‘Tis the season for giving back! As a national business, you’ve got the advantages of a larger budget for the season, but you’ll need to work harder to make your contributions feel unique and personalized. That’s why giving back in meaningful ways is so important for your business!
I’m going to walk you through how you can give to your employees, clients, and charities. If you don’t want to be seen as cold and heartless, you need to join in the holiday spirit and show people that you care about them!
Giving Back to Clients
No matter what industry you’re in, it’s safe to say that your clients could have easily gone with one of your competitors. Show that you appreciate them choosing you!
A great way to do this is to post holiday coupon codes on social media. Not only are you giving people what they want most during the holidays—deals—but you’re rewarding your most loyal customers. The people who follow you on social media are the ones who regularly buy from your business. Reward them for that!
As an added bonus, people will buy more from you when you have a sale. This is what truly effective giving back looks like—a sincere effort to help the people around you that just so happens to benefit your business!
Giving Back to Employees
Your employees aren’t just employees. They’re real people with unique passions and interests. Prove that you understand and appreciate that about them! One great strategy is to make a competition of it. Set trackable metrics for employee success and let each employee choose a charity. Those with the best performance will have donations made in their name proportional to how well they did!
You get a few advantages from this idea. First, your employees are working harder because they want to help a cause that’s important to them. It will give them an extra push to increase productivity, which can be especially useful around the holidays when many industries get busy.
Beyond that, you’re creating the opportunity to show your brand in a positive light. Use social media! You can give the winners an employee spotlight to show off how well they did, what charity they chose, and how large a contribution you made. Your employees will feel even better about their accomplishments, and your followers get to see how well you treat your workers!
Giving to Charity
Large companies donate to charities all the time. The bad news is that the majority of them are doing it wrong. It’s easy to just write a check to a random non-profit and call it a day, but that isn’t best for your business or the charity. You’ll be better served by finding a way to donate that makes sense for your business.
For example, a national restaurant chain donating to the Make-A-Wish Foundation doesn’t make a lot of sense. Sure you’d probably get some credit for helping out people in need, but ultimately, it would be too confusing for people trying to understand your brand.
But what if you ran a promotion where you matched donations to Feeding America? You could use one-liners like, “We Feed You, Now Help Us Feed Them!” The move makes sense for your brand, you’d help raise money for charity, and encouraging people to donate would simultaneously tell them how generous and thoughtful your business is.
That’s a great plan in and of itself, but you can do better. Keeping the restaurant chain scenario, why not offer your employees paid time to work in their local soup kitchens and food pantries? Share pictures of them across social media and watch the positive buzz come rolling in. This way, you get to show how considerate you are, and the charities get publicity from a national brand along with some real chefs in the kitchen!
Get Giving
As you wrap up the year, you shouldn’t be asking yourself whether you should be generous or have a successful business. When you do it right, you don’t have to choose! Use my advice to make sure your national business is humanizing itself by giving back in December!
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