moralesBcause: we believe in cause marketing!

I was invited to give a presentation about Cause Marketing to a group of business people recently.  Cause Marketing is personal for us due to the history in our families of heart disease and stroke.  Our personal cause, 'moralesBcause' is our way of giving back. Below is the text of the presentation.

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My wife Sally and I live and work in Southern Georgian Bay.  It affords us a great lifestyle:  run, cycle, ski all along the shores of Southern Georgian Bay.

Happily married to Sally with 4 kids...make that 5: Tia the 4 lb tiny Yorkie has a huge personality.

Spent the past 25+ years in advertising and marketing.  Clients include Speedy Muffler King, General Motors,Toyota and Dairy Queen.

We founded Morales Outsourced Marketing Services last year because of demand from small/mid-size business owners to get better results from their marketing. Our basic service:  we put a plan together for our clients, show them how to get their advertising working harder (including on-line advertising); integrate events and of course, CAUSE.

Our personal cause, ‘moralesBcause’ is our way of giving back.  It is also our way of showing small and mid-size business owners how they can get involved in Cause Marketing.  We hope you will help us with our goal of raising $20,000 in 2010 for the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario. We are walking, running, cycling and even paintballing at Wasaga Beach Paintball to raise the funds.

Lets define Cause Marketing

• As noted by Wikipedia, Cause Marketing is “the cooperative efforts of a ‘for-profit’ business and a ‘not-for-profit’ organization for mutual benefit”.

Our cause, ‘moralesBcause’ passes that test.

I got into Cause Marketing after a visit to an old folks home. I was working for Speedy Muffler King at the time. The owner wanted to give back to his local community. He decided to sponsor a 10 K run to raise money for the Baycrest Home in Toronto. Thus was born the Speedy Baycrest Fun run. I ran it twice and have written about about it in this blog...it was my introduction to both running and cause marketing.

My interest increased when I worked for Dairy Queen and visited the neonatal critical care ward at the sick Kids hospital in London, Ontario. We had been founding sponsors of the Children’s Miracle Network (CMN). This was a natural: Dairy Queen, summer, kids...who does not have pleasant memories. Dairy Queen not only gave back but connected emotionally with customers.

Those are the two key things to consider when thinking about Cause Marketing:

• Give back to your community
• Connect emotionally with your customers

This gives you a point-of-difference; something you can talk about and rally around in your business
Moving Forward.

When we started Morales Outsourced Marketing Services last year, we knew we wanted to be known for Cause Marketing:  we wanted to give back and connect emotionally with our clients.

The inspiration to walk/run/cycle to raise is personal for both Sally and I.  Sally lost her brother a few years ago when he was felled by a major stroke.  My Father passed away more recently after suffering a major heart attack.  Raising funds to increase awareness of heart and stroke disease and how to prevent it is very important to us.  Our efforts go directly to both education and research.

‘moralesBcause’ is a way our clients can get into cause marketing. One donation directly to 'moralesBcause' via this secure link goes directly to the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario.  But you get much more:

• Promotion on your web site.
• Blog posts on our web presence:  web site, blogs, facebook, twitter, linkedin
• Local media
• Ability to develop fund raising events at your location.

In summary:

• Cause Marketing is “the cooperative efforts of a ‘for-profit’ business and a ‘not-for-profit’ organization for mutual benefit”
• It provides a point-of-difference for your business
• You connect emotionally with your customers...get them to be passionate about your business
• You get to give back to your community

Thank you.

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Morales Outsourced Marketing Services
http://www.outsourcedmarketing.ca/
chris@outsourcedmarketing.ca