Make Your Marketing Green!

A popular practice among marketers has been to offer more than customers are expecting in order to win them over. The extra benefits that a given product offers help customers make the final decision when they have to choose from among the many options available in the market. Of course, a benefit does not always have to be physical. It may be something as intangible as a feel-good factor that gives a sense of pride and satisfaction to customers.

There is, for example, a growing awareness among customers today about the need to protect the environment. Consequently, many consumers derive a sense of achievement from contributing towards this cause and are on the look out for words like “eco-friendly,” “organic,” “natural,” etc. that indicate that a product is socially responsible. Marketers are increasingly targeting such “green” customers by engaging them on an emotional level, and the concept of “green” marketing is fast becoming popular.

Green marketing offers environmental benefits to customers, and it is being used in almost every industry to drive sales and repeat purchases over time. Green marketing is about promoting products and services by meeting two objectives: satisfying customer needs and improving the environment.

Green marketing opens up room for innovation in terms of both product and societal improvements. By creating and offering products that have reduced impacts on the environment, marketers can exploit opportunities and enhance the overall marketability of their products.

Benefits and Pitfalls of Green Marketing

Green marketing offers a number of significant benefits:

Marketers get access to new markets and gain an advantage over competitors that are not advocating “greenness.”
Marketers can charge a premium on products that are seen as more eco-responsible.
Organizations that adopt green marketing are perceived to be more socially responsible.
Green marketing builds brand equity and wins brand loyalty among customers.

However, green marketing poses huge dangers for marketers if they get it wrong:

Most customers choose to satisfy their personal needs before caring for the environment.
Overemphasizing greenness rather than customer needs can prove devastating for a product.
Many customers keep away from products labeled “green” because they see such labeling as a marketing gimmick, and they may lose trust in an organization that suddenly claims to be green.

Green marketers need to find out the value their customers place on green benefits. It is important that they position the product on the basis of the functional need it caters to and then talk about the additional benefits of greenness. Marketers need to find out whether, by adopting green marketing, their organizations will be perceived as more socially responsible. They need to know whether their customers understand the benefits of green products and value them enough. If they do not, then the marketers may also need to invest in customer education in order to make their marketing efforts successful.

Tips on Green Marketing

Judge your customers first. Find out whether they value the concept of green products and are concerned about the issues your product tries to address.
Ensure that your customers derive a strong feeling of “making a difference” from consuming your product.
Make sure that you first satisfy the functional need of your product and that you do it well. Otherwise, you can forget about repeat purchases and new customers for your green product.
Find out whether your customers are willing to pay a premium for your products because they are green.
Ensure that customers believe your claims that the product is environmentally friendly. Don’t exaggerate; be honest and transparent.

Green marketing is a new territory which is still being explored. Marketers thus face a lack of standards and benchmarks by which to validate their successes when they employ green marketing. As such, it is advisable that they test the efficacy of their green marketing efforts with a small audience first before ramping them up. Meanwhile, they should be ready for the following challenges:

A lack of awareness among customers about green products and their benefits
Lack of customer willingness to go out of the way to buy a green product
Unwillingness to pay a premium for a green product
Difficulty in winning customer trust as to the greenness of the organization
Huge investments in R&D for product innovation

Organizations are increasingly realizing that it is not enough to offer functional benefits alone to their customers. The opportunities and competitive advantages offered by environmentally friendly green products are becoming increasingly important for product sustainability.

In other words, green marketing has arrived and is here to stay.

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Make Your Marketing Green!