From Guest Blogger Ben Allen: How to Market Your Business’s Green Efforts
By trying to help the Earth be a better place, your business is doing a great service. You deserve attention from the world, especially from consumers who are similarly concerned with being green. Properly marketing to that environmentally conscious audience can be the boost in sales you are looking for.
Is Being Green Important To Your Target Audience?
Being environmentally friendly is important to you, but it isn’t to everybody. Just like every other marketing decision, you need to understand your targeted consumers to properly sell to them. You can look at the demographics of your customers to get a better sense if it is important to them.
So let’s say you’ve done your market research and your targeted consumers are generally interested in saving the environment. The next step is to determine whether stating your dedication to being green will hurt or help your branding/product.
In some instances, informing people about green policies could be detrimental, even if they are focused on things like recycling and their carbon footprint. A great example of this was a luxury hotel in California that heavily pushed their new green initiative. They figured that customers, especially in a liberal place like California, would flock to a hotel praised by journalists and environmentalists for its energy efficiency and be a huge success. The problem was that consumers associated energy efficient and “green” with uncomfortable, cheap, and basically the opposite of luxury. Instead of booking with the hotel, they took their business elsewhere.
So, if your product, brand or sales could suffer from associating with being green, don’t put too much energy pursuing it. In fact, you might want to avoid mentioning it if your target market carries a negative stigma of green products.
What makes your business a “green” company, and why is it special? Defining this before you start to trumpet the environmentally friendly horn is essential to succeeding.
Simply having a company recycling program isn’t worthwhile to share, but doing something unique or worthwhile is. This could be something like creating a product using only recycled materials, or that your business supplies 100% of their own energy, or even a program you run where for every purchase, your business plants a tree. Your efforts need to be special enough that people will notice it and care. In this sense, the more you do for the planet, the better.
Once you’ve defined what makes your business green and decided it’s big enough to share, it’s time to start planning your marketing strategies.
Telling Consumers On Your Site
The first place to start is on your company’s website. The best places in your sales process to talk about your company’s green efforts is when people are deciding to go with your company or a competitor. Good places to talk about it include product and sales pages and where you talk about your company’s values and and policies. If you’ve received a green label or certification, proudly display it at key places on your site.
The key is to influence buyers to choose your product over others is convincing them yours is better. That’s marketing/sales 101. Your green practices can be the edge you need to make yourself the obvious choice. When it comes down to choosing a product that helps the planet, and one that doesn’t, environmentally aware people will buy yours. That means informing them about it at important decisions points in the buying process.
Social Media And You
More than likely, you’re already doing stuff on social media for your business. It probably consists of sharing articles and thoughts about your industry or about different promotions you are running. On platforms like Facebook and Twitter, environmentalists are very active and looking to follow companies with the same values.
The secret to growing these followings is to experiment a lot with a variety of content to find what works. There are different data sets to consider, ranging from how many people simply see your content, to engagements rates and what works best. Using data to influence your social media posts so you have a good mix of posts that get a lot of visibility and posts that engage very well.
Connecting With Green People
Environmentalists make up a great community filled with supportive people all looking to help the planet. A major part of marketing your green business is connecting with this community and becoming a part of them.
A great way to do this is by participating in events and joining online conversations. In these interactions, don’t push your company or product, but just be a part of it. Make friends, do good in the world, and become a big supporter.
As you build this network, people will give your business more attention. They’ll know that you truly care about the planet and start sending people your way. Connect with the right people and get enough attention and you might even get large recognition from magazines and websites,and maybe even win awards for your efforts. This type of publicity can very effective and bring in a lot more customers.
Measuring What Works
After a few months of marketing efforts, measure your performance and compare with past numbers. This is how you’ll be able to determine if what you are doing is effective, and help identify ways to improve.
Simply looking at your website’s general traffic isn’t enough to get a good sense of what is working. The more data you can analyze, the better chance you’ll have at knowing what works. Look at conversions paths, A/B test, and even interview customers. That way you can focus on how to grow and better attract environmentally friendly consumers.
As your business becomes more green, be sure to update your strategy and information on your site. Customers and advocates for your business will love to see you are fighting the good fight and trying harder to save the planet.
