What do corporate social responsibility and marketing strategies have to do with each other? When we hear the term ‘corporate social responsibility’, we may think about environmental sustainability. But customer expectations are now such that sustainability has moved on from being the latest trend to an expected norm.

Being Sustainable Will Not Differentiate Your Business Anymore

Environmentally conscious practices are rapidly becoming mandated by law in many countries. So, sustainability can no longer really be used as a major point of differentiation in marketing strategies. It’s becoming part of a wider movement. Not just about caring for the planet, but caring for the people who live on the planet!

Corporate Social Responsibility is a business approach that combines economic, social, and environmental concerns in a responsible and ethical manner. Such principles are a well-established feature of consumer-based marketing strategies and clearly attract ethically-minded customers.

High Street brands like Marks and Spencer and Lush are well known for their ethical principles. And this boosts their credibility with customers in many cases. But, increasingly, evidence of corporate social responsibility is being expected in the B2B world as well. People buy from people. And most of us want to work with people who care about the things that really matter, beyond financial gain.

Socially Responsible Companies Cultivate Positive Brand Recognition

If you’re looking for proof that you need to align your corporate social responsibility and marketing strategies, take a look at Sunbelt Rentals. The plant hire company has long been committed to socially responsible causes including a veterans programme and a homelessness project.

Whilst it’s nice that they care, some may question the relevance of these projects. Couldn’t they just make a donation and focus their energies on the business?

Maybe. But there’s no doubt that the company’s ethos is making a huge impact in its sector. Sunbelt’s commitment to social causes ultimately helped it win the Hire Company of the Year Award in 2024. It’s the most prestigious award for its industry in the UK. And that’s not going to go unnoticed by the company’s competitors and customers.

Incorporating Corporate Social Responsibility into Your Marketing Strategy

CSR is a huge selling point in the commercial world. Yet research indicates that a significant 72% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase from companies that perform well on socio-political issues they deem important. So if you’re yet to evaluate your CSR and marketing strategies, now is the time to take action.

Benefits for Your Marketing Strategy

Linking corporate social responsibility and marketing strategies together will help your business:

• Build stronger relationships.
• Foster trust and credibility.
• Attract and retain top talent – staff that care about more than just the pay check.
• Strengthen customer loyalty.
• Align with its prospects’ values.
• Enhance brand image and recognition.
• Differentiate itself from its competition.
• Expand market reach by attracting new customer segments.
• Attract publicity.

Getting Started

Aligning corporate social responsibility and marketing strategies can open up more questions than it answers. Once you start looking more into the human side of things, it impacts your business’s ethos and team dynamics.

Should staff have the right to work from home? What about flexible working hours? How do I support social causes and remain politically neutral?

In the end, there are no absolutes in this. Values vary from business to business and person to person. So it’s a case of discovering what works best in your unique situation. But the key areas to bear in mind are broadly: ethical working practices, social causes and environmental causes.

Avoiding Greenwashing

One thing you should avoid at all costs when creating a CSR policy is greenwashing. You risk ruining trust with your audience if you make false claims just to make your business look good. So, here’s how to create meaningful policies:

• Be upfront about what you’re doing. Share the specifics and actual impacts of your CSR policies. Don’t just make fluffy statements.
• Don’t just stick to green policies. Highlight efforts in employee well-being, ethical practices, and community support.
• Aim for achievable targets to avoid overpromising and then disappointing your audience.
• Use third-party certifications to prove you’re legit. It adds a layer of trust and shows you have put a considerable amount of effort into your environmental and social initiatives.

Different Types of Corporate Social Responsibility Policies to Consider

If you’re wondering what specific policies you should include when incorporating corporate social responsibility into your marketing strategy, consider the following:

• Staff wellbeing: This might include flexible working hours, work/life balance, onsite welfare facilities.
• Recognising and rewarding good work: for example, staff recognition schemes, formalised progression structures and performance incentives.
• Mental health wellbeing: training mental health first aiders, supporting mental health initiatives/charities, raising awareness and openness in your team.
• Accreditations in equality and diversity, commitment to recruitment based on merit rather than quotas of representation and diversity training for staff.
• Emotional intelligence (EQ) in business – training staff and putting the principles into action.
• Your commitment to sustainability: sourcing ethically produced materials, manufacturing in a way that reduces emissions, recycling and waste reduction schemes etc.
• Making recruitment and training accessible to disadvantaged groups, e.g. veterans, ex-prisoners, school leavers in deprived areas.
• Taking part in local causes: charitable events, community participation, local business consortiums.
• Your commitment to wider causes: donating a proportion of profits to a given cause, supporting disaster relief efforts in times of crisis, investing in empowerment programmes.

It’s Time to Embrace the Movement

Corporate social responsibility is about more than just doing good. It demonstrates that you are a business with heart and reassures customers and prospects that you can be trusted. In turn, this will strengthen customer loyalty and boost conversions. So the best thing you can do is to make people aware of this by bringing your corporate social responsibility and marketing strategies together.