Has Your Marketing Gotten Trashy? Clean It Up to Improve Your Bottom Line!
Apr 22 2010 9:21:42 AMBy Deb Hanamura
Hopefully you’ve checked out our Eco-Friendly Augmented Reality experience, which has some fun with sustainability. Now let’s talk about some practical tips that you can implement right away to make sure your marketing mix hasn’t gotten trashy.
Marketers make a lot of trash.
We call it “award-winning direct mail” or “promotion that increased foot traffic and sales opportunities,” but landfill operators call it trash.
There has never been a better time to explore digital solutions to old marketing problems. Digital marketing is hardly zero-emission, but it is more flexible and trackable than traditional printing, and you’ll reduce paper consumption, as well as the impact of manufacturing, printing, transporting, and storing your marketing goodies.
Don’t get me wrong—we love marketing “stuff,” and there is plenty of room for it in our environmentally conscious world. Here are some of our favorite sustainability tips, many of which will save your bottom line as much as the planet:
Direct Mail
• Clean up your database and segment your lists to make sure you are sending your stuff to people who really want and need it
• Work with your designer to produce collateral that efficiently uses each sheet of paper
• Avoid bleeds and heavy ink coverage
• Use recycled paper and soy ink
• If you distribute a newsletter, find out if recipients are willing to receive it digitally. You can continue to send print versions to those who require it, or you can abandon the printed version all together
Tradeshows
• Lightweight aluminum booths with fabric panels require significantly less fuel to transport because they are so much lighter. You’ll also save big money on storage and crating costs
• Instead of having multiple booths for multiple messages, build one booth with modular graphics that can be switched out as needed
• Buy or rent used booths. Reputable booth manufacturers will make sure that your booth is in perfect condition—so you save money and resources
• For that matter, consider renting your booth out to other companies—you can make some extra money, and keep another booth out of production
Giveaways/Promos
• Give away something useful and reusable; something that is good for a giggle but not much else is going to end up in the trash
• Give away something edible (better in their belly than a landfill!)
• Consider weight. Heavy giveaways have a much larger carbon footprint than light ones. Bottled water seems like a good idea until you find out that twenty-four 16-oz. bottles of water weigh 30 lbs.
• Use manufacturers that are local to where you want the goods to end up. Sending a customized mug from LA to San Diego is a lot easier on the environment than drop shipping it from Beijing.
In the Workplace
• Create “digital letterhead” that can be printed on recycled paper as needed
• Work with sustainable vendors
• Remember to consider energy, water, and air quality in addition to plastic and paper
You don’t have to save the world in one day – but you also don’t have to wait until you’ve figured out how to save the planet before getting started. Start right now with something simple, and then keep going.
Sustainable marketing doesn’t just help the planet – it can also help your brand.
We work closely with all of our clients (even those without dedicated social responsibility programs) to produce marketing programs that are sustainable and useful without compromising user experience or brand messaging.
EFM has several clients who have demonstrated commitments to sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Their contributions range from water and energy conservation to localized support of non-profits.
85%
percent of consumers believe companies should communicate their environmental commitments year-round as opposed to just for special days
87%
of consumers are likely to switch from one product to another (price and quality being equal) if the other product is associated with a good cause, an increase from 66% since 1993 (2007)
44%
of Americans indicate their environmental shopping habits have not changed as a result of the economy (2009)
35%
percent of Americans have higher expectations for companies to make and sell environmentally responsible products and services than they did in 2008
69%
percent actively seek opportunities to buy environmentally responsible products and will do so if it’s within their budget
(From Cone’s 2008 Corporate Responsibility in a New World Survey and Cone’s 2009 Consumer New Media Study)
Need inspiration? Here are some profiles of companies that are doing their part:
Puma gets rid of shoe boxes
Green Giants
Green Companies
Green Companies to Watch
Got CSR ideas of your own? We want to hear about them! We’ll show off the best user submissions here on the EFM blog.
Very good message! Timely and appropriate to heed!
Thank you, Marva, for your kind words!