Seven Simple Steps Cause Marketers Should Take Before the End of the Year

The end of the year is fast approaching and with it your final opportunity to improve yourself as a cause marketer. Here are seven simple-steps you could do in the next 30 minutes to improve your cause marketing career before year end.

Make an Appointment for Early 2012 with Your Opposite Number at the Charity or Sponsor. Finish reading this list then call your partner at the cause or sponsor you work with and plan a casual meeting. The explicit purpose of the meeting, whether you admit to or not, is to help improve your personal relationship with this person, even if the relationship is already good. Here’s why: much rests on how well you work with your colleague. If you two don’t work well together your career could suffer and you’ll be less likely to achieve key goals.

Create a Swipe File. Smart copywriters keep a file of proven and tested sales copy, letters, ‘packages,’ and the like. You should swipe this idea. Only, load it up with cause marketing examples. Your swipe file could be something electronic like Dropbox or a wiki. Or an actual paper file. Or both. Either way, load it up with cause marketing you admire or could adapt for your own purposes.

Review the Best of Lists. Everyone has a best of list. Mine will appear in this space on Jan 3. Read them for ideas, for new thinking, and to get a sense not only what went right, but what went wrong and why.

Commit to Continued Cause Marketing Education. Education and self-education determines how successful your cause marketing campaigns are, indeed, how successful you are; your income and your lifespan. Some studies have even shown a correlation between happiness and education. Cause marketing is so dynamic you must commit to continued education in the practice.

Create a Cause Marketing RSS Feed. Think of RSS as feedstock for your swipe file.

Open a Correspondence with a Cause Marketer You Admire. There’s somebody out there who has the answer to your future cause marketing questions. But don’t wait until the question arises to track someone down. Begin to cultivate relationships with skilled and experienced cause marketers right now.

Make a Year end Charitable Donation. Don’t tell me you gave at the office. That’s lame. Cause marketers should be active charitable donors. Give to your own cause, for sure. But find other charities to admire and donate to them as well. Then watch how they communicate with you. Learn about how they position their cause in a noisy marketplace. Get a sense for what they do well, and what they don't.

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