Bringing Your Green Product To Market
What is the best way to market my green product or service?
First it better be green, and it better be as green as you can make. That's the first way and the second is the green community tends to be very difficult to market to. They're very aware, they're very educated, and to date this has been the most difficult group to market to and convince, and that makes it the best challenge, and makes it very satisfying. How to market to green consumers is obviously walk the talk. If you have a green product that is overly packaged, you can't do that because the green consumer is going to say, "Oh that's a great product but why would you waste all this time and money on packaging. Just take that money and make me a better product, or take that money and reduce the price." They're very logical in their consumption, and they are very loyal. So in marketing to green people, here is my advice, make the greenest product you can and communicate that with specific facts. Demonstrate how their purchase will impact their local environment. Demonstrate by specifics how this product will save them time and money. They're not going to spend more money on your product, and that's a misnomer. Like all consumers, we're looking to save our time, save as much money, or make our money go as far as possible. You also have to demonstrate what the eco-impact is of your product. You can't assume that the consumer, being green, will make that connection. You have to be able to communicate that to them. But the best way to touch green consumers is viral marketing. Service one green customer, and he'll tell ten friends, then you'll service two green customers and those two will service ten more friends, so now you have twenty. Again, we delivered the Ricopack to one customer, and in six months we have 7400 deliveries. The green community talks, and you're either going to service them or you're not. If you can prove by demonstrating a truly green, sustainable, conscious product that you care about making it. That you've thought through the process of design and resource development, how it impacts our landfills. When the consumer calculates that out then they'll either give you the green light. If you've truly done your work, and you haven't just tried to sugarcoat or green wash your product, you'll zoom. There is such a pent-up demand for green alternatives, that if you do your work and the green community approves it, then you're in.
What is 'green communication'?
If you take another look at an aspect of being green is we do a lot of marketing through a simple premise which is turning strangers into friends, friends into customers and customers into sales people. That's a very green way of communicating. We don't place ads in papers. We do very little printing. We focus in on the internet, which is a very green way of communicating. So we have opt in lists, we have newsletters, we have referral programs and thank you'd all digitalized.
How can I use my customers as sales people?
We use our customers as sales people, and I think all good businesses use the same approach; word of mouth marketing. This is because we're a very unique group of people, and green consumers are consumers that are aware, and that's scary for corporations because when you're educated and aware and you can go on the Internet and you can type in "yelp" and see if your service is really good, well it's a big difference. You can go on electronic review sites and see if different new gadgets are good, empowering the consumer. Green people are very empowered, they're very aware, and they communicate about products and services that are truly green, and they are evangelical about them, so we really harness as a business this group of green customers, and that ultimately is cheaper to communicate by just doing what you say you're going to do, provide a great product and service, deliver on it time, do not oversell the customer, give them exactly what they need, and that to me is like a green business, and ultimately, marketing green is really about walking and talking the product and getting the customers to go out there and be the pitch person.
