For small businesses, it’s extremely difficult to catch stakeholders’ attention. They are always looking for new strategies to stand out on the market, but in a saturated business world, the greatest challenge is to find a way to differentiate your brand from your competition. In the present age, high quality services and products are not enough to outrank your competitors. The audience is constantly receiving new alternatives and some of them are better than the standard options, but because they have access to a multitude of solutions, they prefer not to become loyal to a brand.
Even if you have access to countless marketing tactics and strategies to reach your audience, most of the time they are time-consuming solutions that do not get you the result you want. At the end of the day, you will conclude that they do not justify your investment.
We recommend you adopting some social responsibility initiatives that have the power to capture people’s curiosity and attention, and to grow your exposure.
Rescue animals
More and more famous brands have started to collaborate with associations that are dedicated to save abandoned pets and find them forever homes. Marc Jacobs, for example decided to collaborate with a charity called SATO that is dedicated to saving abandoned dogs in Puerto Rico. Most of the charities target countries hit by natural disasters or undeveloped states where the locals do not have the needed education and financial means to focus on rescuing animals.
If you want to take it a step further, you can get involved in an action that has the goal to preserve marine life. For example, the initiative called Run for the Oceans reached the public’s attention because it’s organised in multiple cities worldwide. Running events are planned with the purpose to raise awareness on the negative impact plastic has on marine life. You can support one of these events by donating money or you can involve your team and become runners in the event. Every runner raises money through his or her participation. This is only an example of activity; you can search for a local event that rescues or protects animals and associate your company’s name with it.
Support education
You can adopt an initiative that allows you to work globally and to help communities in crisis. You can support education through various means; you can donate toys, build schools, or even provide clean drinking water to students. Children need certain conditions to access education and to acquire knowledge, and you can facilitate their access to one of these conditions. For example, you can inspire from IKEA’s initiative to bring clean electricity to developing communities. You can also play an active role in creating safe educational places for the children who live in conflict zones.
If you want to make an impact locally, you can involve in a cause that supports the programs for children with illnesses and disabilities. There are camps worldwide created with the purpose to allow children to get involved in different activities that help them acquire educational skills. In 2018, BMW stood out for its social responsibility initiative. They created a program called Livelihood for Youth that had the role to support more than 400 students who want to learn basic English and computer skills.
Stop food waste
If you’ll analyse food waste statistics you’ll find them shocking. People in developed countries throw more food than they eat, while in poor areas people die of starvation. Research shows that one-third of the food produced worldwide is lost yearly. Food waste and food lose amount around $300 billion in developing countries, and around $700 in industrialised areas. From the types of food people throw to garbage, vegetables and fruits have the highest wastage rate. You can adopt an initiative that fights this problem.
For example, you can inspire from the campaign called The Inglorious Fruit and Vegetable that has to aim to reduce the waste of bad looking food. They managed to achieve their goal by selling the inglorious products at 30% discount. If you’re running a store or supermarket this is the perfect social responsibility initiative to adopt. You can earn loyal clients by socialising your initiative. To raise attention towards the problem you should organise an ugly vegetable and fruit contest on your social media page. The initiative is a win-win one because it helps you sell your products and it allows your clients to buy products at a lower price. Many people have the misconception that when a fruit loses its good-looking appearance it also loses its properties, but this isn’t the case for many of them.
Keep the environment healthy
If you’re running a large company, the main challenge you’ll face is that the more you’ll produce the greater your impact on the planet will be. If you want to attract more clients, you have to show them that you put efforts into finding solutions to the environmental crisis the world is facing. If you want to reduce the overall impact, you can start by reducing the quantity of waste you produce. You should invest in waste management services, no matter the specific of your business you can find customised solutions on the market. You should learn more about the strategies, companies worldwide use to reduce their negative impact on the environment.
Be transparent and allow people to see how you are running the business and how you plan to stop some environmental and social issues. Show them how every step of the supply chain works and their trust levels will grow. You can follow the example of Patagonia, they decided to switch to organic cotton in 1994 and they informed their clients on their choice. They are collaborating with farmers to check how they are producing cotton and how they are caring the ducks used to supply their down jackets. They assure their clients that no duck is plucked while living and no duck is forced to eat.
Apart from these initiatives, you can adopt other ones that support the use of renewable energy, the construction of green buildings, resources conservation, and a decent wage for workers.
