Eco-friendly brands are what society and the environment really need now. The recent pandemic has made a shift in the minds of most consumers, making them leaner, more aware, and more thrifty. The outbreak of the coronavirus also clearly demonstrated the destructive effect of production on the environment, as well as its ability to regenerate once most of the harmful processes were stopped around the world. Now, our challenge is to continue positive change by creating sustainable and ethical brands, working on consumer consciousness and aspiration towards zero-waste. Your eco-friendly brand has solid chances for achieving these goals but let’s start from writing the comprehensive strategy for its development.
Start From a Mission
Sustainability of a brand is already a strong mission in itself. However, you need to come up with something more specific, something that sets you apart from other eco-brands. Of course, your mission will be directly related to the products you sell or the services you provide.
For example, you can make ecological childcare your mission by developing biodegradable diapers. Or, finally, solve the problem of using plastic bag by creating an innovative and inexpensive solution to replace them forever.
But remember that your mission should be as specific as possible. Taking care of the environment is a too broad concept – make it narrower and reflect it in the first line of your strategy.
Highlight Your Values
Next, your strategy should reflect your values. They will form the backbone of your eco friendly marketing and will be the link between your brand and consumers, able to share and support your values.
Similar to a mission statement, your values should be specific. Identify three core values that you will communicate, develop and advocate for.
For example, similar to the previous examples, your values could be a healthy childhood and parenting, or an inexpensive and harmless convenience in your customer’s daily life.
Come up With a Unique Offer
At this stage of developing your strategy, you need to conduct a thorough analysis of your competitors. List competing companies, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and look at their branding, tone of voice, strengths, and unique selling points. Write down the key theses in your document, analyze them, and based on these insights, formulate your unique advantage. It should be better, more profitable, more environmentally friendly and more ethical than your competitors’ offers.
Develop an Appealing Brand Style
Next, you need to develop a branding style and reflect it in your strategy as well. A branding style is made up of many elements that you will use for marketing and promotion. Here’s what you need to do.
- Choose corporate colors. Green, blue, white, yellow and purple are the most suitable for the eco-brand.
- Design a logo using your corporate colors.
- You also need to find your tone of voice taking into account the specifics of your eco brand, plus the specifics of your target audience.
Pay the Greatest Attention to Your Marketing Strategy
Your marketing strategy is the lion’s share of your overall business strategy. A well-designed marketing strategy determines the success of your brand in the eco friendly market. Here are four main areas you need to look at when developing a marketing strategy for your green brand.
- Blogging. At this stage, you need to come up with a preliminary content plan for your blog and write the main ideas into your strategy. Also think about search engine optimization, do research on the most suitable keywords and hashtags with which you will be promoted in search results and social networks.
- Social media. Social media are great places to find and connect with your target audience. Highlight the most promising social networks and create a preliminary plan for working with each of them.
- Video marketing. Video is one of the most powerful online marketing tools. When it comes to promoting a sustainable brand, videos can be used to showcase your green manufacturing practices, share your customers’ success stories, and educate potential buyers about conscious consumption.
- Printed marketing. Of course, a sustainable brand should only use sustainable materials for marketing promotion, plus strive to use resources as wisely as possible. Since print marketing still has a place in the digital age, it’s up to you to make it as green as possible. For example, use biodegradable paper for business cards and packaging and don’t create more consumables than you really need.
Find Non-Competitive Eco-Brands to Partner With
It will be easier for you to promote your sustainable brand in partnership with other manufacturers who share your values. Start by finding local brands from non-competitive industries and meeting their founders.
As a rule, creators of sustainable brands easily reach out to everyone who is ready to help preserve the environment, so this partnership will definitely be profitable and promising.
Show the Ways You Are Helping the Environment
When writing strategy for a brand, you also need to think about the ways you will develop and maintain your reputation in the eyes of your target users. What is more, a sustainable brand means that you must promote sustainability in every way you can, and tell your customers about it, encouraging them to do the same.
For example, your company might take part in a local environmental tree planting initiative. Or, you can donate a portion of your profits to support a population of local fauna. Do this with pure intentions and share your experience with your clients. When planning your strategy, plan a few of these activities in advance.
Work on the Ways to Constantly Optimize Your Business Processes
As we said, your brand’s sustainability should not only be reflected in its name and products. The greenness of your brand should be reflected in every action you take. Therefore, at the stage of drawing up your strategy, think about the ways you will optimize your business processes to make your production even more environmentally friendly and ethical.
For example, you can use exclusively green transport to deliver your products, optimize your supply chain with AI-powered technologies to achieve zero-waste, allow your employees to work from home to reduce transportation costs and emissions, and more.
Conclusion
Green brands are the brands of the future. Society and the environment need new approaches, values and a radical rethinking of consumption patterns. Start drawing up your business strategy right now, as the environment has long been in need of an emergency response and protection.
Cover image:Photo by Gerd Altmann da Pixabay
