Promoting cause marketing on your website

 

Frequently I find myself in a conversation with a small business person when the topic turns to cause marketing or giving back and he or she will tell me that they have some sort of institutionalized program in their business in which they donate a portion of proceeds to charity. Since I am a proponent of cause marketing I am always excited when this happens. I am always surprised though when I go to their organizational websites and see that there is no mention of the program. If you are going to go to the trouble and expense of giving back, why not be loud and proud? Indeed, flaunting this program is good not just for you but for the charity! If you are donating a given percentage of your revenue to charity then providing that information to the public and generating more sales and more donations.

How to do this?

As an inherently lazy person, let me show you a site where I led the strategy. Secondipity, is a website that sells refurbished and returned items. Prior to founding Spring Insight, I led the charge to rebrand, redesign and relaunch this ecommerce website.  The charitable giving program was created to be a part of the brand and was “baked in” to the website and all of the marketing communications. 

1.  Create a page describing the program

On Secondipity, we called the program Secondipity Gives and had a page of the same name to promote the program. Notice that the page doesn’t just talk about the fact that the program exists, it gives tangible numbers showing the impact the program has had.  Visitors know that 4,328 students had received positive benefits from the program (at the time this screen shot was taken).

2. Promote the program at the point of purchase

As tempting as it is to write a page about the program and move on with your day, that is not enough.   For Secondipity, every single product page references the program. We wanted our visitor to know about this program when she was ready to buy.

Next week we return to Secondipity as we look at how you can use your marketing channels to promote your organization through your giving.

~e