eBay is really stepping up its support of Giving Works (eGW) – the program that offers “cause marketing” opportunities for SMBs — putting both marketing muscle and (gasp!) fee givebacks behind the program.

Cause marketing simply links a strategically-chosen nonprofit organization to a company’s brand for mutual benefit. Major retailers are all familiar with cause marketing’s impact, e.g., the 2006 Cone Millennial Cause Study showed 89% of Millennial consumers “are likely or very likely to switch from one brand to another (price and quality being equal) if the second brand is associated with a good cause.”

eBay Giving Works

eGW, powered by its nonprofit partner MissionFish* has become increasingly professional seller-friendly. Predictably, leading sellers such as Designer Athletic, Rock Bottom Golf, HomeClick and Snow Deals NOW recently became some of the top eBay cause marketing practitioners (also predictably, they use ChannelAdvisor, the first CSP to offer the program.

I’ll look forward to chiming in here from time to time about special promotional opportunities.

My first promotion tip: eBay (through homepage banners and more) and a bunch of nonprofits (including the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (see promotion here) and the Larry King Cardiac Foundation (see promotion here) are driving traffic to the “Spotlight on Healthy Hearts” campaign from now through February. As of now, sellers who list even a dozen items are getting featured on the front page “current sellers” list.

*Full disclosure: MissionFish is a client of my company Blueberry Consulting

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David Yaskulka’s Blueberry Consulting focuses on eBay cause marketing and public relations. Clients include MissionFish (www.missionfish.org), which powers the eBay Giving Works program, and many top Wall Street firms. As a seller, he managed Blueberry Boutique and Harris Michael Jewelry, which joined Designer Athletic, Snow Deals NOW and Homeclick among the top eBay Giving Works listers in 2006. He is a frequent speaker on eBay cause marketing and widely quoted in the media.

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