Can Marketing and Sustainability Go Hand in Hand?
September 2, 2024
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Traditionally, marketing's role has been to drive demand, often leading to overconsumption. But in the context of the climate-tech industry and sustainable brands, marketing can drive awareness for climate-change solutions, communicate their impact, and encourage responsible choices.
For climate-tech start-ups, marketing becomes a tool not just for growth but also for educating potential clients about new technologies, products and services that can reduce clients’ carbon footprints.
For mission-driven brands, marketing builds long-term relationships with customers who are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of their choices.
In the competitive landscape of climate-tech solutions where every company is fighting for attention, positioning is key. This involves clearly defining how your brand or product fits within the market and what sets it apart from the competition.
For sustainable brands, effective positioning is not just about being better—it's about being true to the values of your business and how well these align with your audience’s values.
Effective marketing starts with understanding who your audience is and how best to reach them. By creating detailed personas that represent your ideal customers, you can tailor your messaging to address each persona’s specific needs and concerns, ensuring that your marketing efforts resonate with your target audience.
For example, a climate-tech company with both a B2B and a B2C offering could develop personas for different stakeholders, such as eco-conscious consumers, corporate sustainability officers, and policymakers. Each persona would require a tailored message that aligns with their unique motivations and challenges.
Beyond selling the products or services, marketing can also educate customers about sustainable practices and how certain products or technologies can contribute to a lower-carbon future. This involves creating content that is informative, engaging, and aligned with the values of sustainability.
For example, a company that produces zero-waste personal care products might market them by emphasizing how they reduce landfill contributions vs. its competitors’ mainstream products. This could involve showcasing how their products are designed to be reused, reducing the need for single-use items.
On the other hand, a company that offers carbon sequestration, may educate its potential clients about how it works and how efficient it is as a carbon reduction method.
Sustainable marketing is powerful and goes beyond the traditional customer-brand relationship. It has the ability to build a community of passionate advocates who share the values of your business and are committed to the cause of reversing climate change. This community can help spread the message, advocate for your product or service, and even drive policy changes.
To truly make an impact, green companies need to think beyond the initial sale. Lifecycle marketing focuses on the entire customer journey, from awareness and consideration to purchase, retention, and advocacy. By engaging customers at each stage, companies can build lasting relationships while reinforcing sustainable practices.
For example, a renewable energy company that sells solar panels B2C, could implement a lifecycle marketing strategy that educates clients post-purchase on the best use of its products.
That could include instructions on how customers can best maintain their panels in order to maximize their efficiency and information about the company’s end-of-life policy, resulting in a reduction in waste.
As the famous phrase from the 1920’s indicates, effective marketing isn’t just about the technical details or the features of a product or service—it’s about the emotional connection and the vision it represents.
When marketing solutions to climate change and adoption of sustainable behaviors, it's crucial to sell the sizzle—the inspiring, transformative potential for our planet—rather than just the sausage—the technical specifications or dry facts.
This means tapping into the aspirations of your audience for a better world, making them visualise the impact of their positive actions and making them feel part of the big shift that is happening around the world.
One thing to note is that transparency and authenticity are key when communicating to your audience. With the abundance of information available today, anyone can fact-check your company’s claims. Also, today’s savvy customers can spot and report greenwashing easily.
So businesses in the climate-tech industry and sustainable brands must ensure their marketing is rooted in genuine environmental benefits and authenticity about their efforts.
The real power of marketing lies in its ability to influence behaviour on a large scale. When used responsibly, marketing can drive the adoption of sustainable products and technologies, encourage eco-friendly behaviours, and ultimately contribute to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
For founders of climate-tech companies and sustainable brands, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to break away from traditional marketing strategies that prioritize short-term sales over long-term impact. The opportunity lies in the potential to lead a new wave of marketing—one that is aligned with the urgent need to address climate change.
In the context of our changing climate, marketing and sustainability have to belong in the same sentence. Great climate change solutions need to be effectively communicated to scale.
For climate-tech start-up and mission-led brands, the goal isn’t just to market sustainably, but to market for sustainability. By leveraging the power of marketing to drive positive change, your company can play a crucial role in slowing down climate change and building a more sustainable future for all.
At Matterra we specialize in helping climate-tech companies and mission-driven brands amplify their impact through honest marketing strategy and lifecycle marketing. Book a free consultation today to discuss your needs.
