Imagine being in a room filled with other green-minded business owners and execs and tapping into their smarts for 3 hours on behalf of your business? That’s what our Green Marketing Labs are all about.  Our first one in Denver is happening in a few weeks. Think of it, you can saturate on Saturday in our lab and ski on Sunday on the slopes. 

Here’s what happening in our first lab. 

Green Marketing Lab 1: Developing Your Marketing GPS (Green Positioning Strategy) on March 27.

With over 1,500+ new products enter the market each year, how will you break through the clutter and position your product or service so it’s not another “me too”? In this green marketing lab, you will:

Obtain a clear understanding of the current green market – its obstacles and opportunities

Identify how meaningfully different you are from your competition

Uncover the advantages that result from using your product or service

Identify your key target audience(s) and the rational and emotional reasons they buy your product or service

Develop a strategy statement to effectively communicate your message to your target audience(s)

These interactive, real-life marketing laboratories will give you the insights and tangible solutions you need to make your marketing meaningful in the maturing green market. So bring your questions. Bring your challenges. Roll your sleeves up and have some fun.

PRICING: $40 per lab or $130 for all 4 labs (discounts available for CORE members).

Saturday March 27, 2010, 9:00am – 12 noon

Location: All 4 labs will be held in the CORE offices at 1801 California Street, Suite 4900, Denver, CO 80202.

Register for all 4 labs or any of them individually at: www.corecolorado.org or call (303) 894 6333

Presenters: Irv Weinberg and Carolyn Parrs of Mind Over Markets, a dedicated green marketing communications company in Santa Fe, NM. To learn more about our work, go to www.mindovermarkets.com.

Hope to see you there! Can you help us spread the word and Retweet this or share this with your community?

Many thanks!

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Next up for our “TAKE THE GREEN MARKETING CHALLENGE” is Organic Bug. Thanks for stepping up, Peggy. You’re doing some great things but you need a little help.

Organic and healthy product websites are no longer unique. There are many of them —  including those endorsed by well known green organizations like the Sierra Club. There’s competition so you need to be competitive. Not in a negative way, but in a “having a unique position” way. Something you do, accomplish or offer – or even the way you do it, that will communicate to your customer why they should choose you. When we Googled “sustainable products”, there were over 14,000,000 hits. You have got to be unique. Don’t worry, we can help. 

BRANDING LINE

Let’s begin with your tag line, “Sustainable Products Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle”. Yes, it describes what you offer but that’s where it ends. Tag lines are not mission statements. They’re compelling statements that position your company, give it personality and a reason to be. It’s saying why you and not someone else.

Irv: Think about what your end benefit is. Are you bringing the green world down to earth for your customer? Are you making it more affordable, more accessible?  Have you sourced through all the green products and found those that offer ecology, efficacy and economy? What is your niche within this niche?  The answers to those questions will lead you to a tag line that says your unique position in a clever, compelling way. 

Let us give you an example. For a client of ours that manufactures zero VOC, non-toxic paints, we created the tag line “Beauty Without the Beast”.  That line acknowledged that people paint their homes first to to beautify them. So we had to tell them we were going to give them the beauty they wanted, without the toxins they didn’t want. See what we mean?

COMPANY NAME AND LOGO

You have a homespun name and logo so why not capitalize on it? But it does have a downside. There are a lot of green lawncare and pest control companies out there now. Organic Bug could be confused with one of them. All the more reason to make your name stand for something. Maybe it’s playing with the “bug” a little and being the site for people who are bugged by green products that cost too much, work too little, etc.?

Carolyn: Maybe there’s a cute “bug” visual that can become the personality of your company? Is the bug smart? Funny? Clever? A wisecracker? You can deliver your message through its “voice” and personality. Now you are starting to create a reason to be.     

WEBSITE

Your web copy is a very important part of your communications. You have to make sure its working as hard as it can. Web visitors move fast. You only have a few seconds to grab their interest. Your products display nicely but they don’t reach out to us. Feature some and tell me their story. Some of your suppliers might want to be part of this.  Remember the web is an experience. Check out what Patagonia is doing with their Footprint Chronicles.  In short, in their mini interactive website, they investigate the footprint of several of their garmets. They put right out there what they are doing right and wrong — and how they are working to make it better. They put their mission where their mouth is by telling on themselves. This builds trust and a deep brand message that people know and love. What is yours?     

Nicole: Regarding the visual look of your homepage, the fonts are clean and legitable. Your white background opens up the space. But your menu drop downs are too long and overwhelming. Create sub menus. There is little  visual hierarchy on your homepage. Other than the big green box that jumps out, where do you want my eyes to go? Back to Patagonia, check out their homepage heirarchy and you’ll see what I mean.   

Bringing the green world to everyone is a great thing to do. The better you do it, the better it gets done.

Thanks Peggy!

If  this blog post was helpful to you, would you retweet it and share it with your friends?

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A couple of weeks ago we challenged you right here on the Green Marketing Blog to TAKE THE GREEN MARKETING CHALLENGE. We’re happy to say we’ve had quite a few takers. Most of them green businesses that are part of the Green America Business Network. A brave bunch. Here’s what we asked:

Send us your green brand message (logo, brand line, graphic, copy), and we’ll evaluate it. That means our Green Team at Mind Over Markets will assess your brand and post the results here on our Green Marketing Blog.  Then we will open it up to you, our readers, to join in and make comments, suggestions, or add your brilliant ideas to the conversation.  Now let’s get going…     

BRANDING LINE

We’re happy to say that Terra Source Chocolates started the challenge off on a happy note. We like your branding line, “Responsibly Decadent” because it says it all and honors the real reason people love chocolate. Because it’s so decadently good. That’s a good start. A good balance of the green message and the chocolate message. So many green brands go to saving the earth as their total message. We’re happy you didn’t. Now hurry up and get your branding line integrated with your graphic and on your website because it is sorely missing there.

COMPANY NAME

Next, your name, Terra Source, does not have the same impact.

Irv (our copywriter and King): Personally, I don’t like generic names. I much prefer a name that is your claim. Terra Source could be anything, and in fact, variations of that are everywhere in the green product world. You name should be as unique as your product.

WEBSITE

Now to your website. Remember it’s going to be your #1 marketing vehicle, so use it well. Make it decadent too. Make healthy, responsible decadence part of your brand personality. Have fun with it. Be wickedly funny and charming in what you show and what you say. Define what decadence is for your customer and involve them in the process. Social media is perfect for this, just like we’re doing here.

Carolyn (social media maniac, project manager and sometimes copywriter): For instance, ask your customers and potential customers “What does decadent mean to you?” Post it right on your site, your blog, your packaging, etc. Have them join in the conversation. Create a decadent Facebook Fan page and give away some chocolate to your new fans who answer that question. Decadent is such a delicious word, you’ll get all sorts of yummy responses.

Back to your website. Right now, your web copy is as generic as your company name. There is so much good stuff to say about chocolate (its health benefits for one), that you are missing a big selling opportunity by not giving your customer permission to indulge. Tell me more about what makes your chocolate responsible. Then I can feel three times as good.  The taste, the benefits, the sustainability of it all. That’s a good story to be telling. Make sure you’re not saying what everyone else is saying.

Entice me. Visually, we all think you are missing it. Show me people eating your chocolate with a twinkle in their eye. Above all make your product photography luscious. Your current photography is a disservice to your product. Simply put, it’s not delicious enough. 

LOGO 

Your logo is another generic element. There are way too many planets in the green business logo universe today. And yours doesn’t even feature the countries that are the source of your chocolate.  If your logo is invisible, why bother? 

Nicole (our graphic artist extraordinaire): Name recognition is key in your branding efforts. Rethink your choice of fonts and typeface. Yours feel dated and hard to read. Why not use fonts that reflect your brand image – back to decadent again. Regarding your color choices on your site, one idea is to use ones that are actually ingredients in your chocolate: raspberry, blueberry, etc. This makes your color palate relevant and it enhances your brand line, “Responsibly Decadent”.

PACKAGING

Your packaging is inconsistent. Again, it needs to reflect your brand. (Are we sounding like a broken record yet?). It might be via color coding, illustration, photography, etc. Whatever you choose, let it be a marriage of elements that work together to strengthen your brand.

Irv: Mary Wells, one of the greats of advertising, once told me that good advertising is a substitute for a free sample. She was right. I want all your branding and your website to give me a taste of what you do and make me order it express shipping because I can’t wait for my first bite.

Ok, what do you think? Join in on the conversation by posting your thoughts below in our comment box.

And thank you Josie for TAKING THE GREEN MARKETING CHALLENGE.  We think you are on your way to fabulous and effective branding.

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In today’s rapidly expanding green market, there is no greater challenge facing marketers of green goods and services than making their brand or service relevant to the here and now. One thing is for sure, it won’t be saving the planet one “whatever” at a time. Not in this time of economic concern and green fatigue.

To help you navigate this rugged road in the maturing green marketing, we’ve launched GREENTELLIGENCE, our news and viewsletter that brings green marketing down to earth. In it, you will find green marketing case studies, highlights from our Green Marketing Blog, a Brand-Aid offer, and more.

We, at Mind Over Markets (better known as MOM), have a simple philosophy. We believe in bringing logic to the ecologic message– creating sound strategic reasoning that results in shifting consumer purchase habits. So read on! And if GREENTELLIGENCE ends up on your “must read” list, remember to sign up to receive it each month. And if you really like it, pass it on to a friend.

Enjoy!

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Take heart green-preneurs, there’s a green light ahead.  According to a recent Advertising Age headline, “Green-Marketing Revolution Defies Economic Downturn: Sustainable-Product Sales Rise as Eco-friendliness Goes Mainstream and Value Players Join the Trend.”  That’s proof that even in a harsh economy; healthier, smarter and safer products have meaning to consumers.  That’s not just because consumers have more planet consciousness, that’s because they have more personal involvement.  They want products that are better for themselves and their families — and the planet too.

That’s the true green message that wants to be told. Organic food equals better food, tastier food, fresher food.  Eco- cleaning products are safer for your kids and home.  Zero VOC paints are not only beautiful to look at but beautiful to live with. They don’t off-gas toxins into your inner environment.  In the time of Swine flu, e-coli hamburgers and scary peanut butter, green products need to make the case that they’re better products. 

For instance, for a solar client we recommended as their company tag line, “We Bring Solar Down To Earth.”  That said two things.  Number one, they harnessed the sun.  Number two and even more important, they have made solar practical, economical, every day and something for everyone, not just off-the-gridders.

What does that mean to you?  Simple. Get relevant.  Communicate your reason for being. What you do and what you do better. Make your case personal and close-in. When you’ve educated all of us in simple, down-to-earth terms, than you create a relationship not just a customer.  You’ve done something for them, instead of just selling something to them.

What are you doing to get relevant?  We want to know.  Really.

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The green consumer is a thinking consumer.   They think about their values every time they make a purchase.  It’s not just their emotions that drive them; it’s their intelligence as well.   Because of this, it makes sense to tell a thinking consumer something that makes them think and something that makes sense. 

It’s important to educate them with the logical part of being ecological.   Of course, it’s important to appeal to their sense of honor and caring.  But it’s equally important to appeal to their sense of savings. 

You can’t just tell them that you’re saving the planet one light bulb at a time.   They’re too smart for that.   We’ve found that consumers relate best to issues they feel they can actually have an impact on and ones that have an immediate impact on them. 

The rapidly increasing sales of Hybrids in today’s marketplace will increasingly be driven by the prices at the pump, not just the softer footprint on the earth.   A poll by the Associated Press in June 2007 stated 46 % of Americans said soaring gasoline prices would cause them “serious hardship” and 66 % said they planned to reduce driving.  And a whopping 47% said they have plans to buy a new fuel-efficient car.  Economy meets ecology.

It really is a circle of savings that does good for everyone.  The economic saving in the green world can often be as important as the ecological savings.  And that’s a message every shade of green can understand and relate to.   Those of us in the green communications world need to open up our approaches to marketing green products.  The more mainstream we make our messages, the less lofty the promises, the wider the audience there is to listen and respond. 

After all, that’s what we really want to accomplish, isn’t it?  Getting more green goods into the world for the good of all.   And that’s something we can all profit from.

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There’s one thing you need to know about the green consumer.  They want to know.

According to the Roper Green Gauge, over 50% reported they would do more if they only knew what and how.  So moving your communications to educate and inform can do a lot to grow your green business.  

While representing an eco-friendly paint company, we raised the issues of indoor air pollution which is caused in part by the out-gassing of toxins in conventional paints, stains and cleaning products.   We built into their quarterly consumer catalog an educational component called “Did You Know?”   Sprinkled throughout the pages were various statistics that enlightened consumers.

For instance, using EPA statistics, we informed them that “indoor air pollution is two to twenty times worse than outdoor air pollution even in a heavily industrialized city.”    A few pages later, a statistic from Scientific American stated, “A baby crawling on a conventional carpet inhales the equivalent of four cigarettes a day.” 

These eye-opening facts broadened their audience considerably, bringing many mainstream people into their consumer base who now understood the close-to-home benefits of their products.  Then we launched the branding line for their non-toxic paints, “Beauty without the Beast.”   We struck the balance between the reasons people buy their products:  To beautify their homes AND avoid unnecessary toxins – the real reason for that “just painted smell.” 

Most of us trust the marketplace to bring us products that are safe, useful and effective.   Consumers have not trained themselves nor felt the need to examine everything that’s out there before they purchase.   But that’s beginning to change.  

The thousands of recalls of everything from children’s toys to chopped meat are beginning to wake up and energize a more informed consumer.   They’re demanding to know more before they buy and that has profound implications for marketers.  

You  can build a viable base by telling an educational story.   By informing how your product or service does the job well and helps the environment at the same time.   That way the message is not just about saving the planet out there but improving their life right here.  

No one, whether they’re an environmentally-conscious consumer or not, wants to bring unnecessary toxins into their homes, or buy unsafe toys, or use potentially harmful products.  They just didn’t  know they were.  

When you educate, you marry emotion to intellect, the heart to the head, the planet to the person.  The more you educate your customer, the more you build trust.  The more you build trust, the more likely you are to win their business. 

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