Top 5 Tips On How To Successfully Market Your Green Business
For over six months now, we’ve been writing about green marketing and why it is so relevant for companies nowadays. Today I’d like to take our blog one step further, and share with you the top 5 tips on how to successfully market your green business.
1. Back up your claims.
Double-check your efforts when starting a green marketing strategy. Our advice is don’t position yourself as a green business if you’re not walking the talk. Today’s consumers are savvy and inquisitive, and a false claim will seriously damage your brand. A company’s reputation is one of the most valuable assets an organization possesses. Bad publicity spreads quickly (it’s the most viral form of buzz there is), taking years to overcome.
2. Don’t position yourself as the green saviour.
Consumers are looking behind the label, and demand integrity from the companies they buy from. You should communicate your environmental and sustainability efforts – but don’t overdo it. Add a modest, sincere tone to your message and you’ll go a long way. Consumers relate better with people than with organizations. Give your business a personal, honest image and you will generate positive word-of-mouth.
3. Engage the whole team and communicate your efforts internally.
This is one of the most important green marketing tips. You need internal support to be able to reflect your business green initiatives (consistent communications and continuity are a must for any successful marketing program). It is particularly important to engage your front-of-line employees: sales teams, the technical support department, even phone operators! Imagine how it would reflect on your company if your marketing department is promoting your environmental initiatives while the sales team is seen to dump dozens of (still relevant) brochures after a trade show.
4. Get your supply chain on board.
Engage your partners and vendors on your green marketing efforts. Communicate the pros of green marketing and give incentives out for a faster adoption. Focus on the new joint marketing opportunities you’ll be creating for your partners and suppliers – after all, if your supply chain is also becoming environmentally-sustainable, your suppliers will want to promote the new added-value and generate more business.
5. Don’t just focus on the green argument.
The green marketplace is quickly evolving and it’s not enough to focus your messaging on the green added-value of your products/services. You need to develop your product positioning so it’s a “no-brainer” for your clients to do business with you. This can take various forms, from communicating the quality of your product or service, focusing on the money your customers will be saving in the long term (and perhaps in the short term, depending where your product fits in the price scale), product innovation/design, etc. The goal is not to focus on the green argument uniquely; position your company as an organization that appeals to more than dark green customers.
Do you have any green marketing tips you’d like to share? Use the comments box below.
Related blog posts:
Green Marketing: A Sound Business Strategy
The Argument For Green Marketing
How To Sell Green Marketing To Your Boss
The number one tip should have been to call Kiwano Marketing.
Cecilia and Sofia are doing a great job in finding their niche in this realm and will flourish as people get to know them and their work. Kiwano is young, vibrant and resourceful.
Cecilia and Sofia aim to please and are well studied on the subject. Green marketing is not a fad to them. They are also highly accountable … they practise what they preach. Kiwano will be extremely successful in the years ahead.
This is a nice post. I would like however to add that defining your business value proposition is crucial. In the green arena there are too many so-called green products and you need to clearly state what is it that you are offering. Many products claim to be green but that by itself is not enought to gain market access. Most green products are rather lifestyle products and need to be marketed as such, leveraging on the appeal they promote amongst green savvy customers and people with a certain (and higher) income level.
Keep up the good work!
@David Olinger aw shucks, if we weren’t so green we’d be blushing by now.
Thank you so much for your kind words, David!
Jorge,
I agree with most of what you say – businesses need to define what ‘green’ means for them. But I believe we need to fight the myth that green products are necessarily more expensive. Some companies do choose to position themselves as such, but they will quickly notice that only brings short-term benefits. If a green product is to be successful, it will need to sell on other attributes as well. Positioning a product as green just to justify the premium price is not sustainable marketing strategy and it won’t work in the long run.