Green Marketing: It's Time to Better Explain Your
We have all seen the copy on products:
Green-Friendly…. Recyclable …. Made with 30% Less Plastic …. Eco-Friendly
Ad Nauseum.
Consumers are getting both confused and de-sensitized to green labels.
It is time to take the leap and carefully explain in more detail why your product is truly green. This will help to differentiate your company from those that do greenwashing, which sets the entire green movement back each time it is abused.
Use a hang tag, label, decal or product insert to describe how your manufacturing process is carbon neutral. Use a QR-code to take customers to a special landing page with video and details of just how your product is sustainable, organic, biodegradable, energy-efficient, etc.
Describe the process of biodegradation that will occur in the biodegradable bag or bottle– with both images and text. Also detail how they need to dispose of the product to get it to degrade.
Show how your product is made from recycled materials–with pictures of before, during and after production. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Offer ways to take the product back at the end of its life cycle to make the product carbon neutral.
Show pictures of your plant or building and describe how your company and its employees are working to reduce your carbon footprint. Show your recycling area, show your energy efficient equipment, take pictures of the hybrid cars in your parking lot. Show that you care. People want to see this.
A recent MarketingProfs article points out several examples of companies who are using marketing tactics to educate consumers on how to reduce the life-cycle impacts of the products they purchase, such as “A Care Tag For Our Planet”. This was created as a campaign partnership between Levi Strauss & Co. and Goodwill designed to teach consumers how to care for and dispose of their jeans in a more sustainable way. Can you partner your product with another to extend its lifecycle or to help with its disposal (or re-use)?
Let’s take the time as green marketers to educate consumers about what makes a product green.
It is up to us to create this awareness, so a few bad apples do not set the entire green movement back a decade.
Let’s take time to give a serious review to all our marketing material, our advertising, our websites, our social media, etc. to see how we can better explain our products and its impact on the planet.
Who is with me on this?
Let’s make Every Day Earth Day.
Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and recycled promotional products, has worked to help plant over 25 million trees through his live tree seedling gift program over the past dozen years. His company’s website, EcoMarketingSolutions.com, features over 25,000 eco-friendly promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find biodegradable, organic and recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame.
You can also reach him by email (robert (at) ecomarketingsolutions.com) or comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com or below at his Twitter link.
