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🎁 Gimme Gimme Strategic Giving - The strategy behind strategic giving.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 245 - Gimme Gimme Strategic Giving, it's the season of requests to donate, sponsor, and give to local causes, PTAs, and networking events. 

It's all about strategic giving in January - and we're here to tell you - it ain't all bottom line blues when it comes to this form of marketing (you see that right there? We didn't categorize it as "selling"). 

🎁 First up - What is strategic giving?

Strategic giving is the opportunity presented to your bakery to partner with companies that move your business forward, while not necessarily generating income at the immediate start.

🎁  The benefits of strategic giving.

With every strategy, there are pros and cons - but for strategic giving done right, I think there are more positives than negatives.

• 🎀 Giving is good, makes you feel good
• 🎀 Support your customers

When it comes to strategic opportunities, consider your local audience first - they're likely connected to communities, causes, and PTAs - a win-win when you can support them and get exposure. 

• 🎀 Reach people you wouldn’t normally reach
• 🎀 Cheaper than paying for an ad
• 🎀 Create relationships with new people
• 🎀 Showcase you working in your community (rally behind a like goal) 
• 🎀 Get more orders

Strategic giving is marketing. In the same way you'd run a Facebook ad and spend money to acquire new customers, donating to a raffle can have the same effect - but the catch is it's a slow burn. 🔥 Patience is key with this form of marketing.

• 🎀 Break into an industry 
• 🎀 Downside of strategic giving 
  
  

🎁 Downside of strategic giving.

Like we said - what goes up must come down. With anything that has benefits, it could also cost you, and with strategic giving, that's build into the name. Because it's a gift, there's no guarantee of a return on your investment. But in another way - the return is the *feel good* feelings you get from supporting a cause or community.

• 🎀 You might not get any new customers 
• 🎀 It impacts profitability 

I like encouraging people to make a budget line item for strategic giving, that way it doesn't feel like a bottom line buster, 💸 but rather a marketing invoice you're paying through product (or monetarily if that fits your strategy).

• 🎀 Can leave you open to bad reviews
• 🎀 Loss of potential future opportunities

🎁  Creating a Strategic Giving Goal.

A wo-man with a plan! Create a giving goal, then create a marketing campaign around it. Do you want to use strategic giving to increase your social media impressions? Partner with a cause that's active on socials. Want to support a cause you vibe with? Find a charity that directly impacts that and partner there. 

• 🎀 Do you want awareness? Social media?
• 🎀 Support a cause?
• 🎀 Last-minute opps

Using community groups to find quick strategic giving opportunities is a really neat (but also a lot of work) method of giving. Finding someone who dropped a cake and posted about it = offer them free cookies. Community groups are an amazing way to reach hyper-local customers.

• 🎀 Do you want to reach a new audience? 
• 🎀 How many opportunities are you willing to take?
• 🎀 Maybe it’s just not the right fit for you right now.

🎁 How to turn down opportunities 

You need to have a boundary around giving because it can get out of hand and burn the baker out real quick.