Articles

Charity Work as a Marketing Tool
By Darrell Berg-Smith

Did you ever ask yourself “Why should someone buy from me and not from my competitors?” If not you should consider how your offering is different from those of the many competitors who are vying for the same customers as you are. One of the ways to make your business stand out from the crowd is to link your business with charity work and non-profit public service.

Everybody is chasing after the all-mighty buck, but only a few firms really do more than pay lip service to social service. Let’s take a look at how charity work can help your firm as well as the wider society around it.

1. It will give your business an extra edge

As mentioned above, when you become involved in social work in a significant way, then you begin to stand out from the crowd. It gives you that something special, which may be the difference when your potential customer makes up her mind and decides which firm to go with. I have had customers confide to me that one of the reasons that they chose to do business with my firm is that they know that some of their money will be allocated to charity.

2. It increases your credibility

Credibility and trust are vital if you are going to sell anything. If someone is going to part with their scare resources they want to be sure that they are doing business with the right people. When you show that your firm is doing something meaningful for society in addition to the normal work of making money, then you and your whole team are viewed in another light.

3. Charity work is inexpensive

It doesn’t take any money to set aside part of your website to explain your company’s participation in charitable activities. Similarly, it doesn’t cost you anything to mention your charitable activities along with your primary information in other media. Messages in your firm’s internal bulletins and media are likewise easy and inexpensive to implement.

4. It helps you to convince people whom you would otherwise not reach

Charity work appeals to the nobler side of human nature, and, believe it or not, deep down inside of every one of us is the desire to do something that is good. When you get involved in charitable work you will reach civic minded individuals who are oftentimes community leaders and prominent in social, economic and political sectors of society. It might take you years of normal business activity to make contact with people like that and in fact, you might, like most people, never connect with them.

5. It lifts the morale of your staff and your clients

High morale is one of the intangible factors that can be the difference between great success and mediocrity and even complete failure. Your team will in fact become a team when it works not only for financial gain but also for civic betterment. Your customers will also feel good about the charitable aspect of your company and will be more likely to refer you to others.

6. It builds your legacy to society

A successful financier told me recently, “In a hundred years who will remember the hotels that I built? But, they will still be attending and benefiting from the university that I am now helping.” We have to take care of our core business, no doubt, but we should also have an eye on leaving a lasting mark on the world around us.

So, take a look at your marketing tools and do whatever you can to incorporate charitable activity into your overall plan of action. You, your company and society will be the winners.

Work Goal

The foolish work for money,
Not other values, so they get only money.

The clever work for improvement,
They gain success and money.

The wise work for goodness and charity,
They receive friends, success, money,
And happiness.