Sales & Marketing Management - September/October 2008 - (Page 13)

MARKETING STRATEGY [By Lynn Shattuck] TAKE HEART WITH CAUSE MARKETING Engage with a charity partner to boost your trade show strategy he customers of today want their suppliers to be best-of-allworlds providers—great product, great service, great price and really great people. Thus, in the interest of proving the latter, cause marketing has become one of the key staples of corporate life. It’s no wonder: Cause marketing illustrates who and what the brand stands for in a clear and tangible manner. Not only does it show your company cares, it identifies exactly what it cares about. It is a moral selection fueled by emotion and conviction. Implemented correctly, cause marketing can add an additional brand-defining dimension to an exhibit or marketing event. But done incorrectly it can backfire, making your company look calculating and superficial. If attendees detect selfpromotion as the incentive for your cause marketing campaign—and attendees can smell “spin” a mile away—the very customers you’d hoped to attract will walk away with a bad taste in their mouth. To avoid such a disastrous scenario, you need to adopt these seven best practices: T with these women who are struggling and jump at the chance to support them.” 2. Show something about your company. To coincide with the American Association of Blood Banks Annual Meeting and TXPO 2007, Chiron—a company dedicated to increasing blood safety—selected the Hepatitis Foundation International for its work toward eliminating viral hepatitis. That choice not only demonstrated Chiron shared its practitioner customers’ concerns, but directly reflected the company’s brand attributes and corporate culture. Before the show, Chiron sent registered attendees a glass heart with a card that read, “Show us your heart.” The card noted Chiron would make a donation to the Hepatitis Foundation International for every heart returned. The activity drew an impressive 25% response. “Practitioners were pleased to learn that Chiron is contributing to something that benefits patient welfare,” says Tom Frisby, idea shaper for leading exhibit and event firm Czarnowski. “It showed that the company really does care.” 3. Connect the dots between your cause and your action. Lowepro, a manufacturer of protective bags and 1. Make it personal to your company and customers. The best way to promote the “heart of your company” is to support a cause that your company, customers and/or industry have a personal connection to. For instance, when exhibit manufacturer Nomadic Display discovered one of its distributors was the founder of Helen’s Pajama Party, the company decided to support the cause. As a woman-owned company with a majority of female customers, supporting an organization that provides pajamas to abused women in shelters made perfect sense. Throughout 2008, Nomadic Display has integrated a pajama collection station into its trade show exhibits, in addition to tapping into its network of industry connections to drive participation. “The response has been overwhelming,” attests Gwen Parsons, senior vice president. “The people we appeal to feel a strong connection www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com Lynn Shattuck is a freelance writer in Portland, Maine. istock photo backpacks for photographic equipment, shares a commitment to the natural world with its customer base. In 2007, the company partnered with Polar Bear International to raise awareness of the endangered polar bear habitat and the deleterious effects of global warming. At Photo Marketing Association 2007, Lowepro highlighted its support of Polar Bear International in its exhibit with an experience that related the company’s products to its environmental concerns. “We told the deeper story about how the bag advances Lowepro’s commitment to the environment,” says Sam Marsh, the company’s marketing communications manager. A kiosk with a rotating platform provided a sneak peek at Lowepro’s new Primus AW bag, made with SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT 13 http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - September/October 2008

Sales &�Marketing Management - September/October 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Brian Tracy University Smart Sales Sales Strategy Smart Marketing Marketing Strategy Smart Management Management Strategy The Low-Cost Sales Leader Why Sales Process Gets the Shaft Training Q&A Technology Making the Case for Travel (Part II) Travel/Meetings On the Road The Way I See It

Sales & Marketing Management - September/October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.