Fairtrade Foundation and Fairtrade Fortnight

Fairtrade Foundation and Fairtrade Fortnight

by | Mar 1, 2023 | Branding, Marketing, PR & Comms

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Fairtrade Foundation and Fairtrade Fortnight.

The latest in our irregular series looking at successful marketing campaigns and how you can create your own winning promotion.

Fairtrade is a global movement for change that works directly with businesses, consumers, and campaigners to make trade deliver for farmers and workers. It has a strong and active presence in the UK, represented by the Fairtrade Foundation. The Fairtrade Foundation was established in 1992 by various charities, campaigns, faith, and women’s groups as an independent non-profit organisation. In the last 30 years, the Fairtrade Foundation has grown and 65% of people in the UK say they choose Fairtrade. And it’s growing; Fairtrade sales increased by 14% in 2020. But like any organisation, it can’t rest on its laurels and needs to keep promoting itself and most importantly it’s products. So, each year the Fairtrade Foundation runs Fairtrade Fortnight. So, what makes the campaign so successful?

Strong message

Fairtrade Fortnight has a simple message and in 2023 links in with climate change. This year, they have used the rationing of fresh produce as a hook. One of the reasons the message is strong is that it combines head and heart – something that always works well when it comes to consumer buying behaviour. The ‘heart’ message of the cause of the people producing the food and planet, mixes well with the ‘head’ message of you can make a difference through your day-to-day purchases.

Strong stunt

Taking the strong message, the Fairtrade Foundation has created a great stunt that will create headlines and column inches. The Endangered Aisle will shine a light on the supermarket staples most at risk of becoming endangered from the climate crisis, including coffee, bananas, and chocolate.

A strong call to action

The final thing that makes this campaign successful is a clear, simple call to action: Buy fairtrade. The campaign has explained the issue of farmers not being fairly paid, and land suffering climate change effects and then set out what everyone can do about it.

Taking note of these three things could make all the difference to your next campaign. How can you create a message which reaches both heart and head? Can you create a stunt that catches people’s eyes? And the most important thing is to make sure you have a strong call to action. Indeed all your marketing materials and activity need this so it’s worth spending some time on.

Let us know which of these tactics you use and what success they have brought you.

Pic courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Pic showing a stall selling different vegetables with a Fairtrade sign at the back
Toilet Twinning and World Toilet Day

Toilet Twinning and World Toilet Day

by | Nov 18, 2022 | Marketing, PR & Comms, Social media

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Toilet Twinning and World Toilet Day

The latest in our irregular series looking at successful marketing campaigns and how you can create your own winning promotion.

The charity Toilet Twinning was established in 2010 as a joint venture of NGOs Tearfund and Cord. Since then 175,337 Toilet Twins have been created and 1,052,022 lives have been transformed through safe sanitation. It raises money for sanitation projects through ‘toilet twinning’. For £60 you can twin your loo with a family’s household latrine in a vulnerable community in a country of your choosing. You then get a certificate to hang in ‘smallest room’, along with with a photo and GPS coordinates so you can look up your twin’s location on Google Maps. Lovely! You can imagine, it’s a quirky gift idea for that hard to but for uncle at Christmas but probably quite a hard sell to get people interested the rest of the year. This is why we love Toilet Twinning’s World Toilet Day campaign. Yes, World Toilet Day is a thing! So, what’s so good about this campaign and how can you recreate its success?

1. Great hook

Making use of an awareness day, anniversary or other time of public interest can save you a lot of hard work. There will already be other people, brands, organisations who will be sharing content on this topic and using the hashtag so you can piggy back on that too. The most important thing is that the hook you choose is really relevant to your organisation. World Toilet Day and Toilet Twinning were made for each other. Find your perfect fit and then run with it.

2. Make it Pun-ny

Talking of runs with it (see what we did there?!), Toilet Twinning is not afraid of a good pun. And we are here for it! We love a pun at We Are Comma. Toilet Twining use puns to great effect for topics which can be quite taboo still. They use the #bigpush to encourage their fundraisers to get those donations. And their headline fundraising initiative for World Toilet Day this year is the Big Squat – encouraging people “Squat 60 times a day from 1st of November to World Toilet Day on 19th of November and raise money for life-changing toilets!”. If that sounds to active for you, how about a piece of cake with their ‘soggy bottom bake sale’?

3. A clear target

This campaign is very clear in what your fundraising target should be. £60 – the cost of twinning a toilet. 60 squats for £60. It all adds up nicely. And it’s achievable. Getting friends and family to club together and help you raise £60 seems do-able. And the more people who think they can achieve it, the more people who will join in.

So how can you apply these lessons to your organisation, ahead of your next campaign to make it more successful?

You can find out about We Are Comma, who we are, and the services that we offer on the website. Or to start a conversation you can email or use the contact form.
Pic courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Pic showing a senior team leader with her team planning strategy
Get noticed on Google

Get noticed on Google

by | Jul 5, 2022 | Marketing, PR & Comms, Social media, Working practice

Get noticed on Google

To get noticed on Google can be important for most businesses and organisations. With Google reviews playing a vital role. According to Blue Corona, 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations and 90 percent of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business.

And it’s not just prospective customers that google reviews affect, but also anyone searching for anything to do with your business, as they affect the search algorithm. In short, having more good reviews means higher google ranking and therefore results in more leads followed by more sales and eventually higher revenue.

Furthermore 85% of consumers don’t trust reviews which are more than three months old. And only 40% of people look at reviews from the last two weeks. So keeping your reviews up to date and asking customers to add new reviews regularly is important. But it doesn’t need to be onerous. Below are three top tips for getting more reviews – and therefore getting your organisation noticed on google.

1. You don’t get if you don’t ask

After every successful project, purchase or event send your customers a personal email, thanking them for using you, asking for feedback and saying you look forward to working with them again in future. Explain that all feedback is read and used to improve the services you provide. Ask them to leave you a google review and provide a direct link to make it easy for them to do so. We are Comma can help you create a direct link to send to your customers.

2. Ask, ask and ask again

Don’t be disheartened if a customer doesn’t leave a review the first time you ask. They could have forgotten to do it and a reminder will push it back up their to do list.

It is fine to ask a customer up to three times after each interaction. Create some templates which you can customise. A week after the first, thank you email – check your google reviews and if the customer hasn’t left a review use your second template email to remind them. Again, personalise the email and ask again for a google review – including the link again. Then repeat the process in two weeks’ time again.

If the customer still doesn’t leave a review then don’t worry; some people never will but it’s worth a try. And regular follow ups help to keep your organisation fresh in customers’ minds.

3. Reply to every review

After taking the time to write a review; the least you can do is reply. Whether the review you receive is the great recommendation you expected or more negative, it is important that you acknowledge it.

For every positive review, thank the customer and say you look forward to working with them again. Do this in the most personalised way you can.

For every negative review, you still need to respond – and quickly. Every review you receive should be replied to within 24 hours. But don’t respond in anger, don’t be personal and don’t give excuses. It can be helpful to have a template response which includes the following:

  • Thank the customer and quickly apologise for the experience they’ve had. You must apologise whether you agree or not; whether you feel you were in the right or wrong.
  • Try to address the issue the customer has mentioned.
  • Attempt to resolve the complaint privately – ideally via telephone, if not then email. You can read our full blog on how to respond to negative reviews here.

Google provides this advice on responding to reviews – and the importance of making sure you do.

If you receive a fake review then contact google to get it removed. However, you should still respond as if it was a genuine review but it can be helpful to say something along the lines of “we can’t find record of this project however we are keen to get the matter resolved, therefore please contact our office on Xtelephone numberX as soon as possible.”

And finally, the basis of all of this is continuing to provide great customer service. Your organisation cares about what customers think of you. And you want to provide the best service/products so getting feedback is important to help you keep getting better. So take the reviews you receive and keep improving.

What’s the best review you’ve ever had?


Pics courtesy of Adobe Stock
Graphics representation of the search engine search screen using simple coloured blocks
4 types of content your organisation needs

4 types of content your organisation needs

by | Jun 27, 2022 | Copywriting, Marketing, PR & Comms, Social media, Working practice

4 types of content your organisation needs

You’re busy. We get it. Even when clicking on this blog you were thinking “do I have time for this?”. We know that social media can seem like just another thing on your never-ending admin list. And that pressure can take away your creativity. So here is some inspiration to get your juices flowing again. Here we share four types of content that all organisations benefit from.


1. Evergreen
This is the stuff that you create and can use again and again. It’s particularly good for when you have no time – when that unexpected ‘thing’ happens and social media really falls to the bottom of the to do list.  Spend an afternoon creating posts which you can share, adapt and recycle. Your future self will thank you.


2. Little buds
Your clients, donors, supporters, and anyone else who follows you want to hear about your latest news. It doesn’t have to be anything big but they want to know what you’re working on. What services, products and events might be of interest to them. Share it all. People often like a tease too so if you are working on something but can’t quite share the full details then just share what you can and let them know you will spill the beans as soon as you can.


3. Perennials
These can also be useful too for when you are feeling uninspired. Introduction posts, opening times, what you do and offer posts are great to pepper your content with from time to time. Just try to give them a fresh twist when you can. These are great to use when you notice you have had an influx of new followers.


4. Seasonal
Reflect what’s happening in the world but linked to your organisation. For example, you might like to share a photo of the office dog for bring your dog to work day. Just remember to make sure you are staying authentic and not just shoehorning in an awareness day, event or holiday for the sake of it. For example, if you run a cats rehoming centre then bring your dog to work day probably isn’t one to take part in.


Remember social media is all about creating community. It’s a place where your fans, clients, supporters etc can come together to get the latest news, events from you as well as keep in touch with your organisation but it should be just as much about them as you. Ask lots of questions and get discussions going.


Remember, if social media gets too much and you can’t keep up, you don’t enjoy it and it isn’t giving you the rewards you want you can contact We Are Comma for a free audit. We can suggest ways to improve. We can create content for you, give you a schedule or we can run your social media accounts. Drop us a line and see how we can help you:


So, to practise what we preach, tell us: what types of social media posts do you find most engaging? Drop us a line or comment on this post. You can also find out more about the services we offer by visiting the What We Offer page on the website.


Pics courtesy of Adobe Stock
Pic showing a group of people working on ideas for social media content

The Good Hour

The Good Hour

by | Mar 22, 2022 | Marketing

The Good hour

Time is precious, we must use it wisely. We think one of the wisest uses of time is to help others.  That is why we are offering an hour of our time each month to benefit a not for profit, charity or community interest company. Any organisation which does good for others and the world can benefit from an hour of our time.

Do you know an organisation which could do with some design help? Perhaps a charity needs advice on its website so it can reach more donors? Maybe there’s a local organisation which is putting on an event and needs help spreading the word? Would an audit help a community organisation know where to devote its time and effort for marketing? Whatever the marketing, PR, communications or strategic need we will donate one hour to help.

Nominate now by emailing .

We can’t wait to get started and we’ll be sharing more on what we’ve done to help organisations over the coming months.

You can find out about the services we can offer by visiting the What we offer section of our website.

 

Pics courtesy of Adobe Stock
Pic showing a group of people around a table having a discussion about marketing