Cause Marketing Through Social Media 10
Cause Marketing Through Social Media 10
Cause Marketing Through Social Media 10
A free eGuide for corporations from your friends at Network for Good and Zoetica
Network for Good is a nonprofit that makes it easy for donors to support any charity, anywhere online and that helps nonprofits raise funds for their missions through simple, affordable and effective online fundraising services. Through partnership with corporations, Network for Good enables cause marketing initiatives and charitable giving solutions on company websites. Were here to help your company do well by doing good with solutions to: Embed donations on your website Reward consumers or employees with The Good Card a gift card for charity Host an online social good campaign Promote holiday giving for consumers or employees Enable giving in the wake of a humanitarian disaster
Zoetica serves nonprofits and socially conscious companies with top-tier, word-of-mouth communication services. A social enterprise, Zoetica provides superior communication consulting, training, and strategy to help mindful organizations affect social change. www.zoeticamedia.com Zoetica provides five areas of service for organizations looking to engage online: Market assessment and research Marketing communications strategy Communications training Guidelines and structure Implementation support
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Can you communicate the social benefit? Can you link the social benefit to your brand or business offering? What campaign format will deliver the most social and business impact? Is your audience primed? Should you promote celebrity involvement? Step 3: Get People to Act p. 13
Should you provide incentives? Is it easy to participate? Have you created a sense of urgency? Are you inviting your audience to a conversation? Are you communicating with your audience where they are online? Step 4: Build on Momentum p. 16
Have you embedded a competitive element? Have you lowered the participation hurdle? Will you give interim rewards? Will you provide social proof? Can you tell your story? Step 5: Be Prepared for Times of Disaster p. 19
Can you flip the switch quickly? Have you addressed the response needs of your customers and employees? Do you offer a clear way to help? Can you communicate appropriately with customers and employees? Can you amplify the impact?
Introduction: Why companies are using their social media communities to do good
"When you do something good, it used to be that you had to buy a bunch of media and tell people or do PR. Now, the potential is for people to tell each other that you do good." - Joe Marchese, President of SocialVibeiii, as quoted in Adweekiv Mashable proclaimed that 2009 was the year of social mediav in a post about the incredible growth of social media use across the web. It appears that 2010 is on track to be the year of social media for social good with the rise of online cause marketing campaigns. From Targets Bullseye Givesvi contest, to the Chase Community Givingvii program, to USA Today's #AmericaWantsviii Twitter hashtag campaign, companies are engaging their audiences around charity in new and innovative ways online especially on social media platforms and boldly linking their brands to philanthropy and social responsibility. According to a report published by onPhilanthropyix, North American companies are dramatically stepping up their sponsorship of cause marketing initiatives. The report cites an IEG, Inc. studyx to illustrate the growth in North American cause marketing spending over the last five years, with a slight slowdown in 2009 due to the recession. And 2010 is already showing a fast and furious increase with contests like the Pepsi Refresh Projectxi grabbing national attention.
Companies are spending more on cause marketing, but are they spending smart? With the rise of social media usage and decline of trust in Corporate America following a wave of recent scandals and financial missteps, companies increasingly turn to new online cause marketing initiatives social good campaigns to drive consumer interest, link their brands to charity and counterbalance negative PR about social harms that arise as a cost of doing business. Companies use social good campaigns to create a halo effect for the brand with their customers and thereby do well by doing good, as the old adage goes. Melissa Carrier, Executive Director of the Center for Social Value Creationxii at the University of Marylands Robert H. Smith School of Business, remarks, "With unprecedented sophistication, companies are linking traditional business objectives to the tangible and intangible benefits of going beyond financial metrics to tie customers, suppliers, employees, and the community in which they operate to something of greater social value. The resulting "C" change is certainly playing itself out in social media and there is much room for creative design ahead." Most cause marketing initiatives are conceived by marketers with good intentions about social good, but strong allegiances to brand power and buzz. Flashy new social media tools make these campaigns very enticing, but its important for initiatives to stick to what marketing expert Katya Andresenxiii terms the four essentials of cause marketingxiv:
1. Suitability: Does the cause connection to your brand make sense in the mind of your consumer?
Consumers must see a legitimate connection between the product brand and the cause tie-in. For example, the outdoor living protection company, Mosquito Squadxv, hosts the Swat Malaria with Mosquito Squadxvi campaign to educate about the risks of mosquito bites and raise funds for cause partner Malaria No Morexvii and its health programs in Africa. That makes a good fit.
Time will tell what sustaining role crowdsourced philanthropy will play in the charity sector. In the meantime, its important for companies to consider how their campaigns will impact the resources of participating charities and keep the barriers to participate as low as possible.
Who is the campaign audience and what action do you want them to take?
Understanding who you are trying to reach and what action you want them to take through your cause marketing campaign is essential. Do you want people to buy a specific cause-branded product? Are you trying to get them to help you allocate a philanthropic contribution? Are you seeking generous donors or volunteers that can represent your brand? Are you looking to create a groundswell of support for an issue near and dear to your company?
USA Today's #AmericaWantsxliv Twitter hashtag campaign had a very clear audience (charities and their
advocates) and call to action (post Twitter updates). People were encouraged to tweet #AmericaWants (name of charity) to get a full-page ad in USA TODAY, with the recipient of the most tweets receiving a fullpage color ad in the paper. The campaign allowed charities to get attention on Twitter (and one lucky charity to get attention in front of USA Today readers) and gave USA Today exposure for its What America Wants brand campaign that promotes the papers unique take on the American Experience through media. Because the call to action was concrete and clear, the four day campaigns potential reach was over 67 million followers on Twitter through 60,000 tweets in support of over 500 organizations. While this campaign made a big splash, its unclear whether it achieved any long term benefit for the charities involved. As hashtag Twitter campaigns evolve, it will be important to include more of a community building approach as described in the next section. No matter your campaign goal, you will need to define your target audience and the best way to reach them to compel the desired action online and off. Ideally, the desired action should be tied to sustainable impact for the business and the cause (building a community, focusing attention on a topic etc).
Pedigreexlv, a pet food brand within Mars, Inc., does a great job of community building around issues pet owners care about that also support the brands core values that every pet deserves a good home and good nutrition. The Pedigree Adoption Drivexlvi on Facebook has recruited over 1 million fans that do much more than just sign up they comment, post pictures, attend events and are evangelist brand advocates. The social media strategy also maintains close ties with the Pedigree Foundationxlvii, creating a reinforcing connection between the brand and its charitable activities.
Be in tune with your social web community and the causes they care about. Make sure the cause or campaign focus you choose ties back to the companys corporate mission. Determine an appropriate campaign approach (See Step 2 below). Define a measurable goal for the campaign. Look at your strategy, and it will tell you exactly what to measure for ROI and social impact. At the end of the day, the campaign should achieve something worthwhile: market intelligence, micro-donations, new product feedback, click-throughs to a store, registrants for a webinar, an email list, or some other result. You must be able to declare victory. Choose a simple and relatively low-cost campaign pilot. Rather than going for the gold with millions, try a targeted allocation. When fear is involved, an easy, affordable project often gets a green light. Set a short timeframe for the pilot: you want to make this a quick test.
Can you link the social benefit to your brand or business offering?
Communicating the social good your campaign will create is relatively straightforward. Linking that benefit to your brand can be more challenging. Consumers will quickly evaluate whether the cause you are promoting makes sense in the context of the brand. To take an offline example, KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure recently became media targets for their Buckets for the Curexlix campaign to promote breast cancer awareness. While both parties had good intentions to raise funds and awareness for an important issue, consumers balked at tying fried food to womens health. In contrast, Stonyfield Farm is a great example of a company that clearly links its social investment with its core business in a way that makes perfect sense to consumers. With the Have a Cowl campaign, the company invites customers to learn more about its organic farming practices, promoting transparency and dovetailing with its overall social responsibility platform and commitment to give away 10% of profitsli. As Amy Sample Wardlii observes, the campaign also gives Stonyfield Farm a creative and engaging social media presence through blogs, farm cam video diaries, Twitter updates and the like.
What campaign format will deliver the most social and business impact?
Program design has everything to do with your impact goals and very little to do with the hot, new social media application du jour. When thinking about how to format your campaign, its vital to consider how you can connect your audience to those impact goals. What design will address the needs of your target stakeholders (consumers, causes, marketing team, corporate relations), win over more participants, incite better PR, and ultimately result in more social good? A crowdsourced voting platform la Pepsi Refresh Projectliii or Targets Bullseye Givesliv snags media attention and results in lots of dollars going to causes, but the format also sparks controversy about whether it creates lasting social impact. As consumers and causes become savvy participants in online cause marketing contests, they will demand more: more transparency, more measurement, more impact. A simple vote-a-thon for a purse is unlikely to create more than a marketing splash and could invoke serious criticism if not meticulously executed. Not sure where to start? Here are a few popular campaign formats to contemplate. Matching Grant Contests: These types of contests provide a great way to tap into your audiences passion for different causes and align that fervor with your brand. Matching grants provide incentive so that regardless of overall performance, votes and activity from consumers create reward. Customers and employees feel that their actions mattered, causes get additional resources, and the campaign reinforces engagement and loyalty. A good example of a successful matching grant contest is Americas Giving Challengelv presented by The Case Foundation,lvi PARADElvii and Causes on Facebooklviii. This 30day competition, held on Causes.com, rallied passionate individuals and their social networks in support of organizations competing to win daily and overall challenge grants based on the number of donations to their cause, not dollars raised. Or Consider Intels Involved Matching Grant Programlix that seeks to motivate Intel employees globally to engage in outreach and volunteerism. In 2009, 38 percent of Intel employeeslx donated 989,681 hours of service, and the Intel Foundation provided $6.8 million in matching grants to 4,500 schools and nonprofits. Crowdsourced Voting Contests: These types of contests are relatively new and receive much media scrutiny as people weigh the benefits of giving to the cause with the highest popularity, but not necessarily the best social impact. Two recent examples illustrate how voting contests can work. One is the Bullseye Giveslxi contest, where Targetlxii allowed its Facebook community to vote on which ten charities should receive funding. The other is the Members Project from American Express and Takepartlxiii, where people can vote for a different set of 50 charities every three months, 5 of which will receive $200,000 in funding available from American Expresslxiv. It is worth a moment to reflect on recent criticism several charity sector thought leaders have raised about the true social value of crowdsourced philanthropy programs and restate how important it is to consider your campaigns effect on participating nonprofits staff and resources. Voting contests circumvent the traditional grant process that relies on expert opinion, theories of change and impact measurement instead of number of fans and social media savvy to determine grant worthiness. As mentioned above, these types of campaigns also require a big effort by participating charities to recruit an online networks support, resources that may be better spent on community programming especially if the charity does not win a grant. As Kelly Kleiman of Nonprofiteer.netlxv observed on the Huffington Postlxvi, crowdsourced philanthropy also diverts the attention of nonprofits from real fundraising which involves long-term relationships and commitment to mission to point-and-click fundraising, which costs "donors" nothing and therefore gives them no stake in the institution. If you plan a voting campaign for charity, be sure to consider and address these issues and be ready to defend your methodology. Toms of Maine proactively addressed this issue in the format for its 50
States for Goodlxvii campaign. While there is a public voting component to the contest, the finalist charities selected to receive votes were chosen by a panel of independent judges with charity sector expertise. Judging was based on the charity projects use of community volunteers, achievability, and positive impact on the community. This hybrid approach ensures that several charities receive media attention just by being chosen as finalists, that numerous other charities wont spend valuable resources on a public contest they likely wont win and that the winning charities will put the grant funds to meaningful use. Social Action Campaigns: These types of campaigns motivate an audience to take action in support of a cause or in the spirit of doing good or paying it forward. Because the focus isnt on how much money is being channeled to a given cause, these types of programs can inspire a new category of participant who values getting involved and wants to recruit a social network of peers to take action, too. A great example of a social action program is Yahoo!slxviii You In?lxix campaign, where the company asked people to share their random acts of kindness (good deeds) in online status updates and then ask others in their networks to do the same, creating a ripple of happiness in the world. (See Case Study on page 15) Issue Awareness Campaigns: These types of campaigns rally an audience around a cause or issue that is important to the company or brand. The call to action is not necessarily around donations although that can be a component but rather around creating a movement to affect change. The Haagen Dazs Help the Honey Beeslxx project is a perfect example of an issue awareness campaign that unites brand supporters around a social cause that is directly linked to the brand. The project provides many opportunities to get involved from donating, to planting a garden, to buying special products and engages supporters through a micro site, viral videos, online games and contests and Facebook and Twitter messaging.
Another element of campaign format is how many charities to involve. In some cases, the format will dictate if one or many charities will be included. In other instances, you will have to evaluate if choice in charity is a key component of your campaigns strategy to achieve impact goals. Campaign participants often have very passionate ties to the causes they care about. Cone researchlxxi indicates that over one-third of Americans would support a company that allows them to decide which charities benefit from cause marketing efforts. When its an option, consumer choice in charity can be a powerful motivator for participation and will ultimately connect the individuals passion for a cause with your brand. Just look at the frenzy of activity during Americas Giving Challengelxxii as proof that participants will evangelize their support for a cause and inspire their personal networks to do the same. Dont you want that fervor connected to your brand?
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expertise. For example, during the 2009 Americas Giving Challengelxxv, the hosts proactively mentored nonprofit participants prior to the contest to provide technical assistance through the Case Gear Up for Givinglxxvi training series, a PARADE video presentationlxxvii and the Causes Q&A sessionslxxviii. Helping charities understand the rules and best prepare for success, promotes better, more involved, participation and happier participants. Dana Nelsonlxxix, Executive Director of GiveMNlxxx, outlines several ways companies can help nonprofit partners improve participation rates among their networks: Create template materials (press releases, logos, branded emails, quotes etc) Outline clear guidelines (simple and consistent) Set a realistic level of effort (or perspective on the return on effort for participating causes) Do a campaign sanity check (run your program by a nonprofit partner or community advisory board to make sure your guidelines and goals are appropriate for cause participants)
The key to priming your campaign audience: Help cause advocates and participating charities reach out early to their networks, get their buy-in and turn them loose to drum up support for the campaign. Evangelicals are Wired Fundraiserslxxxi word-of-mouth pros who are highly effective at fundraising for a cause in an ever-widening personal sphere of influence online. Wired Fundraisers have a deep emotional connection to the causes they support and if they believe in your companys cause marketing platform, they will embrace your brand and campaign with the same enthusiasm. They are very good at what they do for a simple reason: people are most likely to give when someone they know asks them (2006 Cone Nonprofit Researchlxxxii), especially when the appeal is couched in a very personal and emotional context.
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standards, his ability to move large audiences online is amazing. At the interactive portion of SxSWlxxxvii, Gary Vee lent his name to Invisible People.TVlxxxviii, which won the SxSW Pepsi Refresh Challengelxxxix with some very strong peer-to-peer grassroots activism at several parties. The charity received a grant of $50,000, beating out Mashablexc, a top ten online media property.
Its clear that contests will continue, whether in the form of a matching grant program, a crowdsourced voting contest, or some new hybrid. The key for companies and their cause partners is to ensure program design based on best practice and create a win-win across social good and marketing impact. Best practice includes going beyond marketing measurements to include transparency and smart reporting, clear benefits for a significant portion of participants (matching grants?), a measurable social outcome, and celebrity or subject matter experts when appropriate.
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Is it easy to participate?
Once you have communicated the rationale and benefit exchange for the campaign to your audience, you have to make it easy for people to act on that information in the moment. Brand marketers are often enamored of flash technology with all the latest bells and whistles and seek those extras when envisioning an online cause marketing campaign. But you need to take a moment to consider your audience. While consumers may have facility with mainstream social media sites, most of the causes they support dont utilize sophisticated technology and will have a hard time communicating how to use your application to their constituents if it is too cutting edge. Its far more important to spend planning efforts on Step 2 above, than in getting the design team to create Web 3.0 functionality. The Pepsi Refresh Project Celebrity Challengexcviii on Facebook shows how new technology presents new challenges to engaging consumers. Pepsi made marketing history by diverting its Super Bowl advertising budget to fund a series of monthly grants to community projects created and voted on by the public each
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month during 2010. To kick off the project, Pepsi hosted a Celebrity Challenge that pitted actors Kevin Baconxcix and Demi Moorec against each other to win $250,000 for their grant project. The Facebook page featured a spiffy application that played videos of the stars explaining their projects and allowed fans to vote once a day for their favorite. While the application was stunning, the functionality created a slight barrier to taking action and sharing that action with others. People had to remember to go to the application every day to vote and when they shared their vote in their status update, the link for others to follow and vote didnt always work. This glitch forced voters to take extra efforts to share their participation with their networks and likely dampened the viral spread the celebrity factor was meant to inspire. This example speaks to the need to test new functionality extensively before unveiling it to millions of users, just as Pepsi likely did with the sleek voting technology it features on the Pepsi Refresh Project website www.refresheverything.com, where the monthly grant competition takes place.
Are you communicating with your audience where they are online?
As your campaign evolves, it is important to make sure your outreach follows your audience. For example, if your campaign is being hosted on Facebook, but your audience is having the conversation via comments on blog posts about the campaign, you need to show up on those blogs.
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A great example of a campaign following the conversation that is happening, rather than the one it planned, is the Pepsi Refresh Projectciv. The campaign received criticism for being perceived as a popularity contest on several charity sector blogs. Pepsis Bonin Bough countered those critics on Allison H. Fines blogcv offering, Were betting on the American people (never a bad bet) to submit and vote on ideas that will really make a difference in their communities. Thats why were working with GOODcvi and GlobalGiving,cvii and thats why weve conducted extensive outreach with the nonprofit community: we want to make sure that the grants that Pepsi Refresh gives will go to ideas that can truly make a difference. Pepsi proactively addressed negative feedback and changed the discussion.
The Impact: Yahoo! inspired over 320,000 people to do random acts of kindness and encourage their friends and family to do the same. Status messages ranged from something as simple as I just paid for coffee for the person behind me in line. You In? to I just dropped off 3 warm coats from my closet to a homeless shelter. You in? In addition to engaging people in online social tools, another goal was to generate positive press for Yahoo! that represented its brand values of fun, human, relevant, and personal. Further, the campaign drove one million brand impressions for nonprofit partners Network for Good, Global Giving and DonorsChoose and resulted in more than $20,000 in donations to nonprofit organizations in the form of large scale random acts of kindness inspired by its community.
The Takeaways: 1. Keep it simple. Yahoo! kept the call to action for the You In? campaign very simple update your status with a random act of kindness and encourage your friends and family to do the same. 2. Go where your community already is. Instead of driving traffic to a separate destination, Yahoo! found that the best strategy was going where people already were, for instance in Yahoo! Mail. 3. Empower your influencers. As part of the campaign, Yahoo! gave $100 each to 300 internal and external influencers. Each of these influencers spread the word among their own social networks, acted as evangelists on Yahoo!s behalf, and created a buzz around the campaign that Yahoo! couldnt have done on their own.
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Americas Giving Challengecx created daily challenge grants to allow more nonprofits to share in the matching grant funds. An added benefit of these daily prizes was that they gave smaller nonprofits an opportunity to consolidate their smaller networks participation to amount to a big impact at a set time, rather than dribbles of support across the campaign. Thus, smaller nonprofits were encouraged to join the contest and got to see their names on the leader board. This type of exposure is invaluable to small charities with limited resources.
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Engagement: Every year, Tyson donates 8-10 million pounds of protein to hunger and disaster relief. Tyson strives to use the donation events to educate and engage communities on hunger relief.
In 2008, the company joined the Social Media Club of Austin (TX), 501 Tech Club of Austin, and the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas and challenged Twitter users by offering to donate 100 pounds of food, up to a 35,000 pound truckload, for every comment on a blog post about hunger in the Austin, TX area. The 350 comments needed to fill the truck were received in less than four hours, with more than 650 comments coming in altogether (Tyson added another truckload after the first was filled). Similar efforts have occurred in Boston, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 2009, Tyson, Scott Henderson, Media Sauce and others launched the Pledge to End Hunger at Austins South by Southwest Interactive festival. This virtual food drive promised a truckload of donated food to each of five states that had the most people who went online to sign a Pledge to End Hunger. In 2010, the effort was expanded into WeCanEndThis, a multi-faceted program that included the virtual food drive (expanded to include ten states) and cause lab at the SXSWi festival, which brought together innovative thinkers in a day-long session focused on applying new approaches to ending hunger. Tyson also encouraged its 107,000 domestic employees to get involved in hunger relief through the Powering the Spirit program, which promotes volunteerism and donations in support of hunger relief efforts in their own communities. The Impact: Tyson continues to engage the hunger relief community, as well as recruit new supporters to the cause, through online connections and discussion. Comment for Food efforts generated more than 4,100 comments on Tysons Hunger Relief site. The Tyson Twitter account now has more than 6,000 followers. The list of Hunger Twitterers first posted on the blog in 2009 has grown to over 150 members. Supporters have written more than 40 blog entries about the companys hunger efforts, including an Innovative Giving post in Fast Company Online and a piece in the Huffington Post. To date, thousands of Tyson employees joined hunger relief efforts, from volunteering at local food banks, to conducting fundraising efforts on behalf of hunger relief in their own communities. Online efforts have also strengthened mainstream media efforts, all of which generated more than 168 million impressions in 2009. The Takeaways: When asked about what he thought the biggest takeaways from Tyson Foods Hunger Relief effort were, Ed Nicholson, Director of Community and Public Relations, Tyson Foods, Inc. said "Shine the spotlight on the cause and what others are doing, rather than yourself. It will generally reflect favorably back on you. Pound-for-pound, authentic engagement trumps cash. And you probably have resources the cause needs desperately, even if it isnt money."
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In response to the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, Capital Onecxx was quick to change its No Hassle Giving Sitecxxi homepage to outline how its cardholders could support the relief efforts and to reach out to customers through email with instructions on how to help. Capital One also implemented an employee giving campaign, including matching contributions, in support of GlobalGivings relief fundcxxii. Because of the companys swift, targeted action, the Giving Site drove over $1.4 million in donations for Haiti relief. (See Case Study on page 22) Being able to react quickly during a disaster response requires forethought and planning. Having a disaster plan and strategic partnerships in place will allow your company to respond responsibly and in a way that reassures customers and employees.
Have you addressed the response needs of your customers and employees?
Understanding your customer and employee audiences will help you tailor your disaster response effort and promote a call to action that meets their needs. Most people look for a clear way to donate to firstresponder charities in the immediate aftermath of a humanitarian disaster. However, there are times when your company may be able to facilitate other responses that are specific to your capabilities, location or constituents. Are your employees specially trained, like the medical staff who volunteer with Doctors Without Borderscxxiii? Do you have a product that can help in the recovery effort, like Dawncxxiv, a brand of Procter & Gamble, which sent thousands of bottles of detergent to support wildlife clean-up during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? Does your company have expertise that will help relief organizations like FedExcxxv, which uses its vast transportation and logistics resources to deliver emergency supplies and equipment to relief organizations like the Red Crosscxxvi that are responding to disasters on the ground? There may be unique ways your company and your constituents can respond that go beyond opening wallets.
Once you select the trusted charities to feature, its time to spread the call to action. During the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Yahoo!cxxxii and AOLcxxxiii were quick to feature how to help links both on their homepages and embedded within news coverage of the disaster throughout their sites. These links allowed their readers to make a secure donation through a trusted donation processing partner (in this case Network for Good) right when the call to action was the most powerful.
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The Impact: Capital One set a goal of facilitating a million dollars in earthquake relief donations from cardholders, employees and corporate sources across the Giving Site and offline bank network. In total, Capital One exceeded its goal, facilitating over $1.4 million in donations to Haiti relief charities. Rewards donations were particularly effective, generating several hundred thousand dollars in donations without requiring customers to even open their wallets. Capital One also stood out as a positive example in the wake of media outcry over credit card companies who reserve 3% of charitable donations to cover transaction costs and are often vilified for appearing to profit from human tragedy. Capital One has always covered transaction costs for donations made through the Giving Site, demonstrating that a gesture of goodwill can go a long way in generating loyalty and reciprocal generosity. The Takeaways: 1. Make it super-easy for your customers to take action. Provide a clear call to action and minimize distractions on the path to completing a donation. 2. Focus the project on what is absolutely necessary to achieve your desired outcomes. In other words, dont get sidetracked from the main goal of driving donations to charity. 3. Encourage all of your employees to get involved. Their generosity will help the overall effort and their enthusiasm will support marketing efforts to customers.
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Conclusion
As the Corporate Social Responsibility movement evolves, companies will continue to leverage cause marketing initiatives to meet new, triple bottom line demands and create a halo effect for brands. The potential for online social good campaigns to achieve real impact both in terms of return on marketing spend and return on social good remains high, if companies are thoughtful and strategic in how they structure their cause marketing programs. Cause Marketing is at its best when all the pieces relevant cause, strong marketing proposition, and compelling call to action come together. Its difficult to do, but really worth it. In navigating the risks and rewards of online cause marketing campaigns, companies need to remain true to their brand, consumers and employees. In times of disaster, they need to be authentic about their intent to give. All the pieces come together when companies have a clear understanding of what they stand for and how a partnership in the cause sector will impact all stakeholders involved the company, the cause and the participants. Real cause marketing success results when a campaign reinforces the brand as it inspires others to take action and make a difference.
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End Notes
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http://www1.networkforgood.org/ http://zoeticamedia.com/ iii http://www.socialvibe.com/ iv http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3i505437152ed7136732e3539164d7a00a v http://mashable.com/2009/04/17/web-in-numbers-social-media/ vi http://pressroom.target.com/pr/news/community/other-community/online-bullseye-launch.aspx vii http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving viii http://tiny.cc/86jg2 ix http://onphilanthropy.com/2006/the-year-in-onphilanthropy-the-biggest-stories-of-2006/ x http://tiny.cc/wzti9 xi http://www.refresheverything.com/ xii http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/svc/ xiii http://www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com/site/about/ xiv http://www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com/comments/4_essentials_of_cause_related_marketing_for_2008/ xv http://www.mosquitosquad.com/ xvi http://www.malarianomore.org/news/features/_swat_malaria__with_mosquito_squad/ xvii http://www.malarianomore.org/ xviii http://www.pureprevention.org/home.php xix http://www.breastcancerfund.org/ xx http://www.pfpchallenge.com/Default.aspx xxi http://www.nbc.com/the-biggest-loser/ xxii http://feedingamerica.org/ xxiii http://www.generalmills.com/ xxiv http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/index.aspx xxv http://www.24hourfitness.com/ xxvi http://www.kroger.com/Pages/default.aspx xxvii http://www.coneinc.com/files/2010-Cone-Cause-Evolution-Study.pdf xxviii http://www.nbwebexpress.com/information/pinkribbon.asp xxix http://ww5.komen.org/ xxx http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002071/ xxxi http://www.cancerforcollege.org/WILL_FERRELL_SUNSCREEN.html xxxii http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/ xxxiii http://www.buylesscrap.org/ xxxiv http://mashable.com/2010/02/02/corporate-social-responsibility/ xxxv http://www.brandfog.com/ xxxvi http://mashable.com/2010/02/02/corporate-social-responsibility/ xxxvii http://www.yoplait.com/slsl/ xxxviii http://ww5.komen.org/ xxxix http://www.casefoundation.org/projects/giving-challenge xl http://www.refresheverything.com/ xli http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving xlii http://forgenow.org/ xliii http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/forging-ahead/archive/2009/12/15/the-dark-side-of-online-voting-contests xliv http://www.usatoday.com/marketing/media_kit/pressroom/2010/releases/042010_twitter_hashtag_results.html xlv http://www.pedigree.com/default.aspx xlvi http://www.facebook.com/Pedigree xlvii http://www.pedigreefoundation.org/ xlviii http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2010/06/dont-put-arts-support-up-for-a-popularity-vote.html xlix http://ww5.komen.org/ContentHeaderOnly.aspx?id=6442451841 l http://www.stonyfield.com/healthy_planet/importance_of_organic_farming/have_a_cow/index.jsp li http://www.stonyfield.com/about_us/stonyfield_profits_for_planet/index.jsp lii http://mashable.com/2010/02/18/corporate-social-good-campaigns/ liii http://www.refresheverything.com/ liv http://pressroom.target.com/pr/news/community/other-community/online-bullseye-launch.aspx lv http://www.casefoundation.org/projects/giving-challenge lvi http://www.casefoundation.org/agc lvii http://www.parade.com/contests/givingchallenge/2009/index.html lviii http://www.causes.com/agc/about lix http://www.intel.com/community/iimgp.htm lx http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/2010/20100519corp.htm lxi http://mashable.com/2009/05/11/target-bullseye-gives/ lxii http://www.target.com/ lxiii http://www.takepart.com/membersproject lxiv https://home.americanexpress.com/home/mt_personal.shtml lxv http://nonprofiteer.net/ lxvi http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-kleiman/whats-wrong-with-chase-co_b_653492.html lxvii http://www.tomsofmaine.com/community-involvement/living-well/project-sponsorships lxviii http://www.yahoo.com/ lxix http://kindness.yahoo.com/
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http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/ http://www.coneinc.com/files/2010-Cone-Cause-Evolution-Study.pdf lxxii http://www.casefoundation.org/projects/giving-challenge lxxiii http://foursquare.com/ lxxiv http://blippy.com/ lxxv http://www.casefoundation.org/projects/giving-challenge lxxvi http://www.casefoundation.org/social-media-tutorials lxxvii http://www.parade.com/features/giving-challenge-video.html lxxviii http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/causes-hosting-webinars-help-people-gear-next-americas-giving-challenge lxxix http://givemn.razoo.com/p/team lxxx http://givemn.razoo.com/ lxxxi http://www.fundraising123.org/wired lxxxii http://www.coneinc.com/news/request.php?id=1088 lxxxiii http://www.oprah.com/index.html lxxxiv http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000210/ lxxxv http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Osborne lxxxvi http://garyvaynerchuk.com/ lxxxvii http://sxsw.com/ lxxxviii http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/ lxxxix http://www.refreshsxsw.com/ended/ xc http://mashable.com/ xci http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000102/ xcii http://www.hanes.com xciii http://www.neimanmarcus.com/ xciv http://www.cartier.com/ xcv http://www1.networkforgood.org/sites/default/files/NMCard_singleimage.jpg xcvi http://www1.networkforgood.org/good-card xcvii http://www.pepsi.com/cherry/ xcviii http://www.facebook.com/refresheverything#!/refresheverything?v=app_62354146529 xcix http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000102/ c http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000193/ ci http://www.casefoundation.org/agc cii http://www.casefoundation.org/case-studies/giving-challenge-assessment-and-reflection-report ciii http://givemn.razoo.com/p/gtmd_landing civ http://www.refresheverything.com/ cv http://afine2.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/whats-the-point-of-pepsi-refresh/#comment-4839 cvi http://www.good.is/ cvii http://www.globalgiving.org/ cviii http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/ cix http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/an_open_letter_to_chase_about_their_big_charity_transparency_fail cx http://www.casefoundation.org/agc cxi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_social_influence cxii http://my.convio.com/forms/NextGenerationWhitepaper1 cxiii http://www.casefoundation.org/case-studies/giving-challenge-2009 cxiv http://www.casefoundation.org/agc cxv http://www.huffingtonpost.com/impact/ cxvi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law cxvii http://dawn-dish.com/en_US/savingwildlife.do cxviii http://www.spiritair.com/Default.aspx cxix http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/23/spirit-airlines-check-out_n_622266.html cxx https://www.capitalone.com/ cxxi https://www.capitalone.com/give cxxii http://www.globalgiving.org/haiti-earthquake/ cxxiii http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/ cxxiv http://dawn-dish.com/en_US/savingwildlife.do cxxv http://about.fedex.designcdt.com/corporate_responsibility/philanthropy/disaster_relief cxxvi http://tiny.cc/r9bdd cxxvii http://www.redcross.org/ cxxviii http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf cxxix http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1174 cxxx http://www.humanesociety.org/ cxxxi http://www.habitat.org/ cxxxii http://www.yahoo.com/ cxxxiii http://www.aol.com/ cxxxiv http://www.timewarner.com/corp/ cxxxv https://www.capitalone.com/ cxxxvi http://www.globalgiving.org/haiti-earthquake/
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