Eco-Friendly Marketing Strategies to Implement Right Now

The concepts of eco-friendliness and sustainability are not new. But over the past few years, there’s been an influx of sustainable brands. 

These brands have relied largely on their sustainable practices to position and market themselves, and it’s delivered results. In fact, research published in First Insight showed that over 60% of consumers across all generations, and nearly 90% of Gen X consumers, are willing to spend extra on sustainable products. 

As the environmental crisis aggravates, more consumers will likely switch to sustainable brands.

Does that mean non-sustainable brands will soon meet the end?

Well, you don’t essentially need a sustainable product to be sustainable. By adopting eco-friendly marketing practices, you can play your part in helping the environment. In fact, new research shows that a whopping 81% of consumers prefer brands that are environmentally conscious in their marketing and advertising communications. 

So, even if you don’t have a sustainable product, you can be eco-friendly by implementing green practices in your marketing and advertising. 

Here are some useful ideas for eco-friendly marketing. 

Best eco-friendly marketing strategies

Let’s look at the four best sustainable marketing strategies you can implement in your business right now. 

Adopt digital marketing

One of the easiest ways to make your marketing communications eco-friendly is by adopting digital marketing. 

In traditional marketing, brands use a lot of paper, electricity, and other materials, contributing to their carbon footprint. 

If you put up digital signage, it’ll likely be on for the entire day and night. For example, if you have a 2m” x 1m” signage board, its electricity consumption will be 7000 kW per year. That’s the same as a small house in the USA. 

Similarly, if you’re using flyers, brochures, posters, etc., you’ll use a lot of paper. That, too, will adversely affect the environment.

But when you go for digital-only marketing, you can drastically reduce your carbon footprint. There’s no need for paper or huge loads of electricity to make your marketing and advertising sustainable and environmentally friendly. 

Use eco-friendly product packaging

Eco-friendly product packaging is another useful way to implement sustainable marketing. It involves using eco-friendly packaging materials that reduce the ecological footprint and environmental impact. 

Some eco-friendly materials you can use in your packaging are:

• Plant-based materials like corn, bamboo, sugarcane, and bio-poly mailers
• Recycled plastic 
• Corrugated containers (with trees)
• Glassline
• Cellulose
• Cornstarch
• Kraft paper made of wood pulp
• Green cell foam

If you’re using product packaging to only protect your products from damage, you’re missing out. Product packaging is a lot more than just a protective layer. 

If used strategically, packaging can be a robust branding tool that can help you attract buyers and increase sales. 

And if you want to take your product packaging to the next level and turn it into a branding powerhouse, use QR codes. You can put QR codes on your product packaging to send users to various online channels and engage them further. 

Use digital business cards

Networking is vital in every industry, especially where employees need to meet prospects in person. Distributing business cards is the most common way to share contact details and build connections. 

However, paper business cards have a high carbon footprint. Why not switch to a digital business card and bring that carbon footprint to zero? And if you must use a physical business card, you can print the QR code of your digital business card on it. 

Therefore, your business card will act as a bridge to your digital business card. Since you can edit your digital business card anytime, you won’t need to reprint your business card frequently. As a result, you’ll significantly reduce the environmental impact. 

Some other eco-friendly ways to share your digital business card are:

• Include the QR code for your digital business card in your email signature.
• Put up the QR code in your physical store.
• Show the QR code to your potential connections directly on your phone.
• Include the QR code or digital business card URL on your website.
• Share the QR code or URL on social media.

Use the green color in your design and marketing

Green is associated with nature, health, and wellness. You can communicate your eco-friendly objectives by incorporating the green color in your marketing materials. 

For instance, if you include green color in your logo, users will associate your brand with eco-friendliness. Similarly, you can have green in your emails, advertisements, packaging, and other marketing and branding materials. 

Benefits of eco-friendly marketing

With consumers becoming increasingly conscious of sustainability and eco-friendliness, eco-friendly marketing can be a powerful asset for every brand. 

Here are some ways eco-friendly marketing can help you. 

Stand out from your competition

Sustainable marketing practices will set you apart from your competition.

Today’s marketing landscape is cutthroat, with many brands thriving for their consumers’ attention. With sustainable marketing, you can stand out from your competitors and get a substantial advantage over them. 

Reduce marketing expenses

Since eco-friendly marketing doesn’t attract a lot of expenses, you can reduce your marketing spend and achieve a greater return on investment (ROI). 

Traditional advertising on TV, billboards, and signage is costlier, whereas digital advertising is relatively cheaper. Since eco-friendly marketing focuses primarily on digital channels and technologies like QR codes, your marketing expenses won’t hurt your pocket. 

Scale up your marketing effortlessly

Eco-friendly marketing is easy to scale, primarily for two reasons. 

One, and the most important, is the reliance on digital channels. There’s no limitation to scale in digital advertising. You can buy as many ads as you want, as many blog posts as you want to publish, and as many social media posts as you want to share. 

On the other hand, scaling can be an issue with traditional advertising. 

Acquire loyal customers

Loyalty is a valuable asset in the present-day business landscape. With consumers having so many options, building brand loyalty is challenging. 

Eco-friendly marketing is a proven strategy to build loyalty, as consumers nowadays prefer purpose-driven brands. 

Grow your business 

More consumers than ever are switching to brands that follow sustainable practices. Adopting eco-friendly marketing allows you to reach a broader, more loyal customer base and grow your business multifold. 

If you want to see rapid business growth, sustainable marketing can help you achieve it. 

Final thoughts

The competition in marketing is snowballing, with brands continuously fighting for the consumers’ attention and engagement. If you adopt eco-friendly marketing strategies, you’ll get a significant competitive edge and be able to get positive ROI on your marketing campaigns. 

The crux of sustainable advertising is to reduce the carbon footprint caused by advertising. You can do this by using digital marketing and technologies like QR codes. 

If you want to create QR codes for your marketing campaigns, QRCodeChimp can help. 

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