Merry Marketing: How giving can end up getting you a lot!
Yes, t’is the season to be jolly. It’s almost Christmas time, and everybody is scrambling around in their coats and scarves to catch the flying items falling off of store racks everywhere. Even in this weak economy, people are still willing to spend a little cash in the spirit of holiday giving.
As a marketeer, you should already be asking yourself, “how can I leverage this as an advantage for my home improvement or rebath business?” But that’s when the guilt kicks in. Like a sharp kick to the side, the pang of guilt forces you to say, “I should be thinking about giving, not receiving!”.
Consumers experience something similar to this called Shopper’s Guilt. It’s when people who can afford to spend money forgo doing so in response to feeling guilty that others cannot afford it. This effect is amplified in a weak economy where there is high unemployment.
The good news is there is a way to quell both your need to indulge in holiday charity and to get customers feeling right about spending money again. All you need to do is pick a charity and team up with it as a holiday promotion.
Something similar to this might work: “For every home improvement project or rebath product purchased in the month of December, 5% will be donated to ___________”.
Of course, you’ll have to crunch the numbers and figure out what your company can afford to donate, but once you have, you will be able to both quell shopper’s guilt and help a charity at the same time. You don’t want put your business at risk by contributing too much of your sale to where it becomes detrimental, but you also want to keep in mind that these might be customers who otherwise would not have purchased anything, so any profit is a good profit.
Once you’ve figured out the numbers and the program semantics, make sure to tailor a specific marketing campaign (social media is great for quick response campaigns!) for your holiday promotion. People need to know that you’re teaming up with a charity for the holiday, and once they do, they wont have to feel guilty about getting a little something this Christmas, because they’ll be giving a little something at the same time.