Consumer awareness of the environment and related issues is currently at an all time high, with many buyers making deliberate choices to do business with green companies. As a business, it is important to communicate your environmental commitment without being too aggressive in order to deliver a genuine message.
Marketing Your Values
It is important that any corporate marketing plan serve the interests of the business, but it needs to do so in a way that upholds its core values. One key point to keep in mind: get specific. Caring about the environment is one thing, but in order to connect with potential clients and communicate your core values as a business, you need to get specific and choose an angle. Here are some examples of good and bad approaches:
Bad Examples (too vague)
- We have green initiatives
- At Company X, we care about the environment
Good Examples (specific angle)
- We have sustainability initiatives
- At Company X, recycling is a core value
The Green mantra has become so widely used and repeated that consumers are becoming sensitized and being specific about your environmental values will help communicate your values and green commitment more effectively to clients.
Know When and How to Market
Not every client will be motivated by a particular message or they may not be interested at all. It’s important to structure your marketing efforts in such a way that it can be flexible in order to communicate the right message to the right client, and in the right setting.
One way this can be accomplished is by running various promotional campaigns and testing the effectiveness of your messages. You can focus on sustainability for one campaign and compare and contrast this with another promotion that focuses on other aspects of your environmental branding.
Don’t Forget the Customer
At the end of the day, marketing needs to respond to a need in order to be most effective. Listen to your customers and update any green marketing initiatives in order to continuously respond to consumer preferences. Potential clients can sometimes react negatively or may not react at all.
Keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean that your core values are not shared by them, but simply that adjustments in the marketing approach and targeting may be needed.
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