Eco-consciousness has been on the rise steadily for decades now, and businesses have to adapt to this rising trend. This has not only influenced how people think but how they buy as well. Studies have shown that around 26% of European citizens purchase exclusively environmentally-friendly products, while an outstanding 54% do so sometimes. This is a clear dramatic shift in consumer behavior. So, if you want to succeed as a business, you will need to take these figures into consideration. But being an eco-friendly business is not enough. You need to market it as well. So, how do you do that? In this article, we will talk about some of the most important aspects of marketing an eco-friendly business.

1. Commit to Being Eco-Friendly

When you want to build an image of being sustainable and eco-friendly, you need to be willing to commit. It won’t be good publicity if you brand yourself as an eco-friendly business while you are actively still polluting more than you are saving (by a significant margin). If you still haven’t fully reached your sustainability goals, then it’s vital to make this clear. A miscommunication in this regard could prove catastrophic for your image and trust with the customers. The last thing you want is to be accused of greenwashing. So, before you opt for such a campaign, make sure that you are aware of all of the implications involved and that you are ready for them.

2. Stress out the Key Environmental Issues in Your Line of Work

Every line of industry deals with different sorts of environmental problems. This is why you need to stress out the key problem with your line of work and how your products address it. You should always strive to give a recap to customers on how you contribute to the issue (long enough so they know it’s not just vague lies and short enough so they don’t have to read an essay before buying every product). For example, a marketing company can advertise how they use only recycled materials for their banners and signs or how Tesla emits less harmful gases to the environment. It’s always good to highlight the different ways you contribute to sustainability goals, but the problems of your industry and how you deal with them in your line of work remain the most relevant part.

3. Highlight Just How Your Business Contributes to Sustainability

People who value the sustainability of a business more than others will usually visit your website/social media and see just how eco-friendly you really are. This is why highlighting how your business contributes to sustainability goals should be a vital part of your campaign. It can be done by creating a separate section that addresses this particular issue. Your highlighted aspects should include:

• A short statement about your business’s stance on eco-friendly goals

• Your accomplishments in the area of sustainability

• Your business’s short-term and long-term goals for a greener future

4. Show the Customers How Choosing You Over Your Competition Helps the Environment

As we have previously mentioned, a lot more customers these days take into consideration eco-friendliness when choosing what product they want to purchase. With this in mind, you want to show the customers precisely how choosing you over your competition will be more beneficial to the environment. Keep in mind that this should still be done in a civil manner, as you shouldn’t throw dirt at your competition and highlight how bad they are. Your primary focus should be the benefit to the environment that is brought by choosing your products.

5. Promote Education About the Environment in Your Business

Your goal shouldn’t be to just promote to customers how eco-friendly you are. Rather, you should also make it a part of your company’s culture. Promote an ecological perspective among your employees and educate them about key sustainability issues that you are here to tackle. You can’t expect your employees to convince the customers about how eco-conscious you are if half of your company doesn’t believe in it.

6. Be Transparent 

Transparency is important. People are demanding more transparency from their companies as time goes by. With this in mind, you cannot afford to sell how you’re eco-friendly without actually proving it. Malversation or simply using sustainability as a front while you in fact pollute the environment even more than your competition does will get out sooner or later, and this will ruin your business. This is why it is essential to be transparent about the good things and the bad things you bring to the table. If your sustainability campaign is not good enough to overweight the pollution you contribute, then it is best to not advertise the business as being the most eco-friendly option, but instead, opt for more realistic image-building. In such a case, you need to be willing to accept a more balanced image. This is why we’ve mentioned before the necessity for fully committing to sustainability because word will get out sooner or later.

7. Digital or Traditional Marketing: What is More Eco-Friendly?

When thinking about how to market your business in the most eco-friendly way, the question of digital vs traditional marketing will come to mind. Generally, people view traditional marketing to be a much more unsustainable option. Is this entirely accurate though?

Like all things in life, it isn’t as black and white as it’s portrayed. In the past, when we didn’t have many eco-friendly options, nor a developed way of making them such, you could easily say that traditional marketing was completely unsustainable. However, as technology has progressed, we have found new ways of making traditional fliers, pamphlets, and signs, as well as their recycled alternatives. Meanwhile, people don’t pay much attention to the waste that gets made by electronic means. Statista has projected that the world will have produced over 74.7 million metric tons of electronic waste by 2030, making a sharp rise from the 53.6 million metric tons in 2019. This is unsustainable, and this is even without taking into account the projected increase in electricity consumption in the US.

Taking all of this into account, traditional marketing is still a viable and eco-friendly option that can be used in an eco-friendly marketing campaign. If you’re going to be using corflute signs, all you have to do is highlight that they are recycled or don’t hurt the environment as much as their short-term counterparts do. 

That would be it for today. Hopefully, you have gained some insight into how you can better promote your eco-friendly business to the wider public. Best of luck!

 

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