Last week, Facebook launched a new app for Facebook Places called Deals.
Deals essentially allows any small business to more easily offer deals when users check in to their place on Facebook.
Why should you care?
Obviously your nonprofit doesn’t offer deals as a way to raise donations. But the restaurant or clothing store down the street does.
One option that local businesses have in creating a deal is to create a “Charity Deal”. This allows the business to implement a cause marketing program with a single mouse click!
Conduct a cause marketing pilot program
If your nonprofit hasn’t thought about doing cause-marketing, start thinking about it now – and read Selfish Giving.
There are local businesses that you already know who would love to partner with you. The owners of these businesses already support your organization at events through their donations.
Facebook Deals could enhance these relationships by making cause marketing easy to implement.
And if you’re scared, don’t worry. Simply agree to conduct a pilot cause marketing campaign. Get your hands dirty.
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Great post, John. What's nice about Facebook Places, or any LBS for that matter, is that it can be done in conjunction with an offline cause marketing program as well. In short, if you plan to run a point-of-sale or percentage-of-sale program in your store you can enhance by running a Places promotion alongside it.
The benefit of other services like Foursquare is that you can actually set up the promotion so that when people check-in you can let them know that that they can support the cause at the register or by buying a particular item. This will actually prove more lucrative for causes because, after all, the money in cause marketing is in the customer base, not in the company.
So while it's nice that companies donate money when shoppers check-in, the real goal should be to get shoppers to donate THEIR money.
Joe
@joewaters
Joe – “enhance” is the key word. The relationship between the org and the nonprofit – and the creativity behind the offer – should be rock solid.
We have Facebook Places. We have Facebook Deals. Just waiting for Facebook QR/Barcodes…and we will have created a trifecta of social media cause tools!
Excellent point! And good use of “trifecta”.
The worry that I always have with cause marketing is that it can so easily be a temporary commitment by both the customer and the company. I am intrigued by Joe's comment that the goal is to get the customer to donate its money with a checkin. Would love to see companies encourage THAT.
Debra – The national ones I see do it right are Tyson and Share Our Strength, Starbucks and Red, Ben & Jerry’s, Freedom to Marry. They're long-term relationships with a demonstrated commitment that goes beyond a single campaign. The key for both parties is find a fit that expresses their values first, brand second, and profits third.
[...] By John Haydon, InboundZombie [...]
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