What does it mean to be a mission-driven business?
It means your company’s mission is behind everything you do and weaved into everything you do– including your marketing strategy and materials.
Easier said than done, right? Missions tend to be serious, heavy things. Not exactly something you can cut-and-paste into a social media post. The reality is, your business needs its marketing to, well, bring in new business. As much as you care about your mission, there are other things that need a prominent place in your marketing strategy. You know, like your products and services.
Thankfully, there is a balance. You can weave your mission into your marketing without sacrificing the essence of your business. The end result is a marketing strategy and overall digital presence that not only aligns with your mission, but compels your audience to support your business due in part to the mission it serves.
Clarify your mission
You might think you have a clear idea of your mission, but it’s worth reviewing it again. You need to have a crystal clear delivery of your mission in order to weave it into your marketing. You also need to be able to articulate it clearly through a variety of mediums.
Take a rainy Sunday, brew something good, and sit down to really think through and fine-tune your brand mission, vision, and values.
Connect your mission with what you do
Now that you’re clear on your mission, draw a line between it and your products, services, or the outcome of your products and services. For a non-profit, this is easy– they pretty much exist to support the mission. For businesses and entrepreneurs, it’s not always so clear-cut.
A local coffee shop might run a program providing meals for the homeless, but that’s not the reason they exist. Their primary function is serving coffee. And that’s okay! Their mission might be “to serve as a place of warmth, refuge, and welcome for our community.” That connects with both their core business offering (serving coffee) and their philanthropic work.
Drawing this line between your mission and what you do will help you articulate this more clearly in your messaging. When the coffee shop announces their new feed the hungry program, their customers will get it because it aligns with their brand.
Figure out ways to give back
An underappreciated truth is that people are more willing to help you when you’re trying to help others, too. Giving back is not only the honorable thing to do, it’s the strategic thing to do.
Supporting causes you believe in and/or that affect your community can have positive effects on your business, such as free publicity, new relationships, and likeable content for your social media channels. Of course, the good feels you’ll get from giving back is reason enough.
Giving back isn’t limited to donations, by the way. Many businesses find ways to give back through in-kind donations such as physical goods or pro bono work.
Audit your website
Your website needs to tell your brand story in a way that’s clear, memorable, and compelling. If your brand’s essence and mission is not clear upon hitting the homepage, what the heck is it doing? Your website is your chance to show visitors who you are, what you care about, and why they should choose you. Don’t blow it.
Need help with your website? Check out our web design and copywriting services)
Review every page, paying close attention to the homepage and about page. Make sure your brand’s unique offerings and mission are clear. If this isn’t your area of expertise, consider getting outside help. It’s a worthwhile investment into your website– the sales floor for your business.
Build content strategy
With your mission fine-tuned and some fresh feel-good material, it’s time to start weaving your mission into your marketing materials.
Depending on where you’re at in your marketing journey, you may or may not have a content strategy in place already. A content strategy is the planning, development and management of content across your digital platforms– typically website, social media channels, and email.
If you have a content strategy in place, you’ll want to review it for opportunities to add or edit content with a mission-driven focus. Marketing shouldn’t all be about you, anyway– and certainly not on social media where the platform is socially focused. Finding ways to incorporate your mission into your content may take some practice, but it will soon become second nature.
If you don’t have a content strategy in place, this is a great time to start. Start slowly by focusing on one or two channels– your website and one social media account, for example. Identify a few key “content categories” you can create content around, making one category mission-focused. Then plan out your content for the month, alternating between your content categories to ensure a balanced content mix.
(Need help building out a content strategy? Check out our monthly marketing mixes.)
By the way, building out your content strategy will be much easier (and more fun!) once you go through the other items on this list.
Be honest and ethical
Hopefully an obvious one, don’t be a **** (enter favorite curse word here). You can’t be a mission-driven business while engaging in practices that are unethical or dishonest. This also goes for “bare minimum” businesses. If, for example, you pay employees the absolute bare minimum in pay and benefits, that’s not going to fly, even if it’s technically legal.
No one likes a business that is caught doing something sleazy. But that backlash will be 100 times worse if it’s from one that purports to be out for the greater good. Be a good person, do the right thing, and foster a culture of integrity in your business.
Build relationships with your audience
Marketing isn’t about shouting your message to the masses. It’s about cultivating a meaningful brand relationship with your target audience groups.
That can sound jargony, but people do have relationships with brands. We all have brands we love and brands we hate. Brands that give us chills and brands that make us cringe.
A lot of this comes from the branding itself– the content, the style, the tone. But a lot of it comes from the way brands interact (or don’t) with their audience. Whether a business is driven by one person or 100,000, brands can build relationships with their audience through meaningful content, interactive elements, and actual interaction with followers and fans.
Invest in partnerships and collaborations
When people and organizations who share a mission join forces, it’s a powerful thing. Teaming up with another business, organization, or a relevant influencer could greatly amplify the impact of your efforts while extending your brand’s reach. You’ll gain access to your partner’s audience– which, if you choose correctly, should have direct overlap with your target market.
Whether you’re investing in a paid partnership opportunity or pooling your resources with an external partner, this kind of collaboration never stops paying dividends. Not only does society benefit from the mission-driven efforts, but the relationships you build and publicity received will also continue to deliver a return on your investment.
Need help aligning your marketing with your mission?
That’s what we’re all about here at Wholeheart. We’re a purpose-driven marketing agency that helps companies and communities prosper. Check out our branding services or monthly marketing mixes.