Why (and How To) Write a Strategy for Your Cause-Related Marketing

These days, brands championing a social cause or initiative must treat it as a serious commitment.

Of course, it was never a good idea to take an ad hoc approach to cause marketing — adding a rainbow frame to the brand’s social media profile for a month or using a climate-change hashtag in an Arbor Day blog article.

But now, the very act of advocating for or supporting a hot topic involves so many elements and can spark more responses from stakeholders (and non-stakeholders) that it demands a detailed strategy.

What if the content marketing team could lead in developing that strategy and be at the helm of the brand’s ongoing effort around that important topic?

You’ll elevate content marketing’s role within the organization (and maybe even get that much-coveted seat at the top leadership table).

But how do you do it with a healthy, sustainable approach? Follow this three-step plan for a cause-related content marketing strategy.

1. Start at the top

Many brands say they’re committed to a cause but struggle with demonstrating that commitment.

Why? The cause conversation never hits on what needs to happen to ensure the organization keeps its public face focused on those topics.

A documented content marketing strategy around a cause commitment enables all the teams creating content to operate from the same page. Its development can also serve as a jumping-off point for other departments or the whole organization to develop a long-term strategy around the brand’s cause-related mission.

Your strategy preparation starts not with content marketing but with the organization’s business operations:

That first step will likely take the most time — it involves a lot of elements you likely don’t have control over. But do this research. Interviewing key stakeholders will inform everything you do next. Your investigation will help people across the organization realize the depth of the brand’s commitment and better understand the goals for its cause commitment.

Your actions also communicate to leadership that your priority is to ensure content marketing aligns with business objectives.

With this research finished, you’ll likely find yourself with one of two conclusions:

1. Clear cause-specific business goals and metrics or
2. A fuzzy picture of what leadership would like to happen (though they haven’t fully formulated a plan or set goals)

No matter which outcome you reach, you can still progress to the next step. It just might be harder if you’re in the fuzzy picture crowd.

2. Bring in the audience

Now that you’ve thought about the business, it’s time to consider your audience.

In most cause-related initiatives, marketers forget they have a target audience and simply decide to create content related to the cause. That’s a positive step, but it’s only the beginning.

Ask audience-specific questions, such as:

• Who in the target audience is most interested in this content?
• Why?
• What do they want from this content?

With this information, you can likely narrow down your larger target audience or renew your commitment to an existing persona or niche. This is the group to target with your cause content marketing strategy.

3. Align cause objective with business and audience

Knowing your business goals and audience, you’re ready to figure out the content marketing objectives.

What content marketing goals align with both business goals and audience interests? Are they concrete and measurable?

For example, with an inclusive content marketing strategy, benchmarks for imagery, accessible content, voice representation in content, etc., are important. However, they focus on tactics and don’t properly incorporate the audience.

What do you want from your readers, viewers, and listeners? Your answer will likely fall into these three broad objectives:

The three goals function together as stages or a funnel. Brand awareness leads an audience to act, and that action ultimately contributes to brand loyalty.

An election-season analogy might help:

1. A voter learns about a candidate (awareness).
2. The voter decides to support the candidate (action).
3. The voter puts the candidate’s sign in their yard (loyalty).

In cause-oriented content, most marketers do the brand awareness stage well. You might change the social profile image to represent the designated month. You publish an article from the CEO explaining the brand’s commitment to the cause and review metrics around social media engagement, increased traffic, or time on page.

However, you also should work to move the audience to the second stage — action. You might invite readers to subscribe to a series of articles around your brand’s cause commitment and activities. You could ask them to register for a webinar to learn more. Success metrics would include sign-ups.

Keep pushing the audience to get to the third goal in the sequence — loyalty. Publish regular and authentic content around the cause’s mission. You’ll convince the audience that your brand walks the talk.

They’ll continue to consume your content. They might buy your products. And they might tell others about why they like your brand (whether they buy from you or not). Success metrics might include returning visitors, number of pages visited, purchase activity, and brand mentions.

TIP: As you determine your initiative-specific content marketing goals, you need to discuss the content plans, too. What formats will you use? How frequently will you publish? Those two factors allow you to set relevant and realistic goals.

Follow through on your cause commitment

Supporting or promoting a social cause or initiative requires a serious commitment. Rather than celebrating a single day or month, adopt a long-term content marketing strategy around the cause. Your audience will realize that your brand isn’t jumping on the bandwagon — it’s truly committed. That differentiation will lead them to get more involved with your content and ultimately develop a stronger bond with your brand.

And that’s a great way to elevate your content team’s role in meeting business objectives.

Updated from an October 2022 article.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute