When was the last time you stopped and considered how effectively you market your business’s green credentials? Many of us are so busy trying to get from one day to the next and see out the downturn that marketing our companies’ green credentials has slipped waaaaaaay down the agenda. But should it have done?
I’m mid-way through a series of seminars I’ve been asked to run for Gatwick Diamond businesses on Marketing Your Green credentials. And preparing for and running the workshops has been an interesting exercise. I wonder whether I’ve given enough thought to how I market Flourish’s green credentials, and whether it’s something that matters at the moment? Are consumers as concerned about green as they are about price at the moment? Can you leverage value and loyalty from being green?
Do our clients even understand what being green means? On twitter there was a little confusion I asked my followers: how do you market a sustainable business? And the responses were varied, and interesting. You’ll see from the responses below that despite the buzz-word, sustainable means different things to different people. And many simple weren’t sure what it meant at all!
@thebookwright: Thought for sustainable businesses need a short, medium & long term plan & a stable team of complimentary cornerstones
@essentialCM for sustainable businesses read good to great Jim Collins all about “building the clock” for the future.
@ElizabethCairns re marketing sustainable business …keep your passion alive and communicate that in your marketing messages
@JudithMorgan Wasnt sure if you meant sustainable, i.e. I still have a business in 30 years time, OR sustainable as we use that word now?
@paulfuggle: be clear about who you want to build relationships with, offer what they want & what you can deliver
@MarketingNYC stop being a tasmanian devil doing and trying everything…get a strategy
So is sustainability about reducing resources, the impact of your business on the environment, is it about sourcing locally, creating a business that will be around in 30 years? Is it about the way you treat your staff? Or is it about being socially responsible: about putting as much back into the local economy as possible and adding value where you can?
The truth is it’s probably all of the above. When I asked my first lot of delegates yesterday what sustainability meant to their business, one group came up with the answer “you need to be seen to be being green”. And at a truly cynical level, we can all “greenwash” our companies and pay lip service to the environment, but that’s something that both consumers and journalists will see through very quickly.
As Elizabeth Cairns said, you need to put green at the very heart of your business and communicate that with passion. Which leads me on to asking you the question: Just what shade of green is your business? Are you green to the core? Is the setup of your business focused around reducing the impact of your activities on the environment, sourcing responsibly, treating your staff well and working in the community? Is green at the heart of your business? Or is it on the perimeter? Have you felt as though you “ought to do something” and switched your paper buying from normal to recycled? Neither answer is right or wrong, but how you market your green credentials will very much depend on how much it matters to your business.
According to the experts, Egg – a branding & marketing company in the States, just 7% of consumers are socially responsible to the core, but 70% of the population (I’m assuming they’re talking about the population of the USA) will recycle and occasionally seek out organic food. So there’s a huge market out there for offering sustainable products. But you can’t badge your company “green” and hope that your product will walk off the shelves – there simply aren’t enough consumers that care to their core to make that happen.
No, what you need to do is engage your client with your values. And that’s why I asked you what shade of green your business is. Consumers are looking for brands with values that they identify with. Remember the John Lewis advert I showed you? Ok that’s not about “green”, but to me it’s about sustainability and it’s very much about values. And for their niche in the market, it’s an utterly powerful way of marketing.
Consumers are looking for brands to communicate with them honestly and create transparency. And that’s why you need to put your brand values at the heart of your marketing plan. And if “green” in whatever form is a part of your brand values then you’ll find it much more authentic to market your green credentials than if it’s a periphery activity.
If I think about brands that place green at the heart of their marketing strategy, I think of Dorset Cereals, Abel & Cole and Riverford. Their marketing communications are about so much more than say, how good the oats and raisins are in the cereal. They’re about community, sustainability and the environment. Dorset Cereals, in particular have taken their brand values much wider than food, their communication is about “simple pleasures”. They build edible playgrounds for schools and they team up with like minded businesses who share their values.
How clever is your communication? Dorset Cereals don’t continually bang the drum that “we’re green, we’re green” – it’s implied through their activities, their copy, their packaging and their design. Is your marketing strategy as sophisticated as that?
Green businesses have a positive impact on society. In the case of my business, that means looking after my staff well, sourcing our consumables responsibly, ensuring that the print we sell is environmentally friendly and putting something back into the community with our Flourish Foundation. If I’m honest, this is at the heart of me, which is why it’s come through in my business. I haven’t yet put together a “green mission statement”, and I probably should. I know that one of the reasons that our clients come to us is for our authenticity and values – but do I need a mission statement to get that across?
The short answer is probably not. Everything about the way we’ve built Flourish communicates these values, partly because we fall into the Autumnal colour personality, which is the most “green” of the lot. All of our print is recycled and uncoated and our muted, warm colours suggest sustainabillity, community and integrity. But marketing your green credentials takes more than a bit of fancy design and an understanding of colour psychology.
It’s about making sure that your communication is consistent. Follow us on twitter and you’ll find the very same person that you meet in the studio, warm, supportive and with integrity. Read our blog and you’ll find the same transparency and “giving” nature as you find in our workshops and one to one sessions. I guess I don’t scream green because green is intrexibly linked with what we do. How about you?
Public buildings over 1000m2 now need a Display Energy Certificate (DEC), renewed annually this shows the actual energy use and potential energy use if changes are made to effect savings. Recent Government recommendations include extending this to other commercial buildings. If customers visit their premises, a business can demonstrate green credentials by having a DEC carried out and displaying the Certificate in a prominent position for all to see. More enlightened firms are keen to prove their commitment by carrying this out now, before regulations come into force.
Thank you Roger. You raise some great points, but from a marketing point of view compliance only tells part of the story.
I firmly believe that most consumers don’t engage with “compliance” – be it ISO14001, DEC or other credentials. This is partly because they don’t know what they are, and partly because they don’t affect their values. Now I’m not suggesting that these things are irrelevant – far from it. As you say, compliance is a way of firms proving their commitment to environmental concerns. But I do think it’s important that firms think about what their environmental concerns mean to their clients and how they can communicate powerfully in a way that will engage their customers.
Most of us are looking to make “good” choices about the products and services we buy: we want to know that what we’re doing is reducing the impact on the environment and having a positive impact on society – but only when we can afford to do so. I think that companies can influence whether consumers think they can “afford” a green company by engaging with their customer values. What do you think? Interested to hear your views on this.
Fiona, you have a point. We all all need to remember that we cannot afford to ignore the effects of Climate Change, particularly how this WILL increasingly affect our children and future generations. Companies can and should try to influence this, as being “green” becomes more important those businesses who seek to set an example rather than just use this as a cynical marketing ploy will win out. So, where relevant, visible signs like Display Energy Certificates need to be part of a fully embracing policy, with this showing on the bottom line in reduced energy costs together with increased profits.
great point well made, thank you Roger