Welcome to our next method profile! Our previous entry focused on using Consumer Education in social enterprise. In operating any venture, everything flows from your approach, and identifying a proper method helps you effectively fulfill your team’s initiative.
Together, we’ll be profiling interesting social enterprises to discuss an anchor method in their strive for social good. The term “anchor method” is to express the intentional and grounded nature of the approaches propelling a social enterprise forward.
This post is an outside observation of a company for inspiration in social enterprise initiative improvements.
In today’s post, we’ll look into collaboration-loving GoodCarts leveraging Cross-promotion. With tech and purpose, this company maintains social good through retail.
Knowing the Company: GoodCarts
GoodCarts is a digital service placing access to various social enterprises on a central platform. On the about page, the mission is to amplify purpose-driven entrepreneurs that use commerce to create change. The “building the impact economy” mindset inspires the digital service to support the growth of other social enterprises.
Creators at GoodCarts built a site where multiple enterprises link their discounts. All the discounts are kept on the central platform. GoodCarts compares the site to the virtual version of coupons on a receipt. You can think the site filled with discounts as a virtual coupon book.
GoodCarts boasts the benefits of more traffic, higher ROI, and access to new customers through their service. This is done by social enterprises collectively sharing their traffic.
Participants, the social enterprises, link their integrate their checkout process with GoodCarts. At the end on a purchase, a thank you page will appear to the customer. On the page, the thank you message offers access to a variety of discounts by linking to the discount platform. The link opens to a page of discounts for other purpose-driven enterprises. Customers choose a discount, and provide their email to secure the discount.
Speaking Business Alongside Impact
As discussed before, social enterprises break the idea of social impact being separate from profit. Reaching a new level in business terms strengthens the impact of a social enterprise. GoodCarts refers to their engaged community of social enterprises as Conscious Capitalists, which displays the value in their thoughts on the duality. For GoodCarts, social impact and businesses work alongside each other.
Increasing sales, increasing traffic, and expanding exposure are valuable factors across all spectrums of business from profit to non-profit. Appealing to the previously mentioned factors create an easier path for social enterprises to engage. The platform can be incorporated in marketing strategies, and may serve as an alternative to ads or influencer marketing.
The service also makes the consumer’s choice of engagement easier. Starting with the Thank You page, the prompt feeds off the consumer’s momentum. The consumer is already in a shopping mood, and the discount creates an extra personable incentive.
In a sense, the GoodCarts service creates an interconnected sales funnel.
Teamwork is not Cliche
Through cross-promotion, social enterprises are able to share loyal customers and revenue. Impact grows organically from participating in this teamwork for impact. As more social enterprises participate, the potential for the platform’s impact grows. Conscious capitalists collectively sharing traffic widens the range in exposure and revenue.
In a non-business aspect, building this consumer experience could increase the authority of purpose-driven retail in society. With many consumers having exposure to a plethora of social good businesses, purpose-driven retail could nudge more into the mainstream of consumption.
We talk about teamwork often for the power that comes from working together. Ever since we are young, we learn a few rules on sharing and playing together. Discussing teamwork in social enterprise may seem like every cliche about teamwork you ever heard, but those cliches are true. Like the cliches you know, teamwork may seem outdated and overplayed, but we assure you it is not.
More impressive than fostering the network of social enterprises is the fact that the service is free. No contracts or commissions are involved. The first talk of revenue is when GoodCarts mentions “…we will add bonus, optional services…” in their explanation video of their company on the homepage. You can also read their FAQ where the initiative dispels “hidden costs”, and explains how GoodCarts makes money. Existence of additional paid features secures GoodCarts status as a social enterprise, but the base service is free.
Applicable Takeaway
An anchor based on Cross-promotion helps multiple social enterprises simultaneously flourish. One experiment you can try is to have a lunch date with a few other social impact businesses to brainstorm how you could amplify each other.
GoodCarts’ “All in this Together” Cross-promotion completes this profile.
People Helping People Podcast is seeking methods clearly supporting an effective impact. Observations and discussions on happenings in the social enterprise community is a significant part of our contribution to social good. Continue to check-in for more conversation-starting content.
