunteer to work on a Habitat for Humanity project while being paid by Home Depot. This small personal action of volunteering makes a big difference in improving big world issues.

I believe cause marketing has many benefits for your business including positioning your brand to stand out from the rest while at the same time helping a cause and ‘doing the right thing’.

Is cause marketing important to a brand? 87% of consumers would switch from one brand to another if the other brand was associated with a good cause, according to a Cone Cause Evolution Survey. Is a cause marketing campaign right for your company and your brand? It’s certainly worth considering.

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Humanizing Your Brand

In the last 10 years, we’ve seen a trend in the marketing and advertising world of companies humanizing their brands and looking to develop a stronger, more sincere connection with a consumer. This emotional connection is strategic, meant to secure a long lasting, loyal relationship with a customer.

It is estimated that the average consumer is exposed to over 5000 ads each day. It is no wonder marketers are looking to find a more strategic way to reach their audiences, and reel them in for the long run.

So how exactly can you humanize your brand and set yourself apart from your competitors? I’ve outlined a few tips below:

1. Establish an emotional connection
   • Consumers respond to content that is personal and meaningful to them, so once you’re able to zero in on what that is, you can target them effectively. Showing that your brand is associated with a passion or cause will help shed a positive light on you in the eyes of the consumer.
2. Show that you’re listening with action
   • The best way to earn the respect and trust of your consumers is to value their opinions and feedback, and respond with action. A consumer feels an immediate connection to you when they feel like their voice has been heard.
3. Prioritize the relationship
   • While it may be difficult, the relationships with your consumers have to be put ahead of your bottom line. You need to trust that the relationships you develop with your consumers based on trust and respect will be a lasting source of conversions.
4. Follow through
   • Understand that when you humanize your brand, you’re making a commitment to your consumers to care about the passion and emotion you’re bringing into the mix. They’re engaging with you as a result of you caring about something, and that means you must always follow through on what you’re portraying.

While the benefits of humanizing your brand can be fruitful, it is also a large commitment. It is not simply a band-aid solution to marketing woes, it is a redefinition of your brand and what you stand for, and something you need to consistently deliver on once in place.

What are your thoughts on creating emotional connections with your customers to increase engagement with your brand? Let’s discuss…

The Basics of Branding

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, no matter what type of organization you run. Having an effective brand strategy can give you an upper hand in today’s competitive market. You may be asking, “What exactly does branding mean?” “What is a brand strategy?” and “How do these two things help my business grow?”

Put simply, your brand is a promise you make to your customer. Your brand tells customers who you are, who you want to be, and what they can expect from your products and/or service.

Are your services expensive and serve a niche market? Ask yourself, is your service high quality at a high-cost, or, low-cost but high-value? You’re going to have to choose, because you can’t be both. Who you are should be based on what your target market wants, and who they need you to be.

What is a Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is the what, where, when, how, and to whom you communicate your brand messages with. A good brand strategy differentiates your offering from your competitors’. In thinking about your brand, try answering the following:

• What is your company’s mission?
• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?

Learn the needs, habits and desires of your current and prospective customers. And don’t rely on what you think they think. Know what they think.

Brand Equity
Having a solid and consistent brand leads to strong brand equity (the intangible added value brought to your company’s products and/or services that makes it acceptable for your company to charge more for your products and/or services than what seemingly identical unbranded products charge).

A great example of brand equity is high-end footwear designer Christian Louboutin. Louboutin launched his line of luxury, red-bottomed women’s shoes in France in 1991. The red-lacquered soles have differentiated Louboutin from other luxury shoe brands, and have influenced women all over the world into buying and wearing high-end shoes. People will pay more for the promise of luxury, quality, and the red-bottomed recognition that comes with wearing Louboutins.

Bottom line: the more recognized your brand is, the more real estate you take up in your consumers’ minds, and the more power you have to persuade your target market to buy your brand.

Defining Your Brand
Trying to define your brand is like a journey of corporate self-discovery. It can be time-consuming, difficult and at times uncomfortable – but in the end, it’s worth it!

Is your brand defined? Do you have a strong brand strategy in place? Do you understand the needs, habits and desires of your current and prospective customers? Do you rely on what you THINK they know rather than KNOWING what they know? Comment and share your branding successes and failures with me. If you are looking to define your brand and/or develop a brand strategy, please feel free to contact me at 416-653-3053, or info@creativeworksmarketing.ca.

Impressions vs. Leads: Where Does The Real Value Lie?

As the owner of a strategic marketing agency, clients often ask me how many leads were generated from a campaign. My answer is often the same; what was the objective of the campaign? Was the campaign launched to generate leads or impressions?

But wait; can you have a lead without ever having made an impression?

If you are a smaller, unknown brand then generating leads can be challenging, but which comes first, the chicken (lead) or the egg (impression)? Although your marketing strategy should determine the objectives of a campaign, if you don’t have one, consider that there is a huge value in an impression.

In the spirit of “any PR is good PR”, impressions measure the number of times your ad was seen, which we consider to be brand building (a part of any solid marketing strategy). If someone sees your ad and, although they may not be your target market, they mention your ad to someone else they know who is in your desired target market, then voila, you have a lead! Now you must ask yourself how many viable leads resulted from that single impression.

Of course at the end of the day, marketing must measure engagement in hard metrics (like clicks, and conversion rates), but it is equally important to remember quality is more important than quantity and the path to that lead is often not as direct as you might think!

The engagement cycle takes many forms, starting with an impression that may result in a lead. In your online campaigns, which do you feel came first – the chicken or the egg? Share your thoughts in our comment section below.

Emotional Branding – Why your Business Needs it!

Making an emotional connection with your audience should be a year-round priority for your business, as consumers and clients (both B2B and B2C) make most of their buying decisions based on emotions. As I pursue business development opportunities, I aim to provide my potential clients with a brand that resonates with their audiences, and this often involves developing messaging that evokes emotion and impact.

Last year, I came across a blog by Jim Joseph of Entrepreneur and thought the message was worth reiterating with you: Many people have different interpretations about what brand positioning means. It’s one of those concepts that is hard to pin down, yet at the same time is so important to the success of your brand. Positioning is at the heart of your brand. It’s essentially the summation of everything your brand is about. Positioning is built from what you know to be true about your customer. It takes the benefits you’ve outlined and makes them meaningful to customers. In its simplest of forms, positioning is the mental space you want to occupy in your customer’s mind. It’s the first thing you want your customer to think about when they hear your brand name.

An emotional connection with your customer is the key to being a brand. But that emotional bond should be reflected in the positioning statement for the business. Positioning is more about emotions and less about the facts. That’s why marketers who think a claim about their product or service is a positioning statement, really miss the boat. The same goes for a description of your type of business. There’s no emotion in that and it’s emotions that differentiate a brand. Your brand’s positioning is the basis for building the brand experience across the entire marketing plan. The key is to make sure the actual brand experience delivers on what was intended in the positioning. Let’s take a look at a few big brands and what they’ve done for positioning. The tagline can often be a big hint:

• L’Oreal: “Because you’re worth it.”
• BMW: “The ultimate driving machine.”
• State Farm: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”
• Dove: “You are more beautiful than you think” – featured in photo above in ad called, “Real Beauty Sketches”

Notice the level of emotion in each of these taglines, which essentially highlights each brand’s positioning. Here’s how they might be translated into positioning statements:

• L’Oreal: Makes you feel valued and good about yourself.
• BMW: Makes you feel powerful.
• State Farm: Makes you feel secure and safe in times of need.
• Dove: Makes you see what other people see when they look at you.

These are obviously big blockbuster brands, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t do the same for your small business. Here are a few tips to creating a positioning statement for your company:

1. Think about the emotional benefit that you offer your customer.
2. Think about how you want your customer to feel about you, every time they think about you.
3. Try to capture that emotion in a brief statement that best describes what you can offer, and jot down a few options.
4. If you have a team, run the ideas by them and do a little brainstorming. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you start generating ideas.
5. If you need help with any of these, have a marketing agency facilitate this process, their expertise will help you.

Do you feel your brand makes an emotional connection with your customers? Please share your experiences in the comments below.