You can learn a lot by watching what major national and multinational companies are doing.
While they execute their strategies on a national level, you can take some of their already tested ideas, tweak them, and put your local spin on them.
The CEOs of large corporations authorize huge research budgets in search of the emotional touch points that will win them favor with their customers.
For example, virtually all of the Fortune 500 companies today have a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) program to win the hearts of their prospects and give them a competitive advantage. CSR can include everything from reducing your carbon footprint to avoiding selling products made in sweatshops and supporting national causes, to the benefit packages they offer their employees.
You can bet that if CSR is in the sights of these CEOs, they aren’t suddenly becoming responsible out of the goodness of their hearts. Their research has indicated a shift in how consumers define value in the businesses they patronize.
But locally owned and operated businesses have a huge advantage in the CSR arena. Consumers that have grown skeptical of big business, expect and demand three key attributes before they will trust CSR efforts:
1.) Transparency. It’s no longer good enough to say, “We support the Heart Fund” while cutting the benefits of their employees. Consumers expect a sincere effort to be a good corporate citizen on every front.
2.) Measurement. It’s no longer effective to claim “a portion of every sale will be donated to the Big Brothers”….consumers demand to know exactly what portion or how much will go to the charity.
3.) Impact. Here is where local businesses have the advantage. While a global marketer has to be generic and promote global issues, local businesses can identify and quantify the measurable local impact. People can’t always relate to the number of children suffering from malnutrition nationally, but they can relate to the homeless children in your community.
Big businesses have to claim to feed the world while you can connect with your customers emotionally by simply feeding one local child every day.
If you’ve been watching what the large corporations are doing, there is no doubt they believe that CSR has to be an ingredient in their business plan. If you want to beat them at their own game, click here to receive our 12 CSR Tactics to Win Your Customers’ Hearts.