It’s the season for giving so there’s not a better time for your business to give back. First of all, it’s just a good practice for any business. Secondly, it just might give you an upper hand to increase your sales. People like to patron businesses if they know that a specific business gives back to worthy causes and the community. Plus it’s could be a great generator of “buzz” for you.

Here are 4 ideas we thought of for how you can use “cause marketing” in your business.

1. Donate dollars to a cause of your choice for each survey taken up to some number of surveys you need to analyze. We just did a product survey where we gave $10 for every survey taken up to 300 surveys to the Susan G. Komen foundation in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. We got the number of surveys we wanted in two days.

2. Donate a percentage of all revenue generated from all sales in a specific time period like a few hours or a specific day. “From 12-2pm this Saturday all profits go to the American Cancer Society.”

3. Give a percentage of all revenue generated from a specific product purchased for a specific time period. “All profits from our new set of Widgets for the next two weeks will be donated to the SF Food Bank.”

4. Donate dollars for each purchase made over some specific amount. “For any total purchase made over $200, we will donate $20 to Parks and Recreation of the Bay Area.”

And to prove that you actually “gave back” it’s a good practice to send an email marketing campaign to all of those that “contributed” telling them that you just wrote the check to your cause. To top it all off, you can even show the receipt in your email (just make sure to block out the credit card number you used to make the donation!)

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