How to Share Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Values with Your Customers

What is the secret to sharing your company’s good deeds with your customer? Establishing an effective Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy.

CSR carries a lot of weight when it comes to customer retention, and rightfully so. 40% of consumers seek purposeful brands and trust in brands to act in the best interest of society. In an increasingly conscious era, businesses have to go beyond selling goods and dive into how their goods align with a larger social mission. That social mission could involve volunteering, donations or environmentally friendly packaging; whatever the type of CSR, there are a few tips as to how to communicate what you do and why to your customers.

CSR Values Appleton Garden

Develop a Messaging Strategy

Before communicating CSR values to a customer, the first step is to develop an effective messaging strategy. With 90% of customers willing to switch to brands associated with a good cause, it’s important to find ways to share your CSR mission in a way that makes sense to them.

For example, customers may feel comfortable consuming information through blogs, websites, or social media. Creating a landing page that lists your company’s CSR values can work well for one group of customers, while developing infographics on social media can work better for another.

Another key to your messaging strategy is truly understanding what matters to your company that relates to your audience. Social listening techniques – such as looking at brand metrics, keyword performance, and industry trends – can effectively gauge which values your customers look for in a company and how you can demonstrate them.

Ultimately, it’s important to deliver your messaging strategy in a way that aligns with the mission. Clearly communicating CSR values provide reassurance to customers that the company they give money to aligns with their own values.

Use Visuals

In order to make an impact with your CSR values, it’s important to use visuals. Visuals clearly communicate an idea and can easily show your customer what your company stands for.

There are several creative ways to showcase your company’s CSR mission. These include:

Pictures of employees engaging with your CSR values. This can include volunteering at food banks or cleaning up litter. In fact, engaged employees are 19% more likely to volunteer their time again in the future.
Visual call-outs of quotes or excerpts of CSR values from a company’s website. This can be a useful way to show bite-size pieces of information about your company’s values.
Infographics featuring one of the non-profits or missions you support

Up to 85% of customers would pay more for products from socially responsible companies. If there are many praises about a company and its values, that will entice customers to learn more about your brand, possibly becoming potential customers in the process. Post testimonials from the organizations you’ve helped as well as your employees who participated. Customers will be more willing to follow and buy from a company that others speak highly of.

Show Impact

CSR values must have impact. Without transparency, your audience will claim your brand doesn’t ‘practice what it preaches.’

To demonstrate impact, one option is to create digital or social media campaigns showing the results of the organization or mission you helped. Educate the audience with the mission of those you help so they want to get involved. Use statistics and share accomplishments to show your audience that you invest where you say you’ll invest. Give specific examples on what your company did for the people they serve and the community around them.

Through strategic planning, CSR efforts create a positive impact on the world as well as increase the brand appeal of your company. Educate your audience with the mission of those you help so they may want to get involved. Appleton is an award-winning, full-service advertising and digital marketing agency located in Orlando, Florida. One of Appleton’s specialties is helping companies formulate or boost their current CSR. Appleton works with local, national and international clients to engage, inform and persuade target audiences of all types and sizes. Through strategic planning, media advisories, press releases, events and reputation management, Appleton can publicize and manage your company’s products, events and achievements. Your PR goals are worth a conversation: contact us at 407-246-0092 or info@appletoncreative.com.