Small Biz Bites Blog
Marketing with Green
Time for a brief tour of how some of the entrepreneurs in our little galaxy are using eco-conscious messages to advance their business.
Marc Levitt, cofounder of the eponymous MLSK design studio in Queens, has a blog where you see this:
2,663 Urban Tumbleweeds — An MSLK Art Installation
They have strung hundreds of plastic bags throughout a city park to make the point of how much plastic we use. Check out the pictures (example on the right).
It’s creative, which reinforces their firm’s positioning, and the post is pretty readable. The green message helps them.
But if you’re like most people who scan text on the web, you might not notice that they haven’t… actually… done it yet. It’s just a concept, a contest entry. But no harm, no foul. Their audience got the message. Good for them for making immediate hay out of an idea.
Our old pal E.B. Moss recently was at a green marketing seminar not too long ago. There, a rep from one verrry ecologically conscious company apologized in front of potential customers for not having a total zero carbon footprint – even though they recycle everything, etc. This struck E.B. as unnecessary. I’ll go farther: saying sorry is counterproductive. The whole green movement is driven in largely by guilt, and calling too much attention to the hair shirt that you’re wearing is a distraction. At the least, don’t frame your actions negatively.
Lastly, our friends at the Women Presidents' Organization (WPO) note that one of their members got some national PR for their eco-themed resort. The important element here is that the member actually reached out to the WPO to tell them about this PR coup, and the organization distributed the story on their blog (in part because the green message is a powerful one now). It’s basic PR practice, but sometimes that gets overlooked. Always have a list of “media outlets” which includes anyone with a blog.
