What is sustainable marketing?
Now, you might be thinking you already know what sustainable marketing is. And for the most part, you’re probably right. We’re going to give you the lowdown on what sustainable marketing is, and why you need it in your organisation.
The obvious part…
If you run an organisation that has sustainability at its core, then of course all of your business operations could have the word ‘sustainability’ in front of them… Sustainable HR, sustainable finance etc. Thanks for pointing that out, Karen.
The not so obvious part…
If your organisation isn’t leading with its sustainability credentials (yet) then you can still be sustainable in HOW you are doing your marketing.
Firstly, let’s address the double meaning to sustainability here:
Sustainable - consistent, resilient and maintained at a certain rate
Sustainable - ethically sound, socially and environmentally conscious
Consistently maintaining your marketing - sustainable marketing
Sustainable marketing is about consistency. Full stop. People remember brands they have seen more frequently. Commonly known marketing statics say that in order for someone to buy a product or service they need to have seen the brand at least seven times. Now that won’t happen if you’re sticking up a social media post once and then forgetting about it.
Sustainable marketing is about creating systems and processes that make consistency straightforward. That could mean outsourcing part of your marketing efforts, or block creating social media content.
Sustainable marketing is about creating evergreen content that is valuable to readers over a long period of time.
Sustainable marketing is ethically sound, socially responsible and environmentally conscious
So many marketing tactics today are exploitative. Recently there has been an increase in manipulative and aggressive techniques that are used to bully individuals and grind them down toward the buying process. You may have seen time counters on shopping websites creating a false sense of urgency around product sales in order to encourage an impulse buy.
Ethical marketing is about developing good quality, long-term relationships with your audience and gently staying in touch with them so that they remember you when they’re ready to buy.
Socially conscious marketing is as much about common sense as it is about practical actions. One example is the honesty model of pricing where brands ask their customers to self-select their price from a list of categories - this is commonly used by sustainability-focused brands who offer discounts to students or those on a low income.
Environmentally conscious marketing means using tactics that don’t cost the earth - for example, if you are printing brochures make sure to use FSC quality paper and vegetable inks rather than chemicals, another idea is to audit your web and email provider, IT systems, computer software and online tools you use for carbon emissions - some are more ‘green’ than others.
Isn’t marketing sustainably an oxymoron?
Traditionally, the purpose of a marketing function is to increase brand awareness and ultimately sales and profitability. Often tactics are employed by marketing teams that are unethical and this is obviously not something that sustainable marketers would do.
So when we walk the talk in sustainable marketing, we are mindful of the balance between profit and exploitation of resources, human resources are treated with respect and fairly compensated, ethical tactics are used to gain gradual and consistent growth.
If your organisation wants to be more considerate of people and the planet we inhabit then adopting sustainable marketing is a no-brainer.
Ask us for more information about how we can help you adopt these tactics in your organisation.