Engaging with your community will encourage the community to engage with your brand. Showing up at public events and supporting local initiatives will add credibility to your brand and build goodwill with your community. However, you have to be delicate about incorporating a charitable marketing strategy.
When done right, supporting local charities is good for your brand reputation and your community. However, your support of a charity or cause should always come from a place of authenticity. Your passion for the cause should be the driving force behind your efforts; the brand and business benefits should be secondary, a bonus.
The public can spot a fraud a mile away. If you use a charity solely as a marketing ploy, it will backfire.
Consumers want to connect with a brand on shared values, but how do you communicate your community outreach authentically to the public? Accomplish this by making your marketing about the charity and cause, not about you. That way, you position yourself as an advocate and a messenger for a good cause instead of promoting your business.
Engage Social Media Community
A charitable marketing strategy fits perfectly into the type of social media content that pulls back the curtain on your brand and gives people insight into your brand, a behind-the-scenes look, and a chance to show people what you stand for.
If you have an event coming up in support of a charity, create a post on your social media, encouraging your social media community to join you. Share press releases or posts from the charity with your community. You’re promoting something other than your products and services, but people will make a mental note about your charitable efforts and the causes you support.
Follow up the next day with posts about the event’s success and thank everyone who showed up to support.
Remember to take photos on the day of the event!
Prioritize the Charity
As long as you focus on the cause and not sell yourself, consumers will associate your goodwill with your brand without feeling like you are using the cause to sell your products.
When they need your products and services in the future, you have already planted a seed about your brand values and identity.
Offer Physical Space In in Your Agency
Allowing a cause to put up a sign or a small display asking for donations or support is another way to show clients that you give back to the community and support local causes without bragging.
Build positive associations and a stronger brand reputation by associating yourself with local causes and charities.
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