Mobile Marketing Can Make a Difference

"Two-thirds of people are checking their mobile in the morning before doing anything else. . .”i Katherine Shappley/Ad Week 2015Did you know that an average person checks their phone 110 times/day, while the more addicted check their phones as much as 900 times/day?Cell phone addiction is sweeping our nation. Today we are more connected than ever thanks in huge part to mobile technology. While smart technology provides the ability to talk, text or watch videos wherever we are, when you add location-based search and marketing (geo-targeting) and scratch-off or spin-to-win games (gamification), it has become easier and less expensive to engage with today’s consumer.You can engage even further and help your business grow by taking these mobile tools a step further - cause marketing. Use the discount or reward as an incentive for customers to make a small donation to a nonprofit you support. Connecting merchant rewards with a charitable cause is a win-win-win; for the donor or consumer, the cause and the merchant!As consumers become more dependent on mobile technology for information, statistics have shown there has also been a shift in commitment and loyalty to businesses that are aligned with a charitable cause. For businesses this a new way to develop new customers and retain existing ones. And for the nonprofit (and the cause) increased donations and new donors spreads awareness for your mission.Whether you are a consumer, business owner or a nonprofit the ability to reach out in an instant and touch someone has had a profound effect on our society.

The mobile revolution is picking up steam and is here to stay!

from
https://www.digitaldonations.org/single-post/2017/03/21/Mobile-Marketing-Can-Make-a-Difference

MARCH MADNESS FOR A CAUSE

If you are a college basketball fan or even if you aren’t, you probably know that March Madness is upon us. Starting with 68 teams down to the Sweet Sixteen and ultimately the Final Four before the champion is selected using bracketing; a series of competitions where the winner of each contest moves to the next round until there is just one winner. For the last several years President Obama’s bracket picks were big news. Sometimes a team dominates for years like the UConn women and other times last year’s champ gets knocked out early like the Villanova men this year. And lest we overlook it a huge amount of the hysteria around March Madness is the gambling on winners.

At this point, you are probably wondering what exactly March Madness and Cause Marketing have in common, how about raising big money for your favorite charity like Bloomberg did?Bloomberg's Bracketsfor a Cause invited business leaders to complete the perfect March Madness bracket. Each participant donated $10,000 and named a charity to win big if they selected the most winners. In 2015 $360,000 went to Gary Cohen of Goldman Sachs’s charity Harlem RBI of choice. Last year SAP CEO Bill McDermott won $420,000 for Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). You can follow the2017 resultsto find out who takes home the big money this year. Kudo’s to Bloomberg for capitalizing on this opportunity to connect commerce leaders with a cause and have some fun doing it!

Your business may not be participating in the Bloomberg competition, but you can certainly create one of your own. Start with your leadership and Board members and ask them to participate in a similar contest for a specified donation. You can expand it to include your staff and customers if that works for you. It’s pretty much guaranteed there is a least one pool going on in your office, use it as a starting point – maybe, in this case, the winner can donate a percentage of their winnings to your cause partner.

While this may not be the usual method of connecting cause with commerce, it is a fantastic way to do something fun and a little different to support your cause partner or any nonprofit in your community. March Madness may already be underway, but you can still get something going for the Sweet Sixteen through to the Championships on April 2nd. Bringing creativity to your support program can attract new participants within your organization and your customers. If college basketball isn’t your sport – there are plenty of other ways to join in the fun and generate donations for your cause partner.

from
https://www.digitaldonations.org/single-post/2017/03/23/MARCH-MADNESS-FOR-A-CAUSE

The Best Social Media Campaign...EVER?

Here is an interesting piece of news – the original ice bucket that started the challenge recently went on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Yep you read that right, when visiting the Smithsonian, you can see this piece of Americana on display – probably somewhere near Archie Bunker’s chair!

All the historical significance of the original bucket aside the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a huge success. People all over the United States and ultimately the globe were dumping buckets of ice over their heads or having someone else do it! During the summer of 2014 over $115 million was raised in the US and the challenge was repeated in the summers of 2015 and 2016. Success may not be measured in dollars, but the fact that research funded by the challenge uncovered a gene variant associated with ALS is a major win.https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/26/ice-bucket-challenge-als-charity-gene-discovery

For nonprofit organization and fundraisers around the world, the most interesting part of this phenomenon was that it was spread from friend to friend via social media. This was probably the most successful social media, peer-to-peer campaign ever. Using a variety of video channels – Facebook, Vine, You Tube, Instagram and a few more some of us have probably heard of – sports and entertainment figures, politicians and a whole bunch of the rest of us posted videos of ourselves dripping wet to raise money.

While not everyone donated to ALS, whether they dumped ice on their head, a whole lot of people did. Moreover, it was so popular and successful it was repeated in 2015 and 2016.

Can your nonprofit or cause partner create an equally successful challenge? Maybe not, but at the very least you should be focusing on ways to find an idea something that spreads like wildfire through social media. Sharing video was a huge part of the challenge success; now that Google, the second largest search engine on the planet, owns You Tube, that seems like a great place to start. Hey, you can be the summer of 2017 fundraising success!Img src. By slgckgc (Doing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

from
https://www.digitaldonations.org/single-post/2017/03/07/The-Best-Social-Media-CampaignEVER

Creating a Cause Marketing Program with A Calendar

There are many ways for a small business (or a larger one) to get started with Cause Marketing. One of the easiest is to select a ‘day’ from the2017 Cause Awareness and Giving Day Calendar.

Choose the day for a cause that resonates with you and your team. Create a crowdgiving campaign (shameless plugDigital DonationsCrowdGIV is a great tool for this type of campaign) to support an organization for that cause. Here are a few on the list coming up in the next few months that caught my attention:March 21st World Down Syndrome Day(World Down Syndrome Day 2017)Over 400,000 people in the United States have Down Syndrome. The impact can range from very mild so a person can thrive in society to severe requiring assistance with basic functions. There are many organizations that you can support including the ARC, Special Olympics, and certainly local agencies in your community.March 22nd World Water Day(WHO World Water Day 2017)As part of the United Nations, the World Health Organization has been since 1993. There are multiple organizations who support bringing fresh, safe, drinking water to people around the world including Water for People, Charity Water and Water Mission.April 22nd Earth Day(Earth Day 2017)Most of us remember Earth Day from its very first one on April 22nd, 1970, along with Earth Shoes (very comfy, but not overly stylish). Although we’ve made great strides over the year, we still have a long way to go to save our planet. There are many charities that support environmental causes—Greenpeace, Ocean Conservancy, and The Sierra Club.May 2nd Give Local Day(Give Local America 2017)This might be the most appealing ‘day’ to start your cause program. By focusing on a local charity, your support will benefit your community and citizens. You can find local charities on the Give Local page by entering your information or checking with your local Chamber of Commerce.There are a few more that caught my attention and may even portend a sense of whimsy like World Penguin Day on April 25th and World Toilet Day on November 19th.Awareness giving days can be an excellent way to identify a theme for your cause campaign. The fact that these are by their very nature time constrained can help raise funds by creating a sense of urgency. Be sure to include the specifics of the time frame in your promotional materials.Once you decide which ‘day’ is the right one for you, identify the nonprofit you are going to support and reach out to them. This is a great opportunity to form a Partner Rewards campaign for more long-term philanthropic efforts. For more potential ‘days’ to consider check public holiday calendars or search for “Commemorative Days.” Whatever you pursue your community and your business will benefit from your fundraising efforts.

from
https://www.digitaldonations.org/single-post/2017/03/06/Creating-a-Cause-Marketing-Program-with-A-Calendar