Why is the difference between cause marketing and philanthropy important?
Because the way you raise and donate money to charity through your business, and how you communicate what you are doing, have an impact on whether cause marketing legislation applies.
Supporting charities and social causes through your business is not only a kind thing to do, it’s also good for business – as I write in my blog Ten Good Reasons to Support Causes Through Your Business.
There are endless ways to support social causes through business and today I share a chapter from my Give-to-Profit book that outlines twenty-five such strategies:
I wonder if like me you’ve been conditioned to believe you need to work hard to do well in life or make your business work?
We all experience ups and downs in life and running a successful business can certainly feel like hard work at times. But it doesn’t always have to be that way!
There are many ways to promote what you do, but which marketing strategies are best for you?
The way I see things is that we’re more likely to DO what we enjoy, rather than what drains are energy. So today I share my thoughts on choosing joyful marketing strategies for attracting more of your ideal clients.
Supporting charities or social causes through your business isn’t only good for business, it can help you grow a business that’s more aligned to your heart, help you have a positive social impact and will enrich your life in so many ways. To not do this could actually be sending customers to your competition.
Many business owners and entrepreneurs are torn between their desire to make a difference and getting their financial needs met. However, as I discovered you don’t have to choose between the two, or wait until you have a successful business to support causes close to your heart.
I was recently interviewed by Kim Macleod, the fantastic soul at Indie Authors World who helped me self-publish my book Heartatude, The 9 Principles of Heart-Centered Success. Here is an extract from the interview:
How does it feel to be a published author?
Surreal. Being an author isn’t something that was ever on my wish list. In fact quite to the contrary – English was my worst subject at school and I had other dreams I was pursuing.
However having now published my book, I feel my whole identity has changed at a core level. I’ve shared a lot about myself and my approach to life in the book, in the hope this will help others in their pursuit of happiness and success. But that’s a scary thing to do too.
One of my greatest passions is fundraising for charities and social causes through my business, and coming up with creative ways for doing this that have the greatest positive impact.
Having raised over US$25,000 for causes through my business, I experimented with lots of ways for doing this and share some ideas in my free ebook 52 Ways to Raise Funds for Causes Through Your Business.
In this blog, I share the top 5 ways I’ve raised funds for causes through my business with a view to inspiring your and others to do something similar, so collectively we can all make the world a better place.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been discussing the importance of matching the promotional strategies you adopt with the specific results or outcomes you’d like to get over the short and long-term.
In my blog post What’s Best – Quick Sales or Slow Burn? I shared six factors to consider when deciding which marketing strategy to adopt. You see most people don’t think about this and waste their time and money doing limited random promotional activities that don’t yield the results they’d like. Rather than getting clear on their desired outcomes first and then deciding which marketing strategies are most likely deliver.
In my blog 12 Quick Fire Strategies to Get Out There & Sign Up Clients Now I went on to share twelve things you can do (or learn to do) fairly quickly and cheaply to bring clients. My favourites include offering irresistible freebies, reaching out to five potential clients, business partners a day for a month and public speaking. While there is an upfront cost to social media advertising, this can also give an excellend return on investment once you know how to do it well.
Today I’m sharing 13 Slow Burn Ways for building a profitable, joyful and sustainable business.
Because if you want your business to be sustainable over the long-term, where you are spending less time marketing and selling, these will help you do this e.g. by targeting groups of your ideal clients rather than individual ideal clients; building relationships and automating processes. So you’ve got more time to do what you really love! They are also really important to continue to nurture relationships with people you meet in the course of business or through the quick fire strategies I mentioned in my last blog.
These are just a few of many ideas,what’s important is you identify all those that could work really well for you and then focus on the ones you enjoy that get the best results.
Have fun!
I’d love to hear your ideas and thoughts – please do share your comments below.
Alisoun Mackenzie is The Compassionate Business Mentor, Author, and Speaker who inspires business owners and social entrepreneurs to turn their passions into profits and make a difference in the world.
She is also the author of two Amazon Best Selling books Heartatude, The 9 Principles of Heart-Centered Success and Give to Profit: How to Grow Your Business by Supporting Charities Social Causes.
Alisoun is also the founder of The Heartabiz Hub a business network and training academy and has written the following free ebooks:
