Eco-friendly Marketing Tips for Every Business

Written by: Anna Marie Imbordino, CEO Chicago Buzz Marketing

Wondering how to take your business from budding to buzzing? Eco-friendly marketing is a great place to start. Not only are green marketing initiatives good for the environment, but these techniques are fantastic for your marketing budget. Eco-friendly marketing works for any size business, from sole entrepreneurship to gigantic corporation, so why not go green? Green marketing can save you valuable time and money and is simpler than you may think. To successfully green your marketing efforts, consider the following tips from the Chicago Buzz Marketing team:

1. Leverage your digital collateral. Everything you have online – from your website, to your social media, to your LinkedIn, to your email campaigns provides you the opportunity to communicate your message. Because of these technology upgrades, business professionals can now spend a fraction of the time communicating and use considerably less paper and plastic materials to do so. In fact, did you know that 80% of users prefer to connect with brands on social media? So when you meet someone networking, it makes more sense to tell them to connect with you on social media than it does to hand them a brochure or postcard. Odds are they will most likely gather the same information from your digital platforms as they would from a printed marketing piece making the printed piece redundant. This same feedback applies to your sales process. Instead of printing lengthy presentation documents and spending time creating a proposal folder, simply run a powerpoint off your laptop or tablet, and show them service features or videos directly from your website or Facebook business page.
2. Audit your print marketing process. Print marketing creates an extreme amount of paper waste for our planet. Did you know that according to a recent study over 2 million trees are killed every year for paper marketing efforts such as magazine, newspaper, and newsletter mailers alone? Go through your marketing materials and establish how much of these paper materials you actually use with your ideal client. Having some paper materials such as business cards or brochures may be unavoidable, however it is common to go through your pieces and notice that 2 or more of your printed pieces may serve the same function. It is also common to find that your materials may be too lengthy or printed in a way that is unnecessarily wasteful (and likely expensive) and could be simplified to a shorter, easier to print document. During your audit, also make sure your marketing materials are up-to-date with current marketing standards and trends. There is a chance a piece you used in the past such a direct mailer may be no longer useful to your technology focused market today. And lastly, consider switching the materials you print to a material more eco-sensitive. There are numerous print shops and online vendors that offer recycled or unbleached papers, hemp paper products, and soy or non-toxic inks. It’s just a Google or Facebook search away.
3. Take a look at your marketing materials and see if you can convert them from print to digital. This is a huge trend currently in the marketing industry. Business professionals from every industry are seeing the need for fast, eco-friendly ways to communicate with their audiences. Having a PDF file to send to clients or potential clients is just as effective, or possibly more effective, than mailing or dropping off a printed brochure that can be easily damaged or lost by the recipient. You may not even need to redesign the materials you have been using in print form. The ability to use that same artwork digitally with little to no adjustments is a benefit of these new technologies. For example, did you know that LinkedIn has added QR codes allowing users to connect with each other from a single click? It’s like a digital business card. Or maybe actually switch to a digital version of your business card and text the image to new contacts from your smart device. We are also seeing a trend towards programs like InfusionSoft or other automated funnels systemically sending and tracking progress of materials to your clients ensuring they get the right materials, and right message to their email box without you needing to print or mail a thing. And of course, you can simply convert brochures or postcards to digital JPEG’s or PNG’s and upload them like posts directly to your social media platforms! All of this without mounds of paper and or plastic waste.

So as you can see, green marketing is good for everyone and excellent for your bottom line. Do you have green marketing tips you would like to share with team Chicago Buzz Marketing? Leave your suggestions in the comments down below.