I love when students put their education to good use.
Maggie Keenan, a branding and cause marketing consultant in Savannah, Georgia, is a graduate of my Six Figure Cause Marketing course, which shows nonprofits and businesses how to develop and execute an effective and lucrative cause marketing program.
Maggie gets an A+ for her latest effort: a regional cause marketing program to support the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless, Inc. Hodges Management Company, which owns the local KFCs, KFC/TacoBells and DQ Grill & Chills, approached the Housing Authority about doing something to help the homeless this holiday season.
Thanks to Maggie, they came up with a great campaign: Dishing Out Meals: Fighting to End Hunger & Homelessness in Our Community.
You can read all about Maggie’s outstanding cause marketing program on her blog. But let me take a moment to mention some of the things I really love about it.
It embraces the easiest and most lucrative type of cause marketing: point of sale. The pin-up below sold for a buck. While there are other types of cause marketing Maggie could have recommended to the partners, point of the sale is truly the best, especially for local programs like this one. I’ve raised as much as $300,000 in just a few weeks with pinups.
It taps every asset the business had for giving. Realizing that the pinup wasn’t the best option for drive thru customers, Maggie created a value card with a QR code that takes customers directly to the Homeless Authority website for more information or to make a donation. Great thinking, Maggie! [One suggestion: The mobile donation page isn't optimized for smartphones. Check out what my friend Bob Jones at Give.mobi can do to make this a better experience and raise you more money!]
It battled indifference and apathy from the outset. Have you ever been asked to buy a pinup but the total lack of interest from the cashier convinced you that he or she didn’t really care if you did? Hodges Management Company did their best to ensure that apathy and indifference wouldn’t be part of this program. All general managers spent a Saturday learning and volunteering for the cause, an experience they’ll share with their employees.
I’m proud of everyone involved in this program, and I’m eager to see the results when it’s done. Most of all, I’m really proud of Maggie Keenan. She’s a great student, asked lots of good questions and kept in touch with me to make sure she didn’t make any of the many, many mistakes I made in my first programs.
Congratulations, Maggie! I’m sure this won’t be that last post I’ll write on one of your successful cause marketing campaigns!
Maggie learned about creating and executing point of sale cause marketing programs in my Six Figure Cause Marketing program. You can too! Buy the recorded version of 6FCM for just $99!
Joe, I appreciate your positive comments and feel like I passed the test. As you know, most of my campaigns are Percentage of Sale because they are popular with fashion and beauty brand clientele. When this opportunity came along I knew just what to do to make it a success. I tapped into every note I had from your 6-Figure Cause Marketing course and tagged pages in your Cause Marketing for Dummies book (2011). Both were invaluable resources in helping me put this entire campaign together. I tried to keep it simple, use something new (i.e. QR Code), keep it centered on the corporate partner’s desire to do good, keep it local, and make a difference. To all established and emerging cause marketers, I wholeheartedly, without reserve recommend you invest in yourself for your clients and causes by enrolling in in Joe Water’s 6-Figure Cause Marketing Course and purchase his book. Both are the Encyclopedias to Successful Cause Marketing and should be on your shelf. What I know for sure: the investment I made in Joe’s course and book will allow us the opportunity to raise thousands of dollars raised for the homeless in Savannah, Georgia.
Savannah, GA meet Boston, MA. This is perfect in every way…two leaders in their philanthropic fields coming together. One Yankee — as in Red Sox "Northerner" not "NY" Yankee. And one Southerner who, together… the bottom line? Are helping feed starving, homeless people. Bringing corporate America and the consumer's attention to the problem to do something about this growing need to help the impoverished in the U.S. Incredible.
[...] weeks ago I wrote about Maggie Keenan, a graduate of my Six Figure Cause Marketing Program and happy owner of Cause [...]
[...] KFC, Dairy Queen Sell Pinups to Raise Money for Homeless in Savannah, GA [...]
[...] – Maggie Keenan (Read her story 6-Figure Cause Marketing Grad Uses Pinups, QR Codes to Help Homeless) [...]