3 Easy Ways to Make Community Service a Part of Your Brand

With the holiday season upon us, the concept of giving back is at the forefront of many of our hearts and minds. For veterans, the concept of sacrifice for community is nothing new. Once you make that leap from military service to small business, keeping that mentality can be a win-win for your business and your local area.

In the marketing world, associating your business or brand with a community need through donations, volunteering, or similar activities is called cause marketing. This can be a great way to support causes and organizations that are important to you.

Cause marketing also adds humanity and authenticity to your brand, which can resonate with your customers – benefitting your business. The practice, when implemented properly, can be the perfect fit to serve both needs. Here are a few ideas to get you started in cause marketing.

#1: Partner with an Organization

One of the easiest ways to make cause marketing a part of your business is to align yourself with an organization that is currently doing good work serving a need that is important to you. This may be a homeless shelter, a veterans’ organization, a youth support group, and so on. Connecting with these organizations can help you decide which would be the best fit, and they’ll likely already have a few options for your business to participate.

#2: Make a Donation

While this is a more passive approach to cause marketing, making a donation to a cause, an organization, or even an individual family can be a great way to incorporate community service into you branding. If you choose to do this, don’t just write a check – get your customers involved! Run a special where you donate a certain amount from each sale to that organization or cause. Alternatively, you can ask for donations from customers and offer to match those donations. This helps your business by making your customers feel good about their purchase, and it helps your community by supporting that particular cause.

#3: Volunteer as a Team

If you’re not ready to partner with an organization, or if your budget doesn’t allow for a hefty donation – your time can be just as effective in a cause marketing practice. Invite your team members to volunteer with you at a local food bank, shelter, humane society, or similar facility a couple of times per year. Use the opportunity to encourage team building – take everyone out to lunch or for a fun activity afterward. You’ll find that many of your team members are more than eager to jump on the giving back bandwagon, and it can foster stronger loyalty to your brand.

If you don’t have a team yet, or if you’re a service provider, consider offering pro bono work every year in support of a cause that is important to you.

Guest Contributor: Erika Heeren is the founder of Heeren Content & Strategy. With 14 years of experience marketing and public relations, she has a professional focus on integrated media spanning 16 different industries.

Heeren works with small businesses and non-profit organizations to provide affordable, professional-quality content development, marketing, and public relations services. Her clients include local small business owners, marketing agencies, public universities, media outlets, Huffington Post-published authors, IT firms, and non-profit organizations.

A military spouse herself, Erika is an outspoken advocate for veteran and military spouse education, employment, and entrepreneurship. As a volunteer eMentor for the Military Entrepreneur Program, she works one-on-one with aspiring military-affiliated entrepreneurs to help them grow their business. She also volunteers as a digital marketing instructor with Treasure Valley SCORE.

Heeren is an award-winning writer and has been featured on NextGen Military Spouse, Veteran on the Move, Wright Stuff Radio, and Social Media Week.