5 Ways to Incorporate CSR into Marketing Activities

Nowadays, CSR has become one of the standard business practices and it is incredibly important that every company should prepare and demonstrate it in order to achieve a positive impact on society as a whole while maximizing the creation of shared value for the business owners, employees, shareholders, and stakeholders.

CSR also can be strategically considered as an effective marketing strategy or marketing tool, it definitely supports increasing company performance as well as generating positive social impact and also revenue indirectly. Because most consumers would be more willing to purchase a company’s products or services if the company demonstrates a commitment to addressing social, corporate governance, or environmental issues.

Paundra Hanutama, Marketing Communications Director for Aston Priority Simatupang Hotel Jakarta shares 5 ways to enhance your CSR activity as part of your marketing tool.

The most common form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that some companies usually have focused on lately is to help underprivileged societies and local organizations around where their companies are located. For instance: A company delivered donation both cash and product or even service to the orphanage or the victims of a natural disaster.

Actually, CSR does not necessarily have to be philanthropic in social but it could be something related to the major current environmental issues and corporate governance. You may modify and design your CSR program into something truly innovative, creative, and produce something that is not usual or boring.

For CSR to be effective, it needs to be implemented in line with a company’s brand-building strategy and should be monitored and also evaluated at the end of the program and these are 5 ways to modify your CSR as marketing tools:

Involve the NGO’s for your CSR program and invite them as an event partner. This kind of event is usually called as a joint event or collaboration. The process of choosing an NGO partner typically involves a screening process. This can include a credibility test, a field visit, and background checks. Your CSR objective should be in line with NGO’s vision and mission and make sure that the NGO is reputable. For instance: Aston Hotel intends to work closely with the Indonesian Care for Cancer Kids Foundation (Pita Merah) on long-term sustainable projects emphasizing fighting childhood cancer.

Think out of the box and try to be different. It will be awesome if we can mix two sectors even different sectors to our CSR program. We can mix a CSR program with a way to see the destination at the same time. We also should be careful and make sure that the program is creative and not to go far from the genuine CSR’s message. For instance: Celebrating Earth Hour by featuring the painting Maestro to showcase their skill in glow-in-the-dark painting during one hour switch off. By conducting this kind of event. It means that we have mixed art, culture, and environmental.

This CSR activity needs commitment and determination from all participants. The community that does environmental or climate change issues will fit into this kind of CSR activity. This CSR will present the long-period event with the full agenda or rundown and also involve the experts or trainers. It usually focuses on physical activity or workshop so we need to pay extra attention to program detail and need very good preparation and also coordination because we involved many organizations, communities, and other parties.

Prepare a very good theme that can grab the audiences' attention in order to willing to join this event because this event will give participants the opportunity to get involved much and compete with each other. The company usually presents semi competition on this CSR event and a lot of prizes will be given. Partnering with other brands is possible to enliven the event because they are expected to sponsor the event by providing the prizes. It is very important to encourage participants to be active and also creative during this event series happened.

This tactic or method is actually adapted from successful product endorsement. A celebrity or influencer gives their endorsement to a product or service, they generate brand recognition and provide a sense of familiarity and trust, which impacts sales or revenue increase. This endorsement can obviously boost product sales and we can use the same model to boost awareness from CSR events. In these cases, celebrities or influencers can do a world of good. For instance: Discovery Hotel embraced Christian Ronaldo for Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation (TWNC) in Indonesia to raise Sumatran Tiger Conservation.

There are many CSR concepts and practices that can be implemented as your marketing tools. In the end, the biggest factor for successful CSR depends on how to keep the execution consistent and utilize your media handling skill to boost the tangible result. I hope that these 5 ways can help you to prepare your CSR in the near future.