As CMOs and other senior marketing executives spend more of their budgets on purpose-driven marketing, it’s critical that they know how to achieve true consumer engagement for a brand.
Cause consumer engagement is a primary way to get consumers to take action and make a purchase, but a recent study shows that there are some do’s and don’ts that can help make a campaign successful.
In the video below, I offer some of my perspectives on the highlights of Ketchum’s Cause Consumer Engagement Study, which was conducted as part of the 2011 BlogHer Social Media Study, a study that examined the purchasing behaviors of social media users, probed how users feel about the role of technology in their lives, compared media usage patterns, and gauged the level of relevance among different types of media.
Cause Consumer Engagement Study Highlights
- People are willing to change purchase behavior if the cause aligns with their personal passions and impacts themselves, their community or someone close to them.
- Passion for a cause is the top reason why Americans evangelize a particular brand and the cause it supports, with 38% of adults saying it was the primary reason why have written, blogged or tweeted about a brand and cause.
- People want cause support to be simple and easy; 48% are most receptive to programs in which companies donate a portion of sales to a cause, and 38% want companies to make it easy to support a cause online (e.g., become a Facebook friend).
- Americans are most passionate about causes supporting breast cancer initiatives (44% of national sample, 48% of BlogHer), animals (36% and 29%) and children’s causes (35% and 52%).
- While one-third of Americans report telling a friend or family member about a brand that was supporting a cause, nearly half of young adults were likely to do so.
While many cause consumer engagement programs have done more for word-of-mouth and brand affinity than sales, this research reveals how to turn talk about a cause into action that elicits consumer engagement and sales.
What do you think? I would love to hear your comments.
