More charitable giving as marketing material

My 30-foot-tall tree fell in my front yard on
December 1st, 2011.

Last week, a barrage of unusually strong wind came whipping through the western United States.  When it whipped over the eastern mountains of the Wasatch Front, my town was the hardest hit; the gusts were over 100 miles per hour!  For those of you keeping track, that's level-two-hurricane-strength winds!

In the seven days following the storm, the effected communities have come together to head the clean-up efforts.  Fortunately, other than my 30-foot pine, there was no debris to clean up in my yard, although I did find an empty recycling bin next to the downed tree.

The point, though, is that local businesses, churches and schools turned their parking lots into temporary dump sites for downed trees and garbage.  Also, at least one trucking company in the area devoted all 17 of its trucks to hauling debris from people's houses to various dumps.

In addition to being kind gestures, these acts are great marketing material and chances for FREE publicity.  The above-mentioned truck company was featured prominently in at least one five-minute news story on the disaster clean-up efforts.

Marketing Take-away
If you ever get the chance, be giving of time and resources to charity and community causes.  They help build your brand up in a necessary way.  You may lose some cash from lost work hours, but it there's a disaster, you might not be working then anyway.  Just remember that your name and logo will be out in the community, helping out.  Those types of gestures go a long way toward helping create more positive opinions in consumers' minds!