By Katie Marcus

An old and effective method of marketing has to do with teaming up with a charity of some kind. Businesses do this because it can easily help improve their image, and help them improve their community.

People like to feel that a company is doing their part to make the world a little better, and finding the right charity can do wonders to help boost up your image in this area. One of the most important parts of marketing is creating positive attitudes towards your company.

However, what kind of charity do you pick? The decision is going to have an impact on how people view you, and while helping out any charity is nice, you might not get the marketing results you were hoping for.

If you are a local business, you automatically have the playing field narrowed a little more. You will certainly want to look at some kind of local charity that does good things in the community, but once again, you still have to know just whom you should go for.

If you can find a charity that is associated with your particular business than that is the best way to go. Maybe you are a clothing store and you start up a relationship with a charity aimed at giving clothing to poor families. Maybe a grocery store will help out a canned food drive.

Do not allow this to make you think that the charity has to be connected to your business. You might just work in an industry that does not really lend itself well to one charity or another. Helping out any organization will be good for marketing, so find whomever you want to support, and whom you can provide the most help to.

How you market your connection with the charity is also going to be different depending on the situation. You might get some brochure printing done specifically for the charity with your name and logo on each of them. The primary purpose of the brochures will be to advertise the charity itself with your name only in smaller print in the corner.

Another way is to get brochures printed, but focus instead on how you are helping them. Maybe you will match every can of food donated, and you mention this in flyers you hand out yourself.

I cannot give any right or wrong way to go about this, only to say that you have to be sure that you draw a strong connection between your company and the charity as quickly as you can. You will not see any improvement to your image if no one is aware of the fact that you are even helping the charity out.

Big or small, at least look into the possibilities of teaming up with a charitable organization for your company. You do not have to directly promote your store to have some very effective marketing. You just have to become in alliance with charity works. Furthermore, do not gloat about the fact but use the information as a means to communicate about the charitable activities your business will be doing to the people. I am sure you can find a charity that will work well for you.