Effective Reporting Back in Cause Marketing

Alden Keene & Associates got its annual renewable energy report the other day from our electric utility, Rocky Mountain Power.

In December 2008 we signed up with ‘Blue Sky,’ a wind-energy offsets program, so as to help lessen the environmental impact of Causemarketing.biz.

At left is the statement for the last 12 months. The back of the statement is below.

Last time around the statement included a bulleted list of the positive effects of the program, customized to Alden Keene. This year Rocky Mountain Power gave the list a little extra graphical punch and with it more relevance in my view.

I think there’s a lesson here for cause marketers. Even if such customization isn’t usually possible for most cause marketing campaigns, cause marketers need to report back campaign results. Such reporting builds transparency and as I posted earlier this month…

“Transparency is vital to cause marketing. And part of transparency is to report back on how it all went. Such reporting reassures supporters that whatever efforts they took helped in some way.”

What might the metrics look like in real world cause marketing?

Let’s just take a couple of recent posts to offer some potential examples of what those reports might include.

The Red Dress pin from Macy’s benefiting the American Heart Association could certainly put a little graphic on the back of the card that holds the pin. It might declare the money raised by the campaign, number of lives touched, and, ideally, the number of people who changed to more heart-healthy behavior as a result of the campaign.

For TAG Heuer’s efforts for Maria Sharapova’s Foundation the reporting might include the donation amount and the number of students completing a year of school at one of the Belarusian universities. Over time she’d want to include the number of scholarship recipients productively contributing to Belarusian society thank to the Sharapova Foundation.

Volvo’s support of Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation might include the total donation, and the number of families with kids with cancer who were supported by that donation.

What metrics would you include in an after action report to your cause marketing campaign supporters? Please comment below.

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