10 Don’ts of Green Marketing

So, you’ve started a green business and you’re formulating a marketing plan. Either that, or you are still reading because you fantasize about starting a green business and formulating a marketing plan. Fantasy or reality, there are some significant differences between marketing a traditional product and a green one. After all, your brand is not just the color of your logo and the tone of your tag line. It is the inclusive identity of the way in which you do business. In other words, your marketing is not just about the message. It is also about how you deliver it.

The sustainable agenda and environmentally conscious attitude which provides the backbone for your business should present itself in the marketing methodologies you pursue. Unfortunately, many trained marketers have tactics and ideas that are contrary to that backbone. Ingrained concepts and traditional methods are difficult for old dogs to shake, but a failure to drop the old, “ungreen” standbys can undermine the perception of your brand. Green products need green marketers.

Here are a few marketing tactics to avoid if you want to market green. Please feel free to add to the list in the comments or send me an email with other ideas. And yes, I know “Don’ts” isn’t a word.

1. Direct Mail
This one seems pretty obvious. If you are a green company, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to start cutting down trees, converting them to compacted wood pulp and plastering sustainable ideas across them. Even if you are using recycled paper and biodegradable ink, the fossil fuel used to deliver your message and the landfill space the majority of your missives will end up in may mar the message. Here’s some statistics that your prospects might have heard about . . . to your mail-happy detriment.

2. Billboards
These giant, energy-devouring eyesores may attract plenty of attention, but as a green company it might not be the kind of attention you want. Also, as it panders to the gas guzzling commuter culture while sucking power from the grid, you might find yourself associated with and ignored by the SUVs zooming past. That said, there are always exceptions. While I still don’t recommend the super signs, some manage to at least positively reflect the brand.

3. Brochures
Just like direct mail, brochures run the risk of serious waste. However, I wouldn’t say that these are completely out. Properly produced and judiciously passed out, brochures can be a useful marketing tool. So, I guess this isn’t so much of a “don’t” as it is a “do carefully.” However, the more extreme your green brand is, the more you should steer away from printed materials.

4. Skywriting
Okay, so that’s obvious, but let’s include any kind of gas-powered, vehicle advertising under this heading. Stamping your message on the sides of giant trucks or sponsoring a Nascar driver would probably be mistakes as well. Remember, if your brand has a small footprint, there is no reason to strap an over-sized boot on your marketing.

5. Traditional Business Cards
Traditional business cards are significantly cheaper than their green counterparts, and it is tempting to save a bit of that marketing budget here. Don’t . . . people will notice. Design a card that advances your green brand. Recycled content and organic dyes are a good way to start, or you could get really creative.

6. Fax Attacks
Here’s another example of paper and energy waste. With the current state of computers, fax machines are a vestige of old wasteful business practices. Shun them. It will help your brand, and besides, the annoying little devices deserve it. Check out Death to the Fax Machine. If nothing else the article has a great title.

7. Door to Door and Face to Face
Yes, it is sometimes important to get out there and meet the people. Unfortunately, getting out there and meeting the people often involves a lot of driving. Limiting the necessity for face to face meetings and conferences can be an important way in which you can reinforce your company’s commitment to green. Web meetings, teleconferencing and other remote communications can be used in place of the standard handshake and sit down. When you do need to actually meet someone, bike, take public transit or walk, and be sure to order a nice environmentally friendly beer when you get there (what, some of you have meetings outside of bars?). 

8. Spam
OK, there isn’t anything specifically green about this, but generally people seem to expect environmentally concerned people not to be total jerks.

9. Unpracticed Preaching*
Marketing is not simply a department or strategy. Every part of your operation makes marketing statements, effects the perception of your brand and creates (or destroys) value in the eyes of your prospects. If you fail to practice what you preach people will notice and your brand will suffer for it. While people are generally indisposed to hypocrisy, they seem particularly offended by it when practiced by companies or individuals ostensibly adhering to some sort of virtue. If you’re a green company, you had better act the part. Get paperless, don’t employ a gas guzzling fleet and stop using plastic cups at the water cooler. If you want to be seen as green you need to be green all the way through.

10. Cutting Corners
This one applies to all of the above “don’ts“. Green marketing can be more expensive then traditional marketing. Branding green might take a bigger investment, but the perceived value of your product or service should increase accordingly. If you cut corners you will save money in the short term but lose credibility as the evidence of your unnecessary frugality accumulates. If the value of your product or service is derived from its greeness, don’t undermine it by skimping on the marketing.

Aside from the nice feeling we all get from being green, these rules make practical business sense for green companies. Adhering to them will improve the integrity of your brand and raise the value of your products and services.

Alright, what did I miss?

*Some of you may notice that my company, Universe Point, breaks a few of these don’ts from time to time. However, even though we are trying to be more environmentally conscious, we are not a green company. Our lapses are far less likely to hurt our brand than those of a company preaching green.

Nic Darling is a marketing guy/writer, and he likes postgreen because it has always been very nice to him. Keep an eye out for his ongoing appearances on the postgreen blog, and please encourage him with a comment or two. He is too emotionally fragile to be ignored like this.