Is your marketing message just not capturing the hearts and minds of your intended audience? Maybe your organization is stuck in old school messaging, developing talk points about product features and benefits rather than true relevance.

Cause campaign marketing for non-profits have learned a simple trick that may help. Rather than talk about themselves, they focus on the problem they are trying to solve and back themselves into the unique solution to it.

The cause marketing recipe looks something this:

Here's the problem (ex: no clean water in developing countries or AIDS)
Here are some solutions (that typically don't work)
Here's our unique solution which really works (outline benefits)
Here is how you get involved (the call to action)

Four simple messaging steps. And, notice in those four steps, the organization does not take the front seat until late in the game. The problem to be solved is the focus, rather than the organization, right from step one.

And, here is the brutal truth for cause marketing. It is the best (only) marketing and messaging model to use when an organization has clearly articulated a vision, or an answer as to “why” they exist. Most organizations are stuck on “what they do” rather than “why they do it”, having failed to articulate a vision, and cannot aspire to use cause marketing.

But, if your organization has effectively developed and articulated a vision - an answer to why - cause marketing is the most authentic and effective way to build a messaging campaign. And, if it works for other outstanding non-profits, it may work for your organization.