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Take Heart With Cause Marketing (Updated 10.20.08)
October 13, 2008
Integrating Cause Marketing into Your Trade Show Strategy
By Lynn Shattuck
Today's customer wants its suppliers to be best-of-all-worlds providers—great product, great service, great price and really great people. Thus, in the interest of proving the later, cause marketing has become a key staple of corporate life.
It's no wonder. Cause marketing illustrates who and what the brand stands for in a clear and tangible manner. It shows not only that your company cares, it identifies exactly what it is that it cares about. It is a moral selection, fueled by emotion and conviction.
Implemented correctly, cause marketing can add an additional brand-defining dimension to an exhibit or marketing event. But done incorrectly, it can backfire—making your company look calculating and superficial. Conrad Birdie, of musical theater fame, said it best when he warned would-be imitators, "You gotta be sincere." If attendees detect self-promotion as the incentive for your cause marketing campaign—and attendees can smell spin a mile away—the very customer you'd hoped to attract will walk away with a bad taste in their mouth.
Seven best practices:
1. Make it personal to your company and customers. The best way to promote the "heart of your company" is to support a cause which your company, customers and/or industry have a personal connection to. For instance, when exhibit manufacturer Nomadic Display discovered that one of its distributors was the founder of Helen's Pajama Party, the company decided to support the cause. As a woman-owned company with a majority of women customers, supporting an organization which provides pajamas to abused women in shelters made perfect sense.
Throughout 2008, Nomadic Display integrated a pajama collection station into its trade show exhibits and has tapped into its network of industry connections to drive participation. "The response has been overwhelming. The people we appeal to feel a strong connection with these women who are struggling and jump at the chance to support them," says Gwen Parsons, Senior V.P for Nomadic Display.
2. Show something about your company. For the American Association of Blood Banks Annual Meeting and TXPO 2007, Chiron, a company dedicated to increasing blood safety, selected the Hepatitis Foundation International for its work toward eliminating viral hepatitis, a blood related disease. This choice not only showed that Chiron shared its practitioner customers’ concerns, it was a direct reflection of the company's brand attributes and corporate culture.
Before the show, Chiron sent registered attendees a glass heart with a card that said, "Show us your heart." The card said Chiron would make a donation to the Hepatitis Foundation International for every heart returned. The activity drew an impressive 25% response. "Practitioners were pleased to learn that Chiron is contributing to something that benefits patient welfare. It showed that the company really does care," says Tom Frisby, Idea Shaper for leading exhibit and event firm Czarnowski.
3. Connect the dots between your cause and your action. Lowepro, a manufacturer of protective bags and backpacks for photographic equipment, and its customer base share a commitment to the natural world. In 2007, the company partnered with Polar Bear International to raise awareness about the endangered polar bear habitat and the effects of global warming.
At Photo Marketing Association 2007, Lowepro highlighted its support of Polar Bear International in its exhibit with an experience that related the company's products to its environmental concerns. "We told the deeper story about how the bag advances Lowepro’s commitment to the environment," says Sam Marsh, marketing communications manager for Lowepro A kiosk with a rotating platform provided a sneak peek at Lowepro's new Primus AW bag, made with Cyclepet® (manufactured from recycled plastic PET soda and water bottles). Placards placed beside collection containers explained that the recycled content removes plastic from the waste stream, reduces oil consumption and ultimately helps to reduce global warming which is threatening the polar bear's habitat. (agency: Cyclonix).
4. Solicit customer participation. In support of Partners Against Pain, Purdue Pharma implemented a We Care Wall of Support at each of its shows—created by the attendees. A room drop containing a gift wrapped stone invited attendees to add their stone to the Wall of Support in the Purdue Pharma exhibit, for which Purdue Pharma made a donation to Partners Against Pain. By the end of the show, the wall stood as a visual expression of Purdue Pharma’s charitable support (agency: Czarnowski). "Customers are more likely to understand your commitment and retain your message when you engage them in an activity," says Frisby.
5. Invite your customers to personalize their contribution. Nomadic Display elevated its cause marketing campaign to a truly heartfelt event by incorporating a personal touch. "We asked donors to include a hand-written gift tag and we set up a site visit to the shelter to reinforce both the donors and the recipients as individuals," says Parsons. The result was that participants felt an even greater connection to the cause.
6. Let the experience segue naturally into the next step. While cause marketing connects you with your customers on an emotional level and accelerates relationship building, transitioning into a business conversation has to be subtle and natural. Otherwise you run the risk of appearing disingenuous—which will quickly undo everything you've accomplished.
The best approach is to let your cause marketing activity do the talking. For instance, as attendees recycled their water bottles in the Lowepro exhibit, they naturally started to interact and discuss their own environmental actions and concerns.
7. Follow up so people see the results of their efforts. After the show or event, provide participants with a thank you underscored by a summary of how much money was raised, how many books were collected or some other measure of your cumulative success. Not only does it make attendees feel good, it provides you with another customer touch point. "Closing the loop is critical—it solidifies the charitable action and allows your customer to participate in the success of the campaign," says Marty McGreevy, president of Cyclonix.
Lynn Shattuck is a freelance writer in Portland, Maine.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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