Cause Marketing: How to Support Charities with Books Sales

Cause Marketing: How to Support Charities with Books Sales

Aerio Staff

As individuals, there are tons of ways we can support causes we arepassionate about and contribute to charitable organizations whose messageswe believe in.

Volunteer time. Follow and promote their content on social media. Join a sponsored walk or run. Donate money.

As an author or publisher, you can add to this list. Have you thought abouthow your elevated platform puts you in a great position to make adifference in your community or uplift a worldwide cause?

If you’re already investing in book marketing, invest a little bit more in something greater than your bottom line likea non-profit or a humanitarian project with cause marketing, and grow your audience.

What is Cause Marketing?

Cause marketing entails a partnership between a for-profit business and anon-profit entity that usually results in a positive return for bothinvested parties.

The key is both parties are getting some type of financial benefit, whichis how cause marketing differs from direct philanthropy.

  • By donating a percentage of books sales to support a charity, the organization receives funds to support their efforts.
  • In addition to the book sales revenue (unless you donate 100%) your author platform or publisher brand is gaining awareness and discoverability.

As an added bonus, readers get a new book to enjoy, extending the author’sor publisher’s readership.

Cause marketing isn’t a pure donation to charity, but more so a cooperativeeffort in support of a shared ideal or goal.

Cause Marketing with Your Books

Like any business or entity, authors and publishers have a unique advantageover the individual when it comes to supporting charities. With a capturedbook audience and a purposeful message, books make for an excellent causemarketing tool.

Every book, from non-fiction to fiction, carries a message. Not only doescause marketing create the opportunity to give back, but it also is a greatway to build more robust content. For instance:

  • In support of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) you might create a fury four-footed main character.
  • Consider how telling the uplifting story of an abuse victim overcoming a life of violence could support the message of The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV).

You can also analyze your currently published works, to see if the content,genre or subject matter could support cause marketing. Either way, thebiggest benefit for using your book sales as a vehicle for charitabledonations is improved reach and access to a new audience, plus other perkslike:

Speaking Opportunities– When you promote a book that has a booming message for a certain organization, demographic, orcommunity, anyone who cares about that subject will take notice and want more.

In these cases, “more” often presents itself in the form of public speaking at events. These events can easily be worked into author signing opportunities.

Increased PublicityThe core purpose of cause marketing is in support of something larger thanyourself or business—but it’s nice to get a little extra visibility foryour efforts. Putting your books behind a cause can help you:

  • Gain a following on social media
  • Discover more PR and publicity opportunities
  • Gain momentum from the charity or non-profits promotional social channels

Tips to Get Started

The keys to cause marketing with your books are the same as traditionalbook promotion: identifying your audience, building a presence where theylive online, and providing them with relevant content.

5 Ways to Identify Your Book Audience

Tips to Build Your Online Presence

Once you’ve identified your audience and beefed-up youronline presence, Aerio can help you market and sell your books online insupport of your defined business goals.

Cause Marketing with Aerio

Aerio is a sales and marketing tool built for publishers, authors, andbooksellers that comes preloaded with the ability to make charitabledonations. With Aerio, you can sell books direct to your readers, secure the retail profit, and offer some or all of that profit to acharity or non-profit of your choosing.

As an added bonus, you can also customize your messaging and brandingthrough Aerio, to support your cause marketing campaign and encouragereaders to play a bigger role.

For those who want to create a more direct link with their charity partner,Aerio has distinct style and logo options perfectly tuned for sending acohesive message to your readers. This resonates strongly with readers whomay already be familiar with a charity or non-profit and can score youmajor audience points.

Aerio is built for those who see the bigger picture. You already give bysharing the joy of reading with people all over. Use your heightenedposition to give a little more, and at the same time, help grow youraudience.