Incorporate Charitable Work into your Brand Indentity

The following is a guest post by Meredith Keller

{photo by raceytay}

The key to brand building is telling a story. Anyone can sell handbags or earrings, part of what makes your products stand out is the personality behind the business. There are lots of great ways to show a bit of yourself to your customers: create a Flickr account, maintain a blog. Share your process, share your workspace, share a bit of you. One valuable way to share with your customers is through your charitable activities. We all like to do business with socially responsible companies, so if you're involved with a good cause make this part of your brand's story.

1. Be Authentic

If you're not currently involved in a charitable organization, your first task is to select one. When doing this, make sure it's a charity you really care about. For one thing, it will come across as more genuine when you tell the story and for another, it will help you stay engaged with your charity. Some good examples include running a marathon for breast cancer, teaching art classes to underprivileged youth, or volunteering for a conservation organization.

Ideally, you'd want to pick something that fits with your brand. If you're an illustrator, teaching art classes might be a natural fit. If you make products from recycled goods the conservation organization might make more sense. At Ex-Boyfriend, we are very involved with local animal rescues. Our whole company is run by animal lovers and a lot of our illustrations feature some of our favorite critters. Our customers are likely to be animals lovers and interested in our work with animal rescues, so it makes sense to share our experiences with them.

2. Tell the story

Tell your customers how you got involved in the charity of your choice and what it means to you. In our case, we've always loved animals and after adopting a couple of kitties from local rescue organizations, we wanted to get more involved. We have a page on our site dedicated to our history with animal rescue organizations, and it details the ways in which we are involved with them. We donate a portion of our profits to animal rescues and do volunteer work for them.

3. Share the experience

Make your experience with your charity an ongoing one. It gives customers a view into your life and continues the story of the brand's relationship with the charitable cause. (It's also just awesome to help a good cause.) If you're training for a marathon, blog about the experience. If you're donating products to a charitable auction, tell customers how they can bid. If you're teaching an art class, post pictures of your students' work. Since, we foster rescue animals at Ex-Boyfriend, we keep our customers updated with videos, pictures of our foster animals and stories about caring for them.

You can also use your charitable work experience to generate content for your social media pages. Use stories, photos, videos and links related to your charitable work across Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and your blog. It gets your brand out there in a way that's tied to something positive so new customers can discover you, and existing customers can stay interested in your activities.

Lastly, be sure to include information about your charitable work when talking to the press. It helps tell your brand story and add interest. It will make you stand out among other companies pitching similar products because it adds another angle to your story. It also helps generate interest in your charity.

4. Invite customers to participate

Provide ways for customers to get involved with your charitable activities. Donate a portion of your company profits to charity. Provide links to donate to your charity directly. Ask your customers to bid on your products for your charity's auction. At Ex-Boyfriend, we often promote the Animal Rescue Site on Facebook, Twitter and in our newsletter. Customers just have to click a link to help raise money for animal rescues. Inviting customer participation not only helps your charitable cause, it also helps your customers engage with your brand.

5. Use your charity to promote your brand

Charitable organizations are often willing to give you a little free word of mouth in exchange for volunteer work or donations. Offer to design their newsletter or sponsor their next happy hour with door prizes. In exchange, they'll most likely be willing to mention your business in their newsletter, on their websites or on event flyers. It's almost free advertising to an audience that's likely to view your brand favorably since you're both involved with the same charity.