It's hard to believe that we are officially in year 2020! With the rise of conscious consumerism that isn't slowing down anytime soon, your focused marketing efforts and investments should take into consideration a cause marketing campaign. Cause marketing is the perfect way to go beyond profits and build trusting relationships with your customers while making a commitment to bettering the world.
As we reflect on the 2019 holiday shopping season, U.S. holiday shoppers spent 19% more on their online shopping this year than they did a year ago, according to data from Mastercard SpendingPulse. In-store sales also rose a comparatively small 1.2%, as e-commerce reached a record high share of nearly 15% of total sales. Overall sales increased 3.4% from 2018, even though the traditional holiday shopping season was six days shorter this year. This is great news for consumer confidence and could be a potential foreshadow to 2020 spending trends.
So we wanted to share with you a few examples from our partners on how to support giving back, along with a few simple marketing tactics to make sure you are engaging your customers as you enter the new year. Take a look at ways you can elevate your business through cause marketing.
1. Engage Your Client's Customers through Giving Back
One of the simplest ways to engage your customers is to take advantage of integrations that are already available to make giving back seamless in your customer's shopping experience. We suggest turning to a donation technology platform to streamline your efforts. If you have a Shopify store you can easily integrate with donation technology apps that allow retailers to give customers the power to donate a percentage of their purchase total to a charity of their choice at checkout.
Not only do their customers have the power to choose which charities they want to donate to, but they can also keep track of their donations over time. Leveraging app integrations to automate giving not only saves you resources, but it will save you time on finding solutions to generate impact through multiple touchpoints in the customer journey. There are even apps that feature the amount of donation on the product level, plus show the customer the sum donation total at checkout.
Take Kobelli for instance, they implemented their donation technology directly into their chat feature giving the customer the upfront and center exposure that's needed to nudge customer towards giving back through purchases. In addition, they leverage a Shopify Marketplace app called Gorgias to engage customers from the chat as they browse the site.
2. Create Feel Good Cause-Related Homepage Content
The new year opens the door to a plethora of content creation opportunities! One of the main areas would be upfront and center on your website so customers can be a part of your corporate social responsibility strategy. Be sure to include calls to action that engage customers to learn more about their selected cause and how to donate. Everyone that visits your site should see your efforts right away!
Golftini is doing all the right things, with a clear call to action and graphics to let the customer know what cause they support. It's important to note that if you are giving on behalf of the customer, you must communicate this. Especially if it won't cost the customer anything to donate!
3. Get the Word Out on Social
We suggest creating targeted and relevant content for your feeds and stories, but also for your profile and/or header images to promote giving back through purchases.
Enable your loyal and new followers to engage, support and especially SHARE this new campaign. Make sure to link to the campaign or donation page in the About Section. Plus, post on each platform to reach your entire audience including Linkedin, especially if you are trying to engage potential B2B relationships.
4. Create a Memorable Remarketing Campaign
It's so important to commit and invest in your CSR campaign. Allocate a budget to ad spend that remarkets to your email lists to keep your customers engaged in 2020. Make sure threads you create are clear about who you are supporting if you've chosen a cause to support, or let the customer know they have the power to choose a cause to support. Promote giving through the FB donate system and Google Ads and make sure to monitor engagements to edit messaging based on metrics. Don't forget to tag the nonprofits that are being supported so they can share your efforts for continued exposure!
Another great way to remarket is to create a flyer to add to current purchase packages to let customers know their future purchases will create an impact. On average, brands actually spend up to 11 times more on recruiting new customers than retaining existing ones (Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index). Make it a point to invest in current customers which increases ROI and can deepen the authentic relationship with your audiences.
5. Send a Friendly Reminder
Once you have donation logistics set up and your website refresh is up and running, don't forget to create an email campaign supporting giving back through purchases. People will already be looking for ways to get involved, so don't hesitate to push to be a creative presence in their inbox. We suggest also thanking supporters and welcoming new supporters.
Email is a great way to tell a story, so utilize this format to get a bit more in-depth with why you are trying to give back in 2020. Also, make sure to set a goal to ramp up participation and benchmark support throughout the year. Make this into a year-long or quarterly giving campaign that helps your customers feel like they are a part of something bigger!
Always look for the opportunity to create a followup campaign, so be sure to communicate the impact created back to the customer. This is a great opportunity to build an authentic relationship with your customers.
In terms of sales, brands that are viewed as making the world a better place have seen their profits grow up to 9 times more than companies who are not (Havas' Meaningful Brands 2019 report). Take this opportunity to become a part of the most impactful and positive consumer movements of our generation while creating authentic relationships with customers. It's a win-win for you, your customers and the world.