Does customers being involved in your brand's charitable side (ie:donating percentage of profits) benefit your business? Do you notice a correlation?

[liam_hughes_85]

*edited to actually make sense now*

I'm toying with an idea that started as a simple project to practice coding skills that relates to this.

(First off, I don't mean to sound inhuman; I think it's awesome when people start a business with a mission aimed at something they believe, run it up and direct a lot of money towards causes that make the world a better place. I don't only see this as a way to make money.)


It seems like this plays a huge roll in people's brand identity and it seems to work well for a lot of brands. So much that I see a lot of brands that look like someone slapped together a mediocre white-label product and said "it's for, uh, the turtles or something bro" and do phenomenally with it.

For all of you that do this: do you see customer loyalty increase when you increase awareness for your charitable mission? Would a medium for your customers/community to directly get involved in your mission be valuable to you? Would this type of platform interest you?

I'm assuming that at least a handful of folks on here have businesses that do this and I don't personally know many entrepreneurs in real life.

 

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[biophase]

It seems like this plays a huge roll in people's brand identity and it seems to work well for a lot of brands.

You say that you’ve seen it seem to work for all these friends. And now you’re asking if it does work?

For all of you that do this: do you see engagement, loyalty, sales, traffic, etc increase when you increase awareness for your charitable mission? Would people further participating in your mission benefit your business? Do you make connections, partners, cross-promotion as a result of your mission?

I don’t understand your question. You seem to state that you have already seen that this helps a huge amount. So are you just asking for confirmation?

I guess I will answer, yes it does.

 

[liam_hughes_85]

You say that you’ve seen it seem to work for all these friends. And now you’re asking if it does work?


I don’t understand your question. You seem to state that you have already seen that this helps a huge amount. So are you just asking for confirmation?

I guess I will answer, yes it does.

Fair enough. To be honest it's kind of difficult to phrase what I'm asking and I guess it's completely valid to think this sounds dumb; I apologize. I've rephrased this to be more concise, so thank you for helping me refine the question.

I'm not saying my friends do this, I'm saying I've seen a lot of businesses do it and it seems to work overall.

I'm not asking whether or not it works, I'm asking what the relationship looks like if you've ever had a business that does this. And whether it appears to lead to more repeat customers, not just if it brings customers or not.

I'm trying to gauge whether or not increasing this engagement would be of benefit in enough magnitude to warrant my project going from a "practice code" to a legit product to get behind.

 

[BizyDad]

Fair enough. To be honest it's kind of difficult to phrase what I'm asking and I guess it's completely valid to think this sounds dumb; I apologize. I've rephrased this to be more concise, so thank you for helping me refine the question.

I'm not saying my friends do this, I'm saying I've seen a lot of businesses do it and it seems to work overall.

I'm not asking whether or not it works, I'm asking what the relationship looks like if you've ever had a business that does this. And whether it appears to lead to more repeat customers, not just if it brings customers or not.

I'm trying to gauge whether or not increasing this engagement would be of benefit in enough magnitude to warrant my project going from a "practice code" to a legit product to get behind.

No one can answer this question for you. The only way to truly know is to try it out. Test it out for yourself and see how it goes. Report back results.

I have had clients initiate partnerships with charitable endeavors, making it more of a brand focus, and seen good results.

And I've also seen it go the other way too. In the times when it actually hurt website conversion, I'm not entirely sure the cause. My theory is that the client chose a charity that was unrelated to their business in a way that didn't make sense to the consumer.

But that's just a guess. No one did any market research to find out why it didn't work. We just stopped promoting it, and he kept donating.

 

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[biophase]

Fair enough. To be honest it's kind of difficult to phrase what I'm asking and I guess it's completely valid to think this sounds dumb; I apologize. I've rephrased this to be more concise, so thank you for helping me refine the question.

I'm not saying my friends do this, I'm saying I've seen a lot of businesses do it and it seems to work overall.

I'm not asking whether or not it works, I'm asking what the relationship looks like if you've ever had a business that does this. And whether it appears to lead to more repeat customers, not just if it brings customers or not.

I'm trying to gauge whether or not increasing this engagement would be of benefit in enough magnitude to warrant my project going from a "practice code" to a legit product to get behind.

I still don’t really know what you were asking. Are you asking if I have a better relationship with my customers because of this or if I have a relationship to the people that I donate to?

What type of engagement are you specifically asking about, between who and who?

I will attempt to answer your question and say that, yes, customers are more loyal because of it. I have more customers interactions because of it. I also have good relationships with the organizations that I donate to. And they do support my company.

 

[liam_hughes_85]

No one can answer this question for you. The only way to truly know is to try it out. Test it out for yourself and see how it goes. Report back results.

I have had clients initiate partnerships with charitable endeavors, making it more of a brand focus, and seen good results.

And I've also seen it go the other way too. In the times when it actually hurt website conversion, I'm not entirely sure the cause. My theory is that the client chose a charity that was unrelated to their business in a way that didn't make sense to the consumer.

But that's just a guess. No one did any market research to find out why it didn't work. We just stopped promoting it, and he kept donating.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this and I appreciate your input. I had no intention of sounding like I wanted someone else to do the work for me, was just curious of other people's experience but I see how it could've came across that way. Have a good one!