In part II of our Cause Marketing series Joe helps us determine when cause marketing is right for your company, how to go about it and what to expect from your non-profit partner. Joe is the Director of Cause and Event Marketing at Boston Medical Center and blogger at Selfish Giving,

Listen to our conversation (30 minutes). As usual, I’ve highlighted some points below.
To download instead, right-click and save.

1. Cause marketing won’t make you rich (be you a non-profit or for-profit). Non-profits raise only 5-15% of funds from corporations and marketing makes up a portion of this pot. Businesses can expect a similar ratio. Marketing is one element of a successful business. The most lauded and tweeted campaign can’t save a lousy product, high prices or limited distribution long-term.
2. Cause marketing is a potent part of the marketing mix. It’s not the only marketing tactic, but it’s an important one that businesses should focus on.
3. A company’s best asset in cause marketing is authenticity and sincerity, not money or Angelina Jolie. If you are passionate and genuinely interested in an issue or non-profit, your actions to weave this passion into a marketing program will be appreciated (or viewed neutrally) rather than incur skepticism. Consumers are hard to fool.
4. Choose a non-profit partner based on issue and scale. If you want less people to be hungry, pick that as your issue and then look for a hunger-oriented non-profit organization with good credentials that reflects the size of your company. National bigwig Feeding America requires a minimum annual donation of $150,000 from corporate partners, for example. Instead, research regional or local hunger organizations that would be eager to work with you. (Start with Idealist.org, Charity Navigator or GuideStar.) Together, your cause marketing program can raise the profile of the non-profit, turning them into a stronger and more appreciative partner and allowing your business to make a deeper impact.
5. Be flexible and patient when dealing with non-profits. Repeat. In addition to winning over the executive director, the board of directors also needs to approve the partnership. This takes time.
6. Expect to be transparent. Approach to the non-profit prepared to talk about how the program will work and how their organization and goals will be served. Expect to be financially transparent as well as non-profits have different disclosure and reporting guidelines.
7. Offer more than money. Money is the easy commodity to give away. Although non-financial assets may take more thought, they bind your company to the non-profit and/or to consumers. A philanthropic organization can go to any number of companies for money, but your company offers them (and sometimes your customers) another asset. The Applebee’s restaurant group opened the doors to 72 Applebee’s restaurants in North Carolina, Arkansas and Oklahoma to non-profit groups on weekend mornings, allowing them to host pancake breakfast fundraisers. Applebee’s didn’t loose paying customers as they were usually closed at this hour. Instead, they served their local communities and bound themselves to customers.
8. Be ready to executive a large part of the program. As a business, you are bringing more than funds (and now non-financial assets) to the table. Particularly if the non-profit you are working with is small or new at these types of programs, you’ll have to carry a good portion of the program. Like you, non-profits have limited resources and staff. It’s important to set the expectations from the start, have an understanding of how the work will be divided and…be ready to work.
9. The balance changes if the non-profit approaches you. Then, the onus is on them to make the program a success.
10. A stand-alone retail store can still execute cause marketing programs, including pinups or point-of-sale. A pinup campaign is about engaging the customer with the cause while they are checking out. Pinups raise awareness as well as money and both should be valued.
11. Vagueness is a death knell in cause marketing. Customers expect to know how much of their purchase or your profit is going to which non-profit and when. Don’t leave out the details. It reeks of falsity.
12. Should companies implement cause marketing programs for Haiti? Joe has a fantastic! piece on how businesses should contribute to Haiti relief. I wrote about an offensive cause marketing campaign here and concluded that a flat grant was the right thing to do. Joe elaborates, advising a donation upfront and non-financial assets (see # 7). Only then could you look at a very careful marketing program.

Next time we’ll talk about measuring your campaign’s success and utilizing social media. Was this interview helpful? Why don’t you tell Joe what you think of the interview on Twitter.

That’s why I invited cause marketing expert Joe Waters to Cause Capitalism and asked him to explain what cause marketing means now and how your company or non-profit could benefit from a cause marketing program. Joe is the director of Cause and Event Marketing for Boston Medical Center and blogs regularly at Selfish Giving.

This interview is the first in a series that will cover: assessing whether cause marketing is right for you; implementation tactics; the non-profit/for-profit partnership; utilizing social media; cause marketing faux-pas and measuring your campaign’s success.

I highlighted some key points from our interview below, but I’d suggest you listen to our full conversation (30 minutes).

1. Joe defines cause marketing as a partnership between a nonprofit and a for-profit for mutual profit.
2. For a non-profit, a cause marketing program earns them money, branding and visibility.
3. For a profit, a cause marketing program generates sales and builds respect and favorability with consumers.
4. This definition is focused on cause-related marketing (referred to succinctly as cause marketing by Joe and myself), not the marketing of a cause. The key distinction is that cause marketing is transactional, which means that money is raised–in addition to awareness. Joe goes more deeply into this point and the next in his post “What is Cause Marketing?”
5. A marketing campaign qualifies as cause marketing if it uses at least one of three tactics:
   • Point-of-sale or pinups. These programs often happen at the register (“Would you like to donate $1 for X today?”) through paper cut-outs, stickers and scannables. Chili’s “Create A Pepper” campaign raised more than $5 million for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital by pinning up chili peppers that were colored by kids and purchased for $1. 100% of money raised goes directly to the non-profit.
   • Percentage-of-sale. A percentage of the purchase price is donated to a cause. Starbucks donates 5¢  every time you pay with your (STARBUCKS) Red card; Baking for Good donates 15% of every purchase.
   • Licensing. This is an expensive approach, primarily taken by large companies and charities. Joe sites the Arthritis Foundation’s Ease of Use Commendation for the Advil Caplets Easy Open Arthritis Cap.
6. As a representative of a mid-sized non-profit, Joe focuses on what businesses are looking to get from their relationship with a non-profit. By anticipating these expectations, Joe and his team can deliver, or over-deliver, on them, securing repeat campaigns and larger donations.
7. You don’t have to be Goliaths like General Mills or Nike to leverage cause marketing. It’s a matter of scale. Small and mid-sized businesses (SMEs) should work with non-profit partners that match their scale to develop programs that fit their existing budget and resources.
8. Tying cause marketing to events is a great strategy for broader visibility and event participation.
9. Pinups/point-of-sale programs are highly effective for SMEs. More from Joe on pinups here.
10. Pinups/point-of-sale programs are terrific branding and publicity tools. One-fifth of attendees to BMC’s annual Halloween Town [we'll talk about this in Part 2 of this series] event heard about it through store pinups.
11. Cause marketing is not charity, it’s marketing. If your company’s or corporate partners’ program doesn’t raise money, the program will be axed.
12. You (as a for-profit or non-profit) will never get rich off of cause marketing.
13. Cause marketing programs should be turn-key; if you ask too much from your (typically for-profit) partner, you will loose them.
14. I emailed Joe to ask whether he had favorite stats on convincing companies of the merits of cause marketing. His reply: “I have to say, I really don’t. Cause marketing has become so widely accepted and known I feel like if I have to justify it to someone with stats they’re just not a good prospect. Kind of like trying to sell advertising to someone who has never bought advertising before. You’ll never get any where!”