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Now that we have identified your donation personas (Step 1), chosen your targeted first nonprofit (Step 2), established a relationship with your preferred nonprofit (Step 3), chosen the best donation options for testing (Step 4), deployed our best practices to optimize conversion (Step 5), put in place best practices for AOV and LTV (Step 6), identified a turnkey compliance solution (Step 7)...
It's time for stp 8: marketing the nonprofit relationship.
Doing all of the above, you will achieve a minimum of 19% conversion improvement, 18% AOV lift, and 20% LTV bump.
This is Step 8 in the process. If you haven’t completed the previous steps, please go back and walk through them. This process is simple, but it’s necessary to follow each step sequentially to optimize your results.
The ten key steps are as follows:
In this class, we will learn best practices for marketing your partnership with a charity.
Marketing the relationship between your ecommerce business and partnered nonprofit organizations is crucial for maximizing the benefits of cause marketing.
This step focuses on leveraging various marketing channels to promote this relationship, thereby increasing visibility, engagement, and ultimately, conversions.
We'll cover strategies including email marketing, social media marketing, product inserts, and press releases, utilizing both the nonprofit's donor databases and your business's customer base.
You’ve got customers and prospects.
Your charity has donors and potential donors (“Donors”).
By following the best practices in Steps 1, 2, and 3, we know that our customers love our chosen charity’s cause.
Additionally, our charity’s Donors have a high probability of loving our products.
That’s the true beauty of Steps 1, 2, and 3.
Remember, not only does your charity affinity increase sales to your current customers and prospects, but your charity also brings an established, known audience of potential new customers.
Pause for a moment.
Contemplate this sentence once more:
“Your charity brings an established, known audience of potential new customers.”
As a general rule, most ecommerce companies spend almost all of their gross margin on the first sale to acquire a customer.
Profits are earned through subsequent purchases by new customers.
As we studied in Steps 5 and 6, there is a tremendous opportunity to increase conversion, AOV, and LTV with your current stream of customers.
Now, we have access to a new group of prospective customers through our chosen charity’s database.
You will want to take advantage of this opportunity.
Here’s what works:
Here’s what doesn’t work:
If you want to acquire new customers from their database, you have to regard their Donors as new customers and be prepared to invest what you would to acquire any other new customers.
Don’t forget, studies show charity-aligned customers will be more loyal and buy more from you.
Not only are you investing in future sales, you are investing in a larger future LTV.
How much discount should you give, and how much should you donate?
Time for some marketing math.
First, calculate your AOV.
Next, determine the gross margin you make on that AOV.
Then, calculate your CAC for a new customer.
For example, if the AOV is $100, the gross margin is $45, and your CAC is $40, you know that for a new customer brought in through your charity relationships, you can afford to give away discounts and donations so that your net gross margin on the customer is $5.
This is the same amount you would make on any new customer acquired through other means (on average).
We have seen that this is the revenue-maximizing strategy overall for your relationship.
Don’t look at this new pool of prospects as free sales.
We want to maximize LTV, so be prepared to make a CAC-equivalent investment at the outset.
In email and on social media, your charity can run a campaign announcing that if their Donors come to your ecommerce store, they:
This will drive new sales from the charity’s Donors and establish a new, incremental customer relationship for you at your typical CAC.
Some of our customers worry that their current customers will catch wind of the promo and use it.
Yes, some established customers will.
They, too, will deepen their relationship with you based on your cause.
Remember, you nailed the cause selection in Steps 1, 2, and 3.
In general, the impact will be a new wave of incremental, loyal customers with higher AOV and higher LTV than average.
For all campaigns, follow this four-part plan, repurposing the content for each channel.
First, have the charity send emails to its Donors announcing the relationship and including the special offer we discussed.
Run these “announcement” emails once a week for at least four weeks, with slight variations in messaging, but consistently communicating your company’s commitment to the charity and its cause.
Ensure the charity keeps the emails short and sweet, focusing on the special offer for their Donors.
Below is a sample email using our women’s SCUBA clothing company:
Second, send emails to your customers announcing the relationship.
Consider A/B testing the special offer announcement with a segment of your existing customers to gauge its impact without incurring significant incremental costs.
Like the charity email announcements, run these “announcement” emails once a week for at least four weeks, consistently communicating your commitment to the charity and its cause.
Sample Email, using the charity's name:
Third, share compelling stories of individuals or communities benefiting from the charity with your current customers.
Stories humanize the cause and inspire readers to take action.
If the special promotion period has lapsed, that’s okay; you can still remind your customers of the opportunity to donate to the charity at checkout.
Fourth, continue to run exclusive offers for “Donors Only,” targeting donors who have not yet become customers.
If you send a great email offer and 20% open it and 5% of those convert, what do you know?
You know that 80% didn’t open it and 99% of the charity’s donor base has not yet become customers. In ecommerce, not everyone is shopping or engaged all the time.
Make sure you maintain a regular cadence of converting their “unconverted” donors into customers.
Consider running periodic promotions (e.g., Giving Tuesday) where you offer special discounts on products overall, or targeted products, to anyone who donates at least $X amount to your partner charity.
Two important facts to keep in mind:
So, make sure you keep talking about the relationship.
Don’t go quiet!
Continue discussing the relationship, the cause, and your engagement at least once per month.
Social Media
This segment outlines a strategy for leveraging social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn) to announce and promote a partnership between an ecommerce business and a charity.
The plan is structured into four parts, emphasizing the repurposing of content across different channels to maximize reach and engagement.
As discussed via email, you will maintain the same cadence as the email segmentation.
Begin with an initial announcement.
Both the ecommerce business and the charity should coordinate their announcements and promotions in a unified format.
Your ecommerce business should replicate the charity's announcement across all social media posts, adapting it to reflect the business's perspective.
Use the email layout as a guide for crafting consistent messaging.
Below, we'll showcase several examples of social media posts for illustration.
Ensure your initial announcement is visually compelling, utilizing graphics or video on each platform.
Publish each post simultaneously across all channels, maintaining consistent messaging while adapting it to suit each social media platform's nuances.
Product inserts are physical pieces of marketing material included in the packages you send to customers.
Remember, a key value driver of partnering with a charity is the extended and larger lifetime value you can create.
An important part of increasing the LTV formula is product inserts.
They can be very effective in communicating your nonprofit relationship.
Here are some methods you can use:
Example: A beauty brand partnering with a nonprofit that supports women's shelters could include a brochure in each package detailing the partnership, a heartfelt thank-you note, and a discount code for the customer’s next purchase.
We’ve outlined formats, methods, and principles for communicating and marketing your new charity relationship.
As a rule, keep working at it.
Aligning your company with a customer persona-connected charity is a constant win that increases conversion, AOV, and LTV.
Consistently communicate to your customers, prospects, and the charity’s donors and prospective donors that there is a solid, meaningful relationship in place and that you care about a cause they care about.
Keep nurturing the relationship as much as you can.
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