I’m often asked by many businesses if they need to be “100% green” to reach the green and LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) consumers. I quickly respond by indicating to them that to reach a consumer who makes purchases based on their core values, you need to understand that consumer first. It reminds me of the saying, “seek to understand, then be understood.”

These consumers (LOHAS and green) do not expect you to be perfect. In the same respect, they expect you not to pretend to be entirely green if you’re not. For example, don’t claim to be helping improve people’s health on one hand then be polluting the waterways with chemical-laden products on the other hand. I often talk about transparency. This is not only important, but critical to capturing LOHAS and green consumers as customers. They want to know that your company shares their values and ideals.

I recently conducted another interview with Conde Naste’s online magazine, portfolio.com on the subject of eco-marketing to the mainstream consumer. I thought it might be a helpful topic to share with you today since eco-marketing is so often misunderstood.

Eco-marketing, green marketing, etc.—whatever you call it, you need to either understand the marketplace or hire an expert who does. Not “getting it” in this arena could lead your business to spiral in a downward motion quickly.

Here are some important rules to live by in eco-marketing to mainstream consumers:

1. You need to minimize sacrifices that consumers make in order to buy and use green products and services. If you don’t, you’ll never get them to purchase your product or service.

2. Environmental attributes are important--the more attributes the better. Don’t forget to list benefits for your attributes as well.

3. If consumers face a trade-off with product attributes, the environment always loses. Keep-in-mind, green and LOHAS consumers will rate the environment at the top of their list often, yet the product needs to perform equally or superior than a conventional counterpart for them to even consider it.

In today’s discussion, we’ll talk about my six steps to marketing green. I shared some of these in an article I wrote for Enterprising Women Magazine.

Be seen as credible when marketing green, when you follow these steps:

1. Determine your goals and who you want to reach. If you are looking to reach the green leaders who have stronger green values, you’ll want to concentrate on publications that speak directly to them such as Utne or Mother Earth. If you are looking to reach more of a mainstream consumer who is just getting interested and some LOHAS consumers, you could focus on the Discovery Channel.

2. Tell your story. Green consumers need to be able to identify with your company’s brand and the products and services you represent. By telling your story, they’re able to tie in their values with yours making your message better resonate with them.

3. Be real and authentic. Disclose everything everywhere—on your website, in your collateral material, in your conversations, etc. Even if the truth about products and services you offer is not-so-pretty, disclose it anyway. It will prevent you from becoming greenwashed (The practice of companies making their products appear to be environmentally sound when they are not.)

We’ll cover the final three steps in my next post. Until then, stay true to your green message and initiatives.

Helping You Understand and Profit from Consumer Health and Green Trends

Colette Chandler

I’ve written so many articles on green and LOHAS marketing, that I thought it was time for people to really understand how to define green marketing. You may wonder why now I would be defining green marketing as opposed to defining green marketing in my first blog post.

Now is really the perfect time, especially because there is so much chatter about green marketing in the media.

Green marketing can be defined as marketing your business, brand, product and/or services in an environmentally friendly manner. There are many different ways you can be environmentally friendly or green.

Here are some of them:

In my last thread, I discussed with you the overall definition of green marketing and the fact that various consumer groups define it in various ways. I’ll be devoting our next discussion to how green consumers define green marketing.

To green and LOHAS consumers, green marketing is defined as reducing your carbon footprint (look to my last blog post for a full definition) and doing more than just using recycled paper and recycling your materials and at the same time making the world aware of your efforts. It’s not just about talking about how green you are, but really showing the impact of your green efforts. How have you impacted society as a whole? How much waste have you reduced? How have you educated people to be better environmental stewards?

We’ll be continuing our discussion in the definition of green marketing to mainstream consumers as we’ve already touched on how green and LOHAS consumers define green marketing. If you didn’t have a chance to read my last two posts, you’ll want to do so as I go into the overall definition first before diving into these consumer groups.

Green marketing is still considered fairly new to the mainstream or mass market consumer so they define green marketing much differently than niche markets such as core green or LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) consumers.

Mainstream consumers define green marketing as both positive and negative depending on their level of understand and to which consumer group they belong.

When you define green marketing, you should consider how you can define green marketing both internally and externally.

Let’s focus now on the internal aspects of green marketing.

We all know the word “definition” means: to provide a thorough description of. Paired with “green marketing,” I am referring to how you provide a description of your green marketing efforts internally and externally.

This could be accomplished in a multitude of ways just from an internal perspective.

Think about:

Communication – What form of communication do you need to use to more accurately define your green marketing efforts internally? Is it better to communicate via word-of-mouth, a newsletter, an email, a meeting, signage, etc. Think about it. If you are trying to communicate your green marketing efforts, would it really be best to hang a lot of signs throughout your office? Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I would think so.

There are so many possible ways we could define green marketing internally. In my last thread, I looked at how to define it in your communication, visually, medium, frequency, and venue.

Let’s take a look at some other ways to define green marketing internally that might not be so top-of-mind.

Source – What source are you using to define green marketing internally? Are you using a non-green paper source and a company that prints with chemicals versus soy inks? If so, does this truly define green marketing to your external customers? How about looking for sources that best represent and define green marketing or teaching your existing sources how to be a little greener.

It’s too easy to forget that how you define green marketing is both an internal and an external process. If you focus on it internally by using a greener medium to communicate your message, you could easily undo your efforts by externally sending your external message to your customers in a wasteful way by mailing too much information.

Here are some things to consider when you define green marketing externally. You’ll notice some of the modes may be the same, but the way you define them is far different.

Communication – How are you communicating with your customers to best define green marketing and your efforts? How often will you need to send them information? Is it possible to communicate more regularly via email and send 1-2 catalogs, brochures, etc. per year? Would that better define green marketing and your efforts?

Events – What types of events better define green marketing and the message you want to deliver? How can you ensure your event is green and defines green marketing in your efforts? Could you provide leftover food to a shelter? Could you compost it and provide it to a local garden center? What about the marketing materials for your event? How could you best define green marketing in those materials? I’ll cover green meetings in a future post.

In my last couple of posts, I looked at how to define green marketing both internally and externally. I addressed everything from visual communication to events. I’d like to take some time to dive deeper into both subjects and address some subjects more in-depth as well as answer various questions I often get asked.

Why is it so important for me to define green marketing internally?

When you define your green marketing efforts you do so by demonstrating how green your brand truly is. The first true experience someone has with your brand may be the moment they step foot into your office or pick up the phone to call you. It’s true that they do get a “sense” of your brand from the moment they see your name and marketing piece or ad. You really drive that experience home when they see how you define green marketing and your efforts internally. Let me give you some examples.

It’s time to dig even deeper into how we define green marketing and our eco-friendly efforts. If you missed the beginning of our discussion, you’ll want to read my previous posts on this discussion. I’m spending some time addressing another question on how to define green marketing.

Why is it so important for me to define green marketing through all of my communications efforts?

It’s important to green and LOHAS consumers that you understand them—their lifestyles, values and that you’re willing to communicate to them. Transparency is critical to gaining them as customers. This is why you need to define green marketing through all of your communications efforts—both internally and externally.

For instance, if you are looking to communicate to your employees, do you do so through signs, distributing memos or via email?

We had a pretty in-depth discussion in my last couple of week’s worth of posts on defining green marketing internally and externally. I’d like to take some time to carry that discussion to another level—alliance partners.

Many people do not consider that joint ventures/alliance partners as an expression of their brand—their company. Who they align themselves with tells people who their brand is and what they’re about. To define green marketing in this manner the right way only makes business sense and cents—it can make you money.

Think about it. If you define green marketing and your brand by aligning yourself with a company that is not truly eco-friendly, then what are you saying about your brand?

Are you saying it is okay to be wasteful?

Aren’t you telling consumers to trust you and trust what you tell them?

Recently, I was having a discussion with a colleague on “green” products. The conversation turned to Clorox’s newest green product, Green Works. We both thought this product was too good to be true.

It’s Clorox’s first entree into the green and LOHAS marketplace. I’ll be honest, when I first heard of this product; I thought for sure that it was one of the many so-called green products trying to compete in this marketplace, but with little substance.

After reading further on this product, I learned that Clorox has actually created quite an environmentally safe product that claims to be equal to if not superior than many in the marketplace both green and non-green.

Here’s what I learned:

In my last post, we discussed Clorox entering the green and LOHAS marketplace with its Green Works product. I want to examine how they introduced the product and how you can do the same thing with your product or service.

Clorox knew that there name was synonymous with the word bleach. Think Clorox; think bleaching your clothes, counters, etc. And, we all know bleach is a chemical that is not very good for the environment—at least that is the perception in the marketplace. Bleach companies do not support this theory, though.

Regardless, in order for Clorox to gain market share, they needed to gain trust with both green consumers and the mainstream consumer groups buying green—not an easy feat. Clorox already has an established name in the mainstream marketplace, but green consumers are much harder to accept a company such as Clorox and I assume they knew that.

In order to get buy-in, they needed to: