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Gateway Cause Marketing for the B2B Crowd

Most cause marketing is hosted by companies that face the consumer; retailers, restaurants, and the like. But B2B cause marketing has long existed, if on a much more modest scale than consumer-based cause marketing. The usual sticking point is foot traffic. Your average warehouse just doesn’t generate enough foot traffic to support something like a paper icon campaign. That’s why B2B cause marketing, when it’s done, usually takes a different tack.

Toolmex, in Natick, Mass., supplies the industrial marketplace with things like power chucks, end mills, milling inserts, electric motors, and CNC lathes. Few of us have ever set foot in a place like Toolmex.

So what kind of cause marketing does the company do? Well, you could describe it as gateway cause marketing for a B2B supplier like Toolmex. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the press release:
“Toolmex Industrial Solutions is proud to support Toys for Tots this holiday season, and is helping to make the holidays brighter for disadvantaged families. From November 9th through December 14th, area businesses and employees are encouraged to bring new, unwrapped toys for children ages 2-12 to the company’s Natick, Massachusetts or Schaumburg, IL locations.”

“‘Last year we were very successful in contributing to this worthy cause,’ said Sharon Bronaugh, Marketing Director. ‘In the Natick facility we had three pick-ups in three weeks leading up to the holiday. We know that we can do it again with help from our employees, partners and customers.’”
I don’t know how many employees Toolmex has at its facilities, but with this effort the company plays to its strengths; the cause marketing appeal is largely focused on Toolmex employees, not customers.

There are internal benefits to such efforts, none the least of which is it gives focus to employees with a generous impulse during Christmas and the holiday season. It probably helps improve employee morale and loyalty. It might even have a hand in things like improving employee teamwork and productivity. It gives a sense of higher purpose while serving needy kids.

If your company’s business is in the B2B space and you’d like to try cause marketing, you could hardly do better than a gateway cause marketing effort like this on behalf of Toys for Tots.

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