Green Marketing

Green marketing is developing and selling environmentally friendly goods or services. It helps improve credibility, enter a new audience segment, and stand out among competitors as more and more people become environmentally conscious.

Why is green marketing important?

Our planet is facing a lot of threats such as air and water pollution, food waste, plastic pollution, and deforestation. Chemicals manufactured by factories can be found anywhere, and that is why many companies consider producing their goods in a more environmentally friendly manner. Moreover, the level of ecological awareness among consumers is increasing, and people are eager to purchase eco-friendly products despite their higher prices.

Many brands try their best to address the wishes of their customers and have started the production of such goods with respect to their responsibilities as residents of this planet. Green marketing has a positive influence on people’s health and the state of the environment. This type of marketing entails every stage of a business, from packaging to public relations.

Let’s walk you through the benefits of this approach to explore this topic in more detail before implementing it into your business.

Benefits of Green Marketing

With green marketing, companies have an excellent opportunity to change our planet for the better and support people who are aware of the situation to help the environment. By creating sustainable products, companies want to reduce the negative impact of waste products on our nature. Going green enables you to win the trust and loyalty of your customers. It helps you:

• stand out in the increasingly competitive environment;
• reduce the negative impact of production on the environment;
• save energy, reduce the use of natural resources and carbon footprint;
• produce recyclable products;
• improve your credibility;
• enter a new audience segment;
• ensure long-term growth;
• implement innovations;
• obtain a higher revenue.

Knowing about the benefits of green marketing may not be enough since you should also be aware of the strategies. Luckily, there are many ways to go green. Let’s review them right away.

4 Green Marketing Strategies

You can find a lot of strategies related to green marketing that can help you create a sustainable brand to help our planet. Let’s review some of them.

1. Sustainable design. It’s not just about a recycling logo on your product packaging, it’s about a full life cycle of your product in mind. You should pay attention to the details like sources of your materials or workers involved in the process. Moreover, your company should control the amount of waste generated and how your products are packaged and delivered. You have to consider a lot of things that have an impact on our environment when designing for sustainability.
2. Responsibility. If you’re giving a thought to going green, your brand should be ready for a profound change. Green marketing is about becoming conscious of pollution. If you want to prove the sincerity of your intentions, rethink your company in terms of ecological and social responsibility and show customers that you care about our planet.
3. Green pricing. Environmentally friendly products usually have a high value due to the increased cost of sustainable design. However, customers are still willing to pay for them despite the high costs. Therefore, if you charge high prices for your eco products, ensure to communicate specifics to prove that your goods are worth their price. Keep in mind that the greater your mission, the greater your opportunity to gain exposure for your brand’s goods.
4. Sustainable packaging.  The number one reason for the pollution of our planet is the excessive use of plastic. According to Greenpeace, 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced since the 1950s, while only around 9% have been recycled. Nowadays, consumers are more responsible and try to avoid plastic packaging. That’s why it’s advisable to create recycled or no-plastic packaging for your brand.

Now that you know some of the strategies, it’s time to learn how to implement them.

Sustainable brands admit that environmental protection empowered their companies to obtain even more revenue and a broader customer base. However, becoming an environmentally friendly company is not that easy. You should be ready to utilize green marketing ideas and invest more funds than you expect to get such a long-awaited profit. Below you’ll find great ideas to implement if going green is your aim.

Use recycled materials

Try your best to use recycled materials and reduce the consumption of virgin products. Recycling reduces refining and processing of raw materials, which helps eliminate air and water pollution. It also helps save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Let’s take Allégorie, for example. The brand uses recycled apple and mango peels to create textiles through eco-friendly processes.

Consider using bulk email service

Newsletters give you an incredible opportunity to reach your target audience without any necessity in printing promotional flyers, enabling you to save more trees. Besides, email marketing is more effective in obtaining feedback from customers about your campaigns.

With SendPulse, you can send the necessary number of email campaigns to your customer base. You can inform your audience about your decision to produce goods that are safe for our environment. Use our drag and drop editor to create your unique emails.

Upgrade your equipment and vehicles

The vehicles you usually use to deliver your products have an impact on our environment. It would be great to allocate some of your resources to buy new equipment and vehicles. It’s advisable to change to electrical models and reduce the level of carbon your company produces. Due to this fact, many brands prefer to use fuel-efficient vehicles. Don’t forget to include your logo on such a car.

Highlight that your company is eco-friendly

If your brand incorporates eco-friendly practices, such as energy-efficient office equipment, collaborating with vendors that prioritize sustainability, or developing an in-house recycling program for paper and electronics, tell people about it. Some customers prefer to purchase green products, so it’s necessary to inform them about your practices. It will give them a wider choice of products and an opportunity to select the best.

For example, on the website of Dr. Scholl’s Shoes, a shopper can find all the necessary information about the brand’s sustainability.

Invest in social media marketing

Since social media marketing is more environmentally friendly and isn’t less popular than offline marketing, it would be a great step to invest in it to reach your customers with your innovative ideas and eco-friendly products.

Take a look at The Body Shop’s campaigns against animal testing through its Instagram account.

Support environmental initiatives

Some brands make donations to support our planet. Some of them even create special foundations and charities. Donating funds allows your company to support environmental initiatives, make our planet a better place, and gain credibility and trust.

People Tree, a brand founded in 1991 and known for its clothes from environmentally-friendly materials, supports various initiatives. The company has the People Tree Foundation, an independent charity aimed at promoting environmental justice. With the help of this foundation, People Tree tries to protect our planet and develop awareness about the issues that threaten it.

Now let’s see how famous brands implement some of these ideas.

6 Green Marketing Examples

We’ve prepared several examples of socially responsible brands that protect the environment, oppose animal testing, produce recyclable goods, and advocate sustainable ways of production.

TOMS

TOMS, a brand famous for its comfortable shoes, uses its business to improve lives and not harm the environment. If you visit the company’s site, you can see that TOMS has been trying to expand sustainable practices in key areas of their business by using Earth-friendly materials like sustainable cotton and reducing waste and energy use over the past five years. Moreover, the brand’s team provides their customers with packaging made from recycled materials.

Green Toys

The company assumes that to raise a happy and healthy child, you should provide a healthy environment. This makes everybody think about our Earth and how we take care of it. Green Toys are safe for kids and the environment as they are made from 100% recyclable materials.

The Body Shop

The famous cosmetics brand fights cruelty by campaigning against animal testing and selling 100% vegetarian products. This brand is considered the first international cosmetics company to champion a cruelty-free policy.

Boden

Universal brands like Boden have to pay attention to the sourcing and supply chain since they significantly influence our environment. That’s why the company follows through when it comes to sustainability and uses sustainable and organic cotton to manufacture clothes.

Love Beauty and Planet

Unilever is a multinational consumer goods company that has many brands, and Love Beauty and Planet is one of them. The brand was created to make customers and the planet more beautiful. The company assumes that the beauty industry and its impact on the environment are inseparable and design their bottles for shampoos, hand creams, and other products from recycled plastic.

Avocado Mattress

Avocado, a brand of eco-friendly mattresses, is committed to using organic materials to produce pillows, mattresses, and bedding. The team maintains such practices to safeguard their customers’ health and protect our planet from adverse impacts.

Green marketing includes progressive ideas that are necessary for our planet due to water and air pollution, animal cruelty, and other environmental problems. By going green, your brand enables people to live better, conscious, and responsible lives.

Resources:

1. This article covers the definition and goals of green marketing and offers five examples.
2. This article defines the term, explains how it works, and provides an example.
3. This article explains the term and gives several examples.

Last Updated: 22.03.2023