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How do you market sustainable consumerism? Sustainable marketing is the promotion of socially responsible products, services, and practices.
While both terms are often used interchangeably, there is a difference between green marketing and sustainability marketing. • Green marketing focuses on strategies that promote environmental awareness and protection. • Sustainable marketing, on the other hand, is a little broader. • It encompasses green marketing but it also includes practices that go beyond the environment, like social and economic issues. Green Marketing vs. Sustainable Marketing
Sustainable Marketing Strategies • Have a larger purpose. • Place value ahead of profit. • Be consumer-oriented. • Reflect sustainability in every aspect of your brand.
Have a larger purpose • Brands typically judge their success by the numbers. How much revenue they have or will generate in any given period is usually the biggest indicator of success. • Sustainability shifts this perspective by having brands evaluate themselves by something bigger than profit. • As a brand, you have to promote something that’s bigger than your products and services and transcends any particular industry.
2. Think ahead • Sustainability marketing is all about building long-term value. • Too often, brands focus on gaining immediate returns. For instance, many marketing tactics like running Google Ads and blogging are • great lead generators. • However, what happens once your lead has made a purchase and turned into a customer? How will you build loyalty and create brand evangelists? • Sustainable marketing looks at ways to nurture consumers during the entire buyer’s journey. • Education is one way to build loyalty with your audience early on. From when they first discover you on social media to after they’ve made a purpose. • For instance, a food brand could educate its audience on the importance of ethical farming on social media and continue this process post-purchase with package recycling tips.
3. Be customer-oriented. • You might be thinking, “Isn’t being consumer-oriented what all marketing is?” • Ideally, yes but that’s not always the case. • In traditional marketing, a brand will often try to push a product or service to a customer. With consumer-oriented marketing, it’s more about understanding your customers’ needs and tailoring your marketing to that. • For instance, say your audience is craving more transparency in your sourcing practices or wants you to be more vocal on social issues. You could use that information for your next campaign. • With so much competition out there, one way to stay customer-oriented is by innovating. • We’ve all heard the Blockbuster and Netflix cautionary tale. But that speaks to a huge societal shift that Blockbuster was unwilling to make. • But the truth is, innovation doesn’t always have to be so big. It can happen in small iterations – the key here is staying in touch with your audience’s needs.
4. Reflect sustainability in every aspect of your brand • Sustainability marketing doesn’t work if it’s not authentic. • Imagine finding out a business that claims to be sustainable has failed to implement any practices to promote its mission. Consumers would distrust that brand and it would be difficult to earn it back. • Are you preaching about sustainability but using unsustainable resources to build your product? Are you collaborating with brands that conflict with your mission? Is your team representative of the future you want to promote? • These are the questions you should ask to determine if your brand reflects the mission you’ve set out to achieve. Identify the areas that need work and go to the drawing board to figure out strategies that align with your mission. • Audiences don’t expect perfection, they do, however, value transparency. It’s OK – and recommended – to share where you currently fall short and how you plan to remedy these issues.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a business practice that considers the impact a company has on society, employees, and other stakeholders. • A CSR strategy is implemented by an organization to: minimize harm, practice fair business, be responsible along a global supply chain, exercise philanthropy and create a self-oriented human resource management system.
Business sustainability is a comprehensive approach to business management that works to maximize long-term economic, social, and environmental value. Sustainability aims to leave systems capable of continued existence. WHAT IS BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY?
For one, sustainability and responsibility have different meanings: • Sustainability: To be maintained at a certain rate or level. • Responsibility: The state or fact of being accountable.
Benefit #1: CSR presents new business opportunity. • Example: • Water Recharge Plan • Reserve water fromits operations, to support drought-prone communities. • - this created a water surplus which use to replenish groundwater and wasteland into land suitable for farming.
According to Starbuck’s 2020 Global Social Impact Report, the business aims to: • Obtain 100% of its coffee from ethical sources, • Create a global network of farmers and supply them with 100 million trees by 2025, • Support green building infrastructure throughout stores, • Contribute to millions of hours of community service, • Create a groundbreaking college program for employees, • Hire 5,000 veterans and 10,000 refugees. Benefit #2: CSR creates a positive brand image
Benefit #3: CSR manages business risk “Ignoring social responsibility is a risky business”
Benefit #4: CSR creates a happy and productive workforce Happy employees have higher levels of productivity, produce higher sales, perform better in leadership positions and receive higher performance ratings and higher pay.
Gone are the days when we used only words to tell a great story. Today, especially when communicating sustainability, we rely more on the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
DEFORESTATION CLIMATE CHANGE
1. Communications that you can see, touch or even listen to provide a tangible measure of success. • We often recommend a sustainably-printed executive summary to support the main, comprehensive, online corporate social responsibility (CSR) report. In addition, we have created website book covers, blast email series and e-newsletters to launch and promote a company’s approach to sustainability.
2. Developing a brand/identity to represent and highlight your efforts in sustainability is very effective. • This work can and should complement or align with the organization’s overall brand but still be different enough to compel target audiences to learn more or at least investigate further. • A sustainable brand easily can become recognizable and well-known, further adding to the positive reputation of a company. • This is good for recruitment and retention, employee engagement and customer loyalty.
3. With reports especially, we try to create a memorable theme and title that ties closely with an organization’s core competencies. The more creative, the better. It can be a spin on the corporate name or a creative take on the corporate culture. A convincing theme and unforgettable title can go a long way, and can take sustainability communications to the next level.
4. With a printed piece, many sustainable measures can be taken. And if those measures are followed, a certification logo can be added to collateral. Here are a few of many well-known, attainable certifications that always should be taken into consideration:
The FSC logo supports the responsible use of forest resources. The FSC Recycled logo certifies the 100 percent post-consumer content of a product. The FSC Mixed Sources logo certifies that a product comes from well-managed forests, controlled resources and recycled fiber.
This logo demonstrates that a product contains fiber that has been recuperated entirely from paper used by consumers through recycling programs.
The Green-e logo certifies that a product was created with 100 percent green electricity. Green-e Energy is the nation's leading independent certification and verification program for renewable energy.
This certification from the Chlorine Free Product Association ensures a product is manufactured with no chlorine.
