Multiple pieces took first place in their respected categories. The advertisement “Run! Don’t Walk!” for Terrace Oaks by Krena Lanham and Beth Chaconas earned first place in the Gifts category. Robert Combs’s “Merry. Modern.” for Hausful scored first place in Rich Media.
Notably, major pieces like Learning and Remembering The Holocaust, earned Jason Clark and Krena Lanham first place in Special Section and Magazine, and “We the Women” earned first place, given to the entire Post and Courier staff!
Additionally, The Post and Courier’s Matt Crum and Lonn Bradley took a full sweep in the Video category winning First, Second, and Third places! Former Creative Manager, Julie Nocida, won first place for Understand SC, and Digital Marketing Graphic Designer, Meghan Davis, took home third place for her Email & Social Media Subscription Campaign designs in the Newspaper Promotion category.
(Left to right) Matthew Fortner, Andrew Whitaker, Gavin McIntyre, Lauren Petracca, and Grace Beahm Alford pose with a photo of Imam Omar ben Sayed Gadio holding a painting of his father, Omar ben Sayed, in Gababe, Senegal.
The exhaustive end to a long-running investigative story came on Tuesday, May 25, at the Charleston Gaillard Center. “‘I am Omar,’” a captivating story told by reporter Jennifer Berry Hawes and photojournalist Gavin McIntyre, was put on full display to an audience of eager listeners. The Pulitzer Center funded Hawes and McIntyre on their pursuits throughout Senegal to track down the identity and origins of Omar Ibn Said, a Muslim man enslaved in the Carolinas.
Who is Omar?
Omar wrote his brief autobiography 190 years ago and left today’s readers with a chilling time capsule into what life entailed for a Muslim in the 1830s. His words were a tangle of two decades’ worth of slave stories and religious Quran readings. A quick read at 28 pages, but a deep dive into decades of hardships of a 37-year-old innocent relocated to the busiest slave port in America– Charleston, South Carolina.
With the help of knowledgeable local Imam Amadou Baîdy Sy, the journalists deciphered Omar’s Arabic words to uncover many of his life experiences. He was a skilled student with a strong religious backing, but his talents were wasted at the hands of “Johnson” and James Owen, his owners in Charleston and Fayetteville, North Carolina. He struggled with pulls towards both the Islamic religion and Evangelical Christianity, forcing him to reconcile with spiritual belonging in a new world. A multitude of names were used to describe him and his hardworking religiosity– “Moreau,” “Uncle Moro,” “Prince Moro,”– but his ties would always be rooted in “Omar.” The different identities and locations that Omar experienced throughout his lifetime left McIntyre and Hawes eager to sort through the findings and share their clarity with the masses.
Post and Courier Findings
(Left to right) Gavin McIntyre, Autumn Phillips, and Jennifer Berry Hawes engage in a panel discussion to share the journalists’ experiences in Senegal.
McIntyre’s and Hawes’ months’ worth of dedicated investigative journalism warranted a platform to showcase their findings. The event highlighted the importance of the Post and Courier Public Service and Investigative Reporting Fund; visitors helped to fundraise for future stories that warrant additional research, thought, and digression. Attendees toured the evocative gallery of shots taken throughout Senegal, all of which were complemented by a descriptive audio component. The display preceded the captivating panel discussion that shared additional insights into the journalists’ quest to find the true identity of Omar. Post and Courier reporter Autumn Phillips provoked McIntyre and Hawes with both personally crafted and audience-based questions to get a glimpse into their journey.
Spoleto Festival Contribution
Tuesday’s event also gave Spoleto Festival USA the stirrings of the platform they have been seeking since 2020. Repeated performance delays due to Covid-19 have kept the public from learning about Omar’s life through an opera written by Grammy Award-winner Rhiannon
Diane Richardson (pianist) and Laquita Mitchell (singer) perform an aria from Spoleto’s opera ‘Omar’.
Giddens. Finally, viewers got a look at the powerful compositions that Omar’s autobiography inspired. Laquita Mitchell stunned the audience with an aria from Giddens’ Omar and was accompanied by a powerful piano melody from Diane Richardson.
The evening’s impressive attendance included Jonathan Green, renowned Charleston artist and creator of an Omar Ibn Said coloring book, Nigel Redden, General Director of Spoleto Festival USA, and PJ Browning, Publisher of The Post and Courier. All attendees were taken by a thrilling tale that had managed to influence the creations of various story-telling platforms.
While Tuesday’s event acted as the sigh of relief to a hard-sought story, the sense of finality was only temporary. The intrigue behind Omar and his past will always leave lingering questions in both the reporters’ and readers’ minds. To continue satisfying the public’s curiosity, a display of McIntyre’s photographs will be presented at the Charleston County Public Library this Wednesday, June 9. Details about Omar and his story will complement the photographs; the efforts to inform Charlestonians about a story that existed in their backyard warrants much more than a simple story. Hawes’ and McIntyre’s pursuits made great strides towards answering the question that has plagued locals, writers, composers, historians, tourists and more for ages: who was Omar Ibn Said? It will take continued determination and compassion for investigative journalism to ever approach the whole story.
Energy and excitement built as Phil Mickelson inched his way to his historic title. At 6-under par two-time champion Mickelson became the oldest major winner of the Wanamaker Trophy at the age of 50.
About The Ocean Course at The PGA
The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort is an American icon and named one of the most difficult and expensive courses to play in the nation. The scenic green runs adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, exposing players to the demanding and unpredictable ocean breeze.
As a sponsor of the 2021 PGA Championship, The Post and Courier and advertising partners had the opportunity to view the tournament direct from the top of the 17th hole.
Advertisers within this particular initiative not only showcased their business to the extensive Post and Courier audience but also had the option to attend in the PGA Championship.
You felt the excitement of a champion walking into the final day of the tournament. The crowd following Mickelson grew as the day went on. As he birdied at 17, at that moment fans rushed to watch that final shot with great anticipation.
Are you a business owner? Want the opportunity to drive leads as if you are Phil Mickelson at the PGA Championship? Participate in opportunities like this while advertising in South Carolina’s most trusted and well-known media source.
The early part of a new year is great for more than just cleaning out your house. The spring season is an ideal time to revitalize your brand as well. And in 2021, the need to take a fresh look at your brand image is made more important by the evolving state of the pandemic.
So what are the most important aspects of your brand to reimagine, and how should you go about rebranding?
Logo and Brand Identity
Your logo is a customer’s first impression of your brand, so it should feel modern. You want your customer to feel like they are interacting with a brand that exists in the current landscape.
While not everyone is a graphic designer, there are still subconscious impressions that customers have about modern style and design. People know a logo from the 90’s or early 00’s when they see one.
Evaluate your creative assets. A strong logo is the pillar of your marketing efforts and is essential for building brand recognition.
Companies are constantly evolving, and a refresh keeps your brand from feeling or looking old. On average companies update their identity every 7-10 years. Renew and refresh your company’s vibrancy and set yourself apart from the competition with an updated logo.
The next point should inform every decision you make about your brand when doing a refresh in 2021. Your brand values affect everything from how you should conduct your social media, to your advertising messages, all the way to how you run your business operations.
Your company’s acknowledgement and awareness and adaptability to COVID-19 is the most important “value” to work on. Even though we are nearly a year into the pandemic and vaccines are rolling out to more people every month, customers need to know that you’re still doing what’s best for everyone’s safety.
Take a look at the first places people see any messages you put out. Think about your instagram bio, your facebook featured image or description, the front page of your website. These are all places that people should see something about your response to COVID. Even something as simple as stating that you’re requiring masks in person, or sanitizing your offices or store.
If this is something that you haven’t already done over the last year, it’s not too late. Make COVID considerations a part of your entire rebrand as you go about planning it.
Take this time to also consider what social movements might be important to you. Black History Month and Women’s History Month are on people’s minds during this part of the year, with February and March being dedicated to the movements, respectively. Build out plans to celebrate the messages that are important to you.
Social Media
Evaluate the social media accounts you are currently using and make sure they are updated with current logos, images and links to your website. Review and refresh your social media strategy, set goals, examine analytics and build robust content calendars.
LinkedIn and Twitter are the fundamental social accounts for financial services, but Instagram can bolster brand awareness and help you engage with clients. Sprout Social reports that Instagram passed the 1 billion user mark in late 2020. So you’ll be missing out on a massive audience by leaving this platform to gather dust.
Your employees are also key in building your social media presence. Recommend that their profiles are up to date and connected to your business page. Encourage your employees to connect on LinkedIn and share your content. They are valuable to organically expanding your social reach and building brand awareness.
Finally, don’t forget to clean out your messages and make sure you haven’t missed any questions, comments, concerns, or feedback. Clients expect instant responses, this is a chance to showcase exceptional client service in a public forum.
COVID-19 has caused retailers across the globe to shift to a heavier focus on digital sales. Lockdown restrictions may have eased, but the country is starting to see a resurgence of COVID cases. Small and local businesses have found ways to balance in-person sales with online throughout this year. But what happens when the busiest shopping day of the year rolls around during a pandemic?
There are a few marketing tactics that can be used to adapt to the pandemic and keep customers excited and ready to do business with you. Black Friday and the holiday season in general is something businesses don’t want to miss out on. And in a year that has been financially straining, these sales could be more important than ever.
Get started now!
Most big box retail businesses like amazon and best buy and walmart are opting to host a sort of “black friday month” this year. They have planned out exclusive sales that either last the entire month, or have flash sales sprinkled throughout the month.
Starting sales early is a great idea for small businesses, as it means customers won’t feel the need to all show up at your store at the same time. People are selective about when they go out this year, so if you have multiple dates in which customers can get access to your sales, your chances of getting their business go up.
Build a system for customer safety
Customers need to know that you’re being conscious of their safety during the holiday season. One thing you can do to make this clear is by offering appointment visits to your business. Naturally people will be hesitant to enter a store or office if they don’t know how many other customers might be there when they arrive.
An appointment-only operation has the benefit of ensuring customer safety, while also making customers feel like they are being catered to specifically. A customer that came out to a business at a preset appointment is more likely to spend money than if they casually strolled into your building on a whim. You’re enabling a level of commitment. Make your customers think “well I bothered making an appointment, it would be a waste to leave without buying something.”
People need to also know that you are enforcing policies that will keep everyone safe. Post signs out front that clearly explain the rules for entering the establishment and be upfront about things like your cleaning procedures and social distancing systems. And most importantly, find a way to enforce whatever mask mandates that apply to your location.
Offer up exclusive digital discounts
It would also be wise to lean into online-exclusive offers this year. Encourage customers to give you their business through digital sales, and you’ll be opening up future business opportunities even when the world starts returning to normal.
Digital sales are also a great way to encourage financially hurting customers to opt for payment plans. These types of plans are becoming more and more commonplace for customers of any financial background.
Adopting contactless payment systems is great for in-store and online safe purchasing.
Making the online purchasing experience easy is also very important in 2020 and beyond. Set your website up with payment systems like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, etc.
You want to open the door for those less familiar with online purchasing systems. And as digital privacy becomes more and more important to consumers, you’ll want to avoid asking them to enter their credit card numbers into yet another website form. Systems like those mentioned above have safety nets for those who are concerned.
These systems can also be utilized for safer contactless in-store payment.
Get the word out through email
In years past, the strategy for informing customers about your holiday sales would be to plaster signs along your storefront. This is obviously different for each type of business, particularly those that don’t have a storefront and for businesses that sell services without the need for in-person stores and salespeople. But email messaging has already taken over for all kinds of businesses and is a key factor in pandemic marketing.
Getting people on board with your email marketing and keeping them engaged is your starting point, and you’ve hopefully been working on this over the recent years already. But once those emails are rolling into your customer’s inboxes, you need to make sure you are being transparent this season.
Being empathetic to your customers safety concerns is equally important in your emails as it is in your operational decisions. Truly showing customers that you’re caring for them means giving up something on your end. You can offer free shipping with the messaging of “we’ll throw in free shipping so you can stay safe at home and avoid the black friday crowds this year.”
Be empathetic in your marketing messaging
The perfect messaging balance in holiday 2020 will come from showing that you care about the customer’s finances and experiences. This doesn’t necessarily mean directly addressing COVID-19, but try to shift the message away from excitement and overjoyous hype.
Think carefully about tonality and show sensitivity to how your product or service fits into the lives of customers living in a pandemic. Naturally, a direction to go with this is touting the affordable prices you’re offering. Let customers know that you’re bringing prices down for them out of respect for the mutual struggle that both customers and businesses are dealing with this year.
One way to avoid sounding salesy is to focus on informing customers. For example, if you’re in the business of selling office furniture, don’t point customers directly to product pages on your website. Instead, write a blog that helps them identify the right office chair for their home setup. Identify different issues that people might be individually facing in 2020.
Don’t just scream “buy now!” at your clientele, offer to help them first. Your discounts will look even more attractive when the customer knows you’ve helped them find their exact, right product or service.
November 15, 2020, starts with sunshine and smog rolling over the hills of the Stono Ferry Racetrack. Clouds pushing through bringing soft rain throughout the morning as people trickle into place. The skies open up and give way to miraculous sunshine just in time for the races, leading to a gorgeous fall day at Steeplechase of Charleston.
As the riders begin to take off, Opening Ceremonies sponsor Hopkins Law Firm gave the first “Riders Up!” followed by Mark Peper of Peper Law Firm who also gave a “Riders Up!”
A Crowning Achievement!
Steeplechase of Charleston became the qualifier of NSA’s trainer and jockey of the year Hall of Fame
trainer, Jonathan Sheppard, and jockey, Gerard Galligan, who both left with winnings from 4 out of 5 of the races, a total of $50,000 in purse money. Read more about the winners here.
Another big winner? James Schelb winning the first-place raffle prize, a trip to Haig Point on Daufuskie Island! Charlie Black coming in second-place winning the raffle prize of a unique equestrian bottle of Blanton’s Bourbon. The raffle overall raising $2,100 for Hollings Cancer Center. Fun for a good cause!
Vendor Village
Between the races, guests enjoy the opportunity to explore the vendor village. Whether it was holiday shopping for designer boots at Charleston Shoe Co., handmade jewelry from Georgia Jewels, or boutique handbags from Darling Clutch Co., the most extravagant gifts were found!
Then, come time for a recharge, guests stop for a snack at Flight food truck or nitro cold brew from Pourly Grounded Coffee.
A popular destination throughout the day: LuXe Mobile Cigar Lounge. Guests found an immersive cigar experience and a moment to take in all of Steeplechase.
The volunteers and Steeplechase team pulled off a wonderful, safe event.
Thank You!
A huge thank you to all the vendors for providing both their time and their resources to enhance the Steeplechase experience. The day would not have been the same without these amazing businesses and organizations! View the full list of vendors and sponsors here.
Having a poor onboarding experience for your customers can pretty much kill your growth and potentially your business.
The first experience someone has as a potential customer sets the tone for your relationship. If the onboarding process is confusing or overwhelming, you risk driving the customer away permanently.
What is onboarding?
Customer onboarding is the process a new user goes through to become acclimated with your product. The onboarding process starts from the moment a new visitor begins your signup funnel. It continues as they tour your product for the first time and never truly ends.
You should continue to use onboarding as you educate your user base about new product functionalities and features. No matter when it happens, great onboarding quickly and effortlessly answers several key questions for your customer.
Why use email to onboard?
Email is a great supplemental onboarding tool that can further educate users about your product’s features and benefits. The process should always start with a welcome email, and can then go on to include emails with followup and additional information.
Welcome emails have four times the open rate of other types of emails, and are shown to perform even better when they include video. A good way to incorporate that is by using short looping videos in a welcome email. This adds interest and movement to an otherwise static experience.
You can use email in other ways to enhance your onboarding experience. Remind new users to access the product during their free trial. Dig deeper into product benefits. You can even share social proof to build value.
What should the email series include?
An email onboarding plan can look different for every company. But time has shown that there are best practices for how many emails to send, and how much to space out the send dates.
Stephanie Dill, The Post and Courier’s Digital Marketing Manager
Once you get the welcome email out to the customer’s inbox, what comes next? For additional insight into how the Post and Courier onboards its brand new subscribers, I spoke with Digital Marketing Manager Stephanie Dill.
“Currently our onboarding process is a series of 6 emails sent over 30 days,” Stephanie points out when asked how many emails and how often the company sends.
“We start with a welcome letter from our Executive Editor, putting a human face behind the subscription, and then the following emails highlight different benefits you receive as a subscriber.”
Explaining benefits that customers receive as patrons of your business is crucial to the email onboarding process. When customers walk through your store, or browse your catalog of products or services, they get the basic idea of what they’d be paying for.
Present exclusive customer benefits in your emails
The email onboarding process is your chance to present the deeper value of your business, outside of what the customer already knows on the surface.
“These [benefits] include newsletters, access to apps and our digital replica E-Paper, our podcasts, exclusive subscriber-only Facebook groups, etc.”
For customers using the newspaper’s E-Paper service, videos have been made available to walk them through the service’s interface and show them how to navigate the digital newspaper replica.
Great onboarding can decrease your customer service requests. If you do a great job teaching new customers how to use your product, they’re less likely to have questions down the road. In fact, 47% of businesses say using video as an FAQ tool has helped them do just that.
“The onboarding series is a way for us to help our new subscribers make the most of their subscription and form a relationship with them that we hope will last for a long time,” Stephanie said.
How often should you send emails?
Your business should decide whether it wants to send out a burst of many emails in a short period of time, or if it should send a series of fewer emails over a longer period of time. There can be ways to meet in the middle, but you should find the right balance for your business and its customers.
“I think a blend of the two is ideal for us,” Stephanie said. “Right away, we want people to know how to use their subscription, so we send quite a few emails in the first 10-12 days. After that we back off, giving more time between sends, but continuing to check in and have little touch points for the first 30 days or so.”
Adapting the plan to your business model
The message behind your onboarding emails can and should look different depending on how you sell your product or service. Are you a business that simply sells your goods, and then hopes customers return to pay you again? Or is your revenue built upon subscription services, or other forms of recurring payment over a long period of time?
Stephanie gives valuable information for how the onboarding process should differ for these two business models.
“I think for an already paying subscriber, you already know they are committed to their purchase, and you are working to show them additional benefits to keep them long term,” Stephanie said.
“For a marketing qualified lead, they haven’t made that commitment to your brand yet, so your relationship is in a different place. You are still building and nurturing the relationship, and it is still very sales focused. You are offering things they want and need, but trying not to overwhelm them.”
For these types of customer leads, you should offer them discounted access to your product. You already know they have shown interest in your brand. They just need a little extra push to dedicate their time and money to you.
Finding the right balance of email frequency and regular communication with customers is the key to keeping customers invested but not overwhelmed. You never want to drive anyone away if they feel their inbox is becoming cluttered.
So always make sure your emails are valuable and informative. Treat your potential customer well, and talk to them like a person, not just a piggy bank.
The year of 2020 has brought many new challenges for businesses and uncharted territory as it pertains to virtual events. Word of the year for businesses has been "adapt". This year it has been essential to use innovative thinking to keep events scene alive. There are pros and cons to hosting an event virtually. Businesses are now faced with questions surrounding the logistics & promotional piece of successful virtual events.
Today I sat down with our Events Marketing Coordinator, Carlie Caliguri, to discuss the state of events during 2020 and how our teams have acclimated. Carlie has helped revise and run very important events for The Post and Courier including Inside Business LIVE, Pints & Politics, and our newest Kids Club series. Join us in our discussion below:
5 Reasons why people unsubscribe from your email marketing
As you begin or continue an automated email marketing strategy, the fear of unsubscribe rates can be intimidating. Here’s the good news; when it comes to unsubscribes, it's inevitable. At some point in time, some people will ultimately unsubscribe from your emails and IT IS OKAY. At least for now.
It is painful as an email marketer to see that someone reading your email scrolled through your content and decided it wasn’t for them. UNSUBSCRIBE. It seems so harsh, doesn’t it? This shouldn’t be taken personally - at least not yet. However, this doesn't mean that your unsubscribe rate doesn't matter.
The overall goal of most email marketing strategies is to generate leads and identify qualified leads. If the recipient of your email is uninterested in your content, they most likely weren’t going to convert. At least, not via email.
On average, the unsubscribe rate for emails across a variety of industries is 0.26% according to this Mailchimp article. In my previous article discussing important email marketing statistics from 2020, the importance of the unsubscribe rate is to determine how relevant the email is to your customer. Analyzing your unsubscribe rate can also tell you most directly that something in your strategy isn't working and changes need to be made, but should be used in conjunction with other important email statistics.
Let’s discuss today the main reasons why recipients unsubscribe from your emails, and methods in which you can measure & analyze your email performance to curb this number.
1. Sending too many emails
Although marketing email sends and open rates have steadily increased since Covid began, there’s still such a thing as too much. When determining your strategy, think about how you can consolidate your information into a newsletter to cut back on your marketing efforts. No one wants to be the spam in your clients’ inbox. Ensure that what you’re sending to the recipient is relevant and helpful.
2. The email looks like spam
Make sure that you take the time to format an email that helps you achieve a goal as a company. How do you want to funnel your clients? This goal should be top-of-mind when designing your content and user experience.
3. Irrelevancy
To echo a common sentiment across this blog, content should be relevant and helpful to the recipient. This isn't always fool-proof. Data is complex, and you can only segment your lists depending on what type of information you currently have on each client. Do you have the data to segment an email list based off of interest, location, or industry?
What is segmentation? According to Campaign Monitor, segmentation is the division of an email list into smaller segments based on set criteria. Segmentation is a tactic used to ensure relevancy to your audience based on location, interests, purchase history, client activity, and more.
Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (HubSpot.com).
4. Privacy concerns
Doesn’t include when you’ve done business with someone and they have your email address. We’re talking about obviously purchased lists. This is unethical marketing. For the customer’s perspective: this is different from receiving emails from a company you’ve done business with that you’ve given your email address at some point - this is referencing the spam-like emails that make zero sense with a company you’ve never heard of.
Having an Unsubscribe link at the bottom of your emails is a legal requirement of all marketers. Learn more about GDPR here.
5. Didn’t recall signing up
This is a likely occurrence if the recipient has zero idea how they’ve ended up on your email list. Make sure you’re funneling your customers logically. This, again, means ensuring relevance + resourcefulness of your content.
To avoid your recipients feeling like this, provide a statement at the bottom of your email that makes it easy for your recipients to manage their preferences + also explains why they’re receiving the email.
To curb your unsubscribe rate:
Create an exit survey to gather more information on why a recipient unsubscribed from your emails. Clear communication is key - make sure that your readers understand what they’re unsubscribing from.
Lastly, always expect a certain amount of people to unsubscribe from your emails. Similar to social media trends, where you see a fluctuation in followers daily. This is ok! The whole purpose of email marketing is to generate and nurture your leads, with the goal to funnel + convert them.
Customers care more about businesses that get involved in a good cause than ever before. People want to know what kind of message they are supporting with their dollars before they spend money with you.
Diving in to cause-related marketing campaigns can be a dangerous game, though. Your business needs to find a delicate balance between showing public support for a cause and ensuring that customers don’t think you’re just trying to cash in on a trend.
2020 has been a tumultuous year full of causes that the world population has rallied behind. So no matter what message or cause you think is best aligned with your business, the important thing to focus on is how to properly approach supporting a cause.
Choose a cause you believe in
The first step in showing that your business truly supports a cause is by focusing on one that holds value to the people that power your business. Find a cause that your employees and your customer base are clearly passionate about.
The more your staff believes in the message, the more they will give themselves to the cause. It can become infectious, and that passion can quickly spread to customers if they see your people speaking out, rather than just your brand.
Choose something that your employees will be inclined to share out on their personal social media accounts. The goal is to make sure that authenticity shines through to the public. People tend to point fingers at organizations that jump on bandwagons. And the natural support of your employees will help avoid that stumble.
Focus on a goal for your cause-related campaign
There’s nothing wrong with making money the focus of your campaign. But it needs to be made clear that it is not a for-profit campaign. Find a way that you can direct the proceeds to support the cause financially. And communicate to customers that their dollars are going directly to the cause.
On the other hand, you might determine that your goal is raising awareness. This can be your focus alongside raising funds. But you’ll need to balance these two messages.
Putting the awareness factor first, while mentioning that customers can also show their support through donations, is a good strategy. It shows that you see your business as just one small piece of the puzzle when it comes to supporting the cause.
Talk about awareness as a snowball effect, where it builds and builds as more people get behind the cause. This is a humble approach and it shows that you’re thinking beyond how this benefits your business.
It can be things as little as focusing on sustainability through reusable products. An effort like this is a small thing that doesn’t need to be shouted from the rooftops. It’s the kind of thing that customers can notice once and not have to be told every time they visit you. They’ll know that your practices align with their interests, which is a fantastic reason to become a repeat customer.
On the other end of the spectrum, some causes are best supported with a robust campaign, during a specific time.
Here at The Post and Courier, our newsroom has dedicated weeks of time throughout August to supporting the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The campaign is titled “We the Women,” and it is a video/podcast interview series featuring 19 influential women in South Carolina.
The goal with this campaign is to use the public platform the Post and Courier uniquely holds, in order to raise awareness of the struggles that women have faced throughout history, and the progress that women like the featured guests have brought about.
Employees supporting the cause
With women that work within our offices that are passionate about the issue, we found We the Women’s marketing campaign to be an authentic and powerful way to raise awareness.
Marketing Graphic Designer Ellyn Morgan plays a key role in marketing out this campaign to our audience. And her passion for the subject shines through in her work.
Ellyn Morgan, Marketing Graphic Designer
“I am my own person.” Ellyn said. “I can design a campaign, be paid for my time and decide how my earnings are spent. It sounds wild, but just as recently as the number of years as my mother is old, women were discouraged from entering the design industry.”
Ellyn believes that The Post and Courier is the right organization to support the fight for equality.
“It is important that a company like The Post and Courier support and celebrate this cause,” Ellyn said. “The right to vote made way for the extraordinary women of our time, for all those that are coming, for our newsworthy and noteworthy significant contributions of all sorts to our communities.”
Event marketing manager Nichole Blevins also had an important hand in bringing this campaign to life. And like Ellyn, her dedication to the cause meant that our campaign came from the heart of the company, rather than the wallet.
Nichole Blevins, Event Marketing Manager
“It’s important for The Post and Courier to support and celebrate this historic achievement,” Nichole said. “Not only because it builds greater public awareness, but it also underscores our organization’s internal values. Connecting to consumers through shared values helps build a deeper trust in an organization which ultimately results in greater customer loyalty.”
Passion like this is what businesses should look for when putting together a cause-related marketing campaign. When the people that create every aspect of a campaign, truly believe in the cause, it clearly shows through their work. And the end product connects with customers more because they can feel the authenticity.
It’s completely okay to recognize the benefits that a cause-related campaign can bring to your business, as long as you’re putting out the right image to customers and taking the focus away from your image.
