It’s too early to start your Christmas marketing, but it is time to start fine-tuning it. Consumers today, particularly millennials, choose brands they identify with and that often means brands that share their values. People want to use their disposable income to do good, and choosing a company that demonstrates ethics in line with their own is a popular way to do that. And Christmas is when our minds turn to charitable works, whether the holiday is at the core of our beliefs or not one we personally celebrate. Only Scrooge would be upset at the chance to do a good turn.
Corporate social responsibility is the term for businesses supporting various causes and ideas. It can be given to a specific charity, sponsoring the local GAA team or taking steps to make the internal workings of your company more socially responsible, such as Matrix’s recent focus on recycling. CSR is not a once-off campaign, but a broader philosophy behind how your company operates and how it markets itself.
To start with, you need to have a solid sense of your company’s philosophy and ethics. Think deeply about what sort of issues and causes link organically to your company’s product or location and how your target market sees them. For example, if your company produces or sells food or related products such as kitchen wares, hunger is an obvious and natural issue. A company selling pet supplies has a natural niche in animal welfare. Companies dealing in children’s clothes or toys link organically to education and child welfare.
Those are very broad issues. Hunger strikes every community, and it is a crisis in some places near and far. You can approach it in many ways. Food Cloud is a growing initiative where retailers channel surplus food to local charities who distribute it to homeless hostels and other programmes to feed those in need. It has the bonus, like many socially responsible efforts, of providing a benefit to the retailer. They no longer worry about disposing of surplus food. And people are happy to see food not being wasted. Another option is to donate money instead of actual food to a programme that has a natural connection to the business. A café might donate a portion of its profits to a hunger programme in a coffee-producing country.
Knowing your target market is essential to picking the best focus for your corporate giving. Some markets feel strongly about supporting local causes, while others take a more global view and are moved by the extreme deprivation in other countries. If you don’t feel confident, you can always ask your market. Social media gives customers and companies an easy way to interact. Why not post a poll giving people some options to choose about which causes are important to them?
Corporate social responsibility is not just giving. A clothing store can reuse hangers and post signs explaining they want to reduce the plastic being used. A restaurant might only use plastic straws when customers request them or include wooden cutlery with takeaways. But at Christmas, we are focused on giving.
Involving your customers is a great way to promote your brand and gain engagement with your base. You can start by polling them about the causes they most want you to support, but that’s only the beginning. Let them participate in the giving by making it a portion of your sales or your profits. Launch a campaign where people can donate at your retail locations, and then make a company donation reflecting what customers give. You can match what you raise or give a percentage of what people give such as a euro for every ten euros raised.
The marketing angle is that you make people aware of what you are doing. If you are matching funds, keep people up to date about how much you have raised on your website and social media. Blog about the cause you are supporting. Show real stories of the difference your company is making. This builds engagement and helps people identify with your brand. And it genuinely helps a cause. You can build your business while also building a better world. And if that doesn’t put you in the holiday spirit, nothing will!
Looking to build your own Christmas marketing strategy? Talk to our team of Digital Marketing ninjas today!
By Irene Hislop
By Conor McCaffrey