Another Goodie from Gas Pedal

#857: The "8 Ways to Make a Charity Promotion Worth Talking About" Issue

Most businesses do some sort of charitable partnership, which is great. But, unfortunately, most aren't worth talking about and don't get the recognition they deserve. The brilliant team at Threadless, however, has everyone excited about their Good Shirts program to help UNICEF deliver some much-needed aid to kids in Africa. A few ideas you should borrow from this project: 1. Make it outrageous 2. Make it easy to participate 3. Make it interesting for big talkers 4. Make it naturally viral 5. Make it match your core business 6. Make it fun 7. Make it forwardable 8. Make it 100% 9. Check it out: See the designs and get involved 1. Make it outrageous Every word of mouth initiative takes something unexpected, outrageous, or unbelievable to inspire conversations. For this campaign, one of the shirts for sale costs $300,000. Buying it means UNICEF can make a cargo flight of goods to those in need. It may just be the world's most expensive T-shirt, and it's a fantastic reason to tell a friend. 2. Make it easy to participate For $18.57 you can buy a shirt that gets mosquito nets for those who need it. That's an affordable, easy way for a lot of Threadless fans to get involved. There's no team to organize, no fundraising campaign to lead -- just a simple purchase that's easy to do and easy to talk about. 3. Make it interesting for big talkers As important as it is to make your charitable project accessible for all your fans, getting just a few big influencers involved can dramatically increase the buzz. That's what their $300,000 and $75,000 shirts are all about. As soon as a celebrity buys one, they're going to get a ton of press (they sold a $300,000 shirt!) and every fan that bought one of the other, cheaper designs gets to tell friends they're also involved in the campaign. 4. Make it naturally viral These shirts are goofy. They're drawings of whatever your donation is supporting -- a worm represents deworming tablets, there's a water bucket for a family water kit, and a milk carton for therapeutic milk. Strangers are going to ask about them, and people familiar with the project are going to immediately recognize them. The shirts themselves are naturally viral, and they're going to lead to a whole bunch of conversations about Threadless and this great cause. 5. Make it match your core business Threadless is selling shirts for charity -- and everyone knows them for selling great shirts. Too many businesses attempt a complex cross-promotion (you know, the law firm doing some walk for something, etc.). But if you can tie your charitable campaign to what your business does, a) it'll be better for the charity (because you're good at it and know what you're doing), and b) it'll be good for business, because more people will learn what you're great at. 6. Make it fun Charitable causes face a common word of mouth challenge: People don't like to talk about difficult topics. The issue Threadless is helping to address isn't a light one -- it's about kids facing starvation and disease in one of the world's most desperate regions -- but the simple, light-hearted shirts give talkers an easy way to show their support without having to go into the details of the issues. 7. Make it forwardable Like every great word of mouth project, everything about this campaign is easy to share. Each page is ready to share on Facebook and Twitter, they've got embeddable videos you can use, and the whole thing kicked off with a great email that survived lots of forwarding (trust us, we tested it as we all passed it around the office and to our friends). You can do all the other ideas in this newsletter perfectly, but if it isn't easy to share, your word of mouth quickly dies. 8. Make it 100% All of the proceeds from the sale of shirts are going to support this cause. If you're going to partner with a charity for a promotion, you should also go all the way. You're doing all this work to rally fans around a cause you believe in, and you're going to risk breaking their trust with some policy about covering your costs? Whenever you're asking your talkers to give 100%, you have to lead by example. 9. Check it out: See the designs and get involved Learn more about this amazing cause, see all 12 designs, and find out how you can get involved. Check it out: Threadless

Handling Negative Comments

Great advice from the folks at Gas Pedal:

How to respond to negative word of mouth

Negative word of mouth happens to every company. Nobody is immune. But great brands have a plan that helps them convert a lot of the angry critics into happy fans. What you should do: 1. Act quickly 2. Be human 3. Write for the record 1. Act quickly When a customer is upset, you need to act fast. A quick response (even if it's just to say, "I'm sorry, I hear you -- let me get back to you") helps soothe the original critic and also helps avoid an outbreak of more negative sentiment from others. It's common sense, but it's also been proven in studies: In one experiment, when a single table complained about food in a crowded restaurant, 26% of guests made similar complaints. 2. Be human A canned response is worse than no response at all. Identify yourself, speak like a real person, and give them a way to follow-up with you. No frustrated customer has ever been won over with corporate speak, and there's no reason to expect it to start working anytime soon. 3. Write for the record When you're responding -- especially in online forums -- remember that you're not just writing for the original critic, but for everyone else who reads it later. You want people to see that you tried to make things right. Even if you can't fix the problem, it's important to show that you're listening and that you care about keeping customers happy.