It’s October, and you know what that means. Two things.

1: You’re overwhelmed with things to do and don’t need a complicated promotion this month.

Lots of customers, lots of incoming, having to move racks around and stay late to catch up and all that. No time for yet another task.

2: Your clientele probably feels very close to the cause of curing breast cancer.

Maybe you, probably them, have seen people whose lives and families were changed forever by breast cancer. You want to do what you can. Raise some money, raise some awareness, participate in your community.

Carolyn’s Bling your Bra Event’s great (here’s info on that idea, to tuck away for next October), but since it’s already October, it’s too late to organize that..

But the ABSOLUTE simplest way to participate? Take the BIG TAG idea from Sharing and turn it into a BIG PINK TAG event.

Here’s how:

1- Scout out some goods in your shop that you want to sell at a very good price. These should be items you are willing to donate the profits on to a breast-cancer charity. Leave them where they are on the sales floor; just have enough in mind to have 3-5 special deals for every day of your promotional event.

2- Make up some big pink tags. You might to laminate them, as in the above picture, because you’ll be using them all month long. Or just make a lot of them. On one side, put THE BIG PINK TAG SALE. On the backside, explain what you’re doing, for example Buy this special item at today’s special price and MyShop will donate the proceeds to NameofCharity. At the same time, make up window signs, dressing room signs, and bag stuffers.

2a. Plan daily tweets and Facebook and blog messages for the time period of your event.

3- Pick out a charity to receive the funds. Get a big see-through jar or plexiglass box to put money into. Make a matching pink sign for this jar: MyShop’s Customers Support NameofCharity through their purchases of our BIG PINK TAG SALE.

4- Every morning, choose a few items to feature. Do the markdown on the price tag, NOT on the BIG PINK TAG, which you will be moving from item to item throughout the event.

5- When a customer purchases an item, take the appropriate cash out of your till (whether she’s paid by credit card, check or cash) and deposit it, with a flourish, into THE BIG PINK TAG SALE jar so she and the rest of your shoppers can see the good their purchases can do.

6- When you total the contributions, don’t just send off a check. Invite the local honcho of the charity, or a local celeb who’s involved, to your shop to receive one of those funky “giant check” donations. Invite the press there to the presentation or take a picture yourself to use with a press release. You want the community to know not just that you’re a good soul (which of course you are), but that your business participates in the community.

Things to keep in mind:

• Keep your donations jar visible, to motivate people to ask what it’s all about,  but safe from theft.
• Keep enough currency in the jar to show your customers that others are participating, but not so much that they feel that you’ve collected enough.
• Move the BIG PINK TAGS to different merchandise every day, even if yesterday’s featured items haven’t sold. Encourage customers to stop in every day to see what’s “special for our charity drive.”
• Choose a wide variety of items to feature: a lamp and a chair and a picture one day, a toy and a hat and a pair of shoes the next.
• It may not be necessary to slash an item’s price even more than you already have, if it’s really a good deal.

The discussion about BIG TAG SALES is  here.