Peter Bregman recently penned a great post, The Farm to Table Secret of Motivating People. In it, he describes a weekend spent at a 10-acre farm with his family and how it profoundly changed the way he selected, prepared and thought about his food. He then relates his experience to engaging and motivating people and posits:
Where and when you enter a process is a strong determinant of how connected you’ll feel to the outcome. If I’m on the receiving end of a new initiative, I’ll approach it more critically than if I’m one of the people involved from the beginning.
[When people are involved in project creation] they’re always happier with the outcome. They feel something deeper than the success of a project gone well. They feel pride of ownership. They feel satisfied by the journey that brought them to their success.
Beyond Stakeholders for Dummies
While this may sound obvious and a chapter out of ‘Stakeholders for Dummies’, this ‘where and when you enter the process’ bit has several implications for cause marketers.
Of course you’re designing and creating your cause marketing campaigns in close coordination with your partner at a high level. But what other groups need to be involved? What hurdles might you face when attempting to involve them?
Employees
We all know that one of the best ways to increase the authenticity and overall success of a cause marketing campaign is to involve employees on a meaningful level. Macy’s does a phenomenal job ensuring that employees are kept apprised of their cause initiatives and providing hands-on opportunities to get involved with community partners, through volunteering and in-store visits. As a result, Macy’s employees become front-line ambassadors for their cause programs because they feel vested in the effort. Macy’s not only provides information about their cause programs, they provide experiences to employees.
Why not enlist the advice of a group of representative employees when planning your next cause program? They’ll most likely have ideas that can help your program succeed and they’ll undoubtedly be more motivated to advocate for the success of the program, knowing they’ve been part of the process all along.
Customers
Engaging customers early on is more involved. Outside of focus groups, surveys and conversations via social media, what’s the best way to gather input and ensure engagement from the very group you’ll be targeting? Here’s my theory: ask them to do more. Donate. Volunteer. Engage.
Here’s why:
Cause Fatigue is Real
We’re surrounded by slacktivism campaigns where consumers are asked to vote with a single mouse-click to earn their non-profit organization of choice a chance at the pot of gold under the rainbow. Mike Swenson, Geoff Livingston and even Chris Brogan have warned us that cause fatigue is a very real thing and all encourage us to raise the bar.
More = Fewer but Better?
When we ask our customers to do more, rather than less…what happens? Well, probably fewer people will participate. True. What else? Let’s go back to the farm analogy. To be sure, growing and harvesting vegetables is more involved than selecting them from a produce aisle (and it’s not for everyone) but the farm experience creates engagement, interest and connection. And I don’t know about you, but I’ll take a small group of committed, engaged and connected people over a gaggle of passive ones any day.
Best Cause Standing
There’s certainly no shortage of causes with which we can choose to participate, and on a variety of levels. My guess is that, at the end of the day, when the voting dust settles and slacktivism is run out of town, the causes left standing will be the ones who figured out how to engage both employees and consumers through experiences and, yes, contributions that make the world a better place.
What evidence have you seen of cause fatigue? Is this a real phenomenon? How can we counter it? Is engaging employees and consumers the right way…the only way? Would love your thoughts!
Image credit to garlandcannon.
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A great post Megan and some excellent points on cause fatigue. It’s true that it’s very real. What better way to inspire a campaign’s authenticity than to engage people in facilitating positive change? If a company’s entire team walks that talk there’s no denying the ‘real’ energy that exudes from the campaign. That’s what consumers need to feel from brands…that it’s not just a marketing tactic but a true effort do good in the world that naturally inspires people to jump on the company bandwagon.
Thanks for the comment, Laura and I agree – that authenticity piece, “walking the talk” is critical and fuels the energy behind the campaign.
Any examples you’ve seen of companies doing this particularly well?