Let’s say you run a small to medium business and being a good business person you know the value of garnering community support, but how do you do it? It’s not like you’re a bank, or Government Department that can afford to sponsor a range of high profile community events. The other day I was reminded of a very simple strategy. You may have seen this already but it’s worth repeating for its simplicity.
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| Community support strategy © The Ponder Room |
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| Community support © The Ponder Room |
Once a month pick three local issues. Write a small blurb about each one, and assign each one to a bottle.
Then every customer through the door gets given a token (bottle top) and told about the scheme, e.g. they can show their support by simply placing the token in one of the bottles.
Community groups can submit to be part of the strategy on your website, where you can also post videos of cheque presentations.
So that’s a total cost of $500 per month.
The 10 key elements of this strategy are:
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The issues are emotive;
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They are not contentious;
- The issues are current;
- They are diverse;
- The impact focuses on either the local community or large topical issues;
- The strategy is live i.e. the issues change every month or so;
- Each issue receives at least some reward;
- It is clear how much each group gets;
- The strategy adds value without you having to produce an additional product element;
- It costs the consumer nothing.
More importantly it taps into consumers subconscious altruistic desires. If they have a choice of buying from a standard store or buying from you they will pick you. This is because they will leave feeling very good about themselves … like they’ve donated without having to put their hand in their own pockets.
For more about Local Matters go to.
www.grilld.com.au/localmatters
