- Investigate! Research your market. Get to know what the market demands, and find out about your main competitors. This will in turn tell you how to excel. Your Unique Selling Points will increase your chances of success.
- Determine where to start: by choosing a strategic location you will have a better chance of reaching your target group
- Promote the products you sell: word-of-mouth is often very effective, but insufficient as soon as you wish to reach large groups of people.
- Investment in marketing to let people know of your existence and prove them why they should choose your product.
What's in it for you?
- A stronger position in the market: if you want to persuade the customer of your product, you need to excel. Your competitors will claim the same. However, if you can show that your organisation promotes a healthier environment and fair trade, you will have an additional trigger to persuade consumers. Your potential customers: an increasing group of people we call cultural creatives!
- USP: sustainability and CSR give you an extra USP
- Retention: you will gain new customers, but you will find that customers are willing to stay loyal as well.
- Cost reduction: choosing alternative ways of promotion and communication can be a lot cheaper. Think of online marketing, which reduces paper, ink, transportation and delivery costs. Also consider the way you communicate: cultural creatives are best addressed with authenticity. Real commercials work best and are cheaper to produce.
- Publicity: every company wants to make a positive appearance in the media. Implementation of CSR raises the media's attention creating an excellent opportunity to increase brand awareness and USPs.
An example of CSR proof marketing is by giving away sustainable gadgets. Everybody likes a goodie-bag from time to time. Co-branding sustainable presents and promoting your company this way will be good for your reputation and stimulate word-of-mouth. This is cheap and effective!
Marketing and communication is quite a large territory, which is why we have chosen to make a division between companies that focus on the content of a message (printing, journalism) and companies that focus on creative design (photography, web design, graphic design). We will refer to them as Broadcasting and Design, respectively.
