Sponsorships and Community Involvement
A great way to promote your company and invest in your community is through community sponsorships. These range from sponsoring a nonprofit 5k, supporting your local Chamber of Commerce, or even helping the school system provide needed supplies for teachers.
Why should you spend your company dollars this way?
1. You are successful because your community purchases from you. Reinvesting with them is a sensible thing to do unless you are a robber baron (industrialists whose business practices were often considered ruthless or unethical). Reinvesting in your community allows the community to survive financially.
2. It allows you to activate an audience that cares about a topic. If you donate to a nonprofit that a subset of your community cares about, you are likely to build a relationship with that audience and increase word of mouth advertising.
3. It can be a way to help motivate your team. People care about more than just profitability; everyone has a social cause that they care about. If you can involve your team in the donations or at least sell them on the mission of the donation, it can help team morale, retain talent, make your organization an attractive place to work, and give them something to be proud of in their work. It is likely that you will get lots and lots of requests for sponsorship dollars. Consider what you care about to help winnow those requests down. If you are not passionate about music, maybe avoid giving to the orchestra, but if you are passionate about the visual arts, donate there. For example, Adelsberger Marketing works with CASA because my wife and I have been foster parents for years and are passionate about it.
A second way to be involved in the community is to allow your team members to serve on committees or boards. While there might not be a direct financial cost, sharing the brain and hands of your team with organizations that need it is important. Boards are a good way to give back and a nice way to network. Because everyone is there for the same reason, networking is natural in these situations. Networking can lead to new relationships, referrals, and talent acquisition.
This blog post is a portion of Attention and Action. The book walks you through the marketing process that Adelsberger Marketing follows with its clients. You can read this book for free as a blog on the Adelsberger Marketing website or purchase on Amazon.com
