Are your green efforts sincere?

Is there any marketing opportunity on the 'going green' bandwagon for startups and small businesses? Green consciousness has finally arrived and your customers could be sussing out whether you are doing your 'bit for the environment'. Going green can be particularly difficult for small businesses who have to rely on the speed of technology, cost and sometimes just availability to catch up in order to support economical environmentally friendly practices.

But there are simple ways that you can do something.

What is critical, is to not be exposed for being a green cheat. Dilbert demonstrates this for those of you who prefer a picture. Green thinking is about the responsible use of resources. There is no question that you need to know what the law says. But there is a less obvious marketing reason for considering everything you do from a green perspective.

How you treat your environment when going about running your business says a lot about you as a business.

Historically you might have gotten away with the more environmentally reckless aspects, but this is the age of the 'consumer in control'. Do not underestimate how obvious your green cheats may be. You may be one of the lucky ones that has a customer loyal enough to point out your lack of green evidence (or worse - green insincerity), but more likely, the problem will be with the sales quietly going to your greener competitors. Their green credentials may just tip the purchasing decision in their favour. For those who haven't got their heads around this, there is more than enough written (including legislation) on what these mean for you as a business. Before you can evaluate this as a marketing idea, you need to have some idea of what it is all about.

If you don't know your sustainability from your carbon footprint, have a look at these resources:

Try Treehugger's green basics which is a useful crash course and gives you an overview of the themes. Global Action Plan is an excellent resource for all of the things you can do, and who to contact to set yourself up to be as green as possible. The ever useful Business link has a section on environment and efficiency which will lead you to all the right sources of information and environmental practices.

Even the smallest of businesses can have a greener approach, start with these:

Travel (commuting - you and your employees; business travel) Waste (what you do with it, how much you make) Recycling (make what you use useful again, or reuse something yourself) Utilities (choose providers that have renewable resources or choose a totally green supplier; cut out your unnecessary consumption.) Suppliers (what their green practices are, and how they can help you be more green. Packaging, deliveries, processing, manufacturing. Go greener by association.)

To find greener opportunities in the general marketing mix, consider:

- The media you use - how green is your advertising? Media relevance is still king, but if you have to use the more resource intensive kinds, who is doing it greener? - Your marketing materials. Do you send weekly mailings that are a surefire binned item? Is your glossy brochure a one hit wonder? Are your leaflets adding to the fornightly wheelie bin-gate? - Packaging: favour suppliers that use less packaging, use better types of packaging and less of it on your own products; educate your customers on what to do with it, or take it back - Could you manufacture your products or produce your service more efficiently? - Reach your target market more efficiently - cut down on wasteful blanket promotions that reach a fraction of who might actually buy. - Deal with your data issues. Let people who don't want to hear from you escape your mailings. A simple return address that directs unwanted or misdirected mail back to you to update your data will ensure you cut down on wasteful mailings. - Once you have made your sale, what is the impact of your product or service? Is it highly disposable? What behaviour does your service cause in your customer? - Could you be more efficient with deliveries? Pass on savings for bulk deliveries?

As a startup, you aren't exempt.

I attended a seminar at the British Library B&IP centre on the Perfect Business Plan by Michael Anderson (very good) where the following quote really stuck with me: Never buy new what can be bought second-hand Never buy what can be rented Never rent what can be borrowed Never borrow what can be begged Never beg what can be salvaged Source - Ian McMillan, Wharton. If you are a startup, that's invaluable.

Have you thought about these options?

- Buy second hand furniture from a furniture recycling network, like Green-works.co.uk ; - Set up with greener suppliers. There are many directories, like All Things Eco . - Reuse and repair.

Don't be caught out thinking that this doesn't apply to you if you have an online business only. You may have one of the greener kinds of businesses, but the green challenge is still yours.

Be a little creative. Make one day a week a bring your own lunch day. Use paper clips instead of staples. Have an email first policy. Buy in bulk - less deliveries. Have a cycle to work day. Buy unbleached paper. And only use it when you have to. Make beautiful online brochures. At least they won't be binned once they have served their purpose. Is the entire street really going to read your door to door pamphlet? Become more virtual some of the time - gotomeeting is excellent, and I've recently been pleased with Conference Genie for ad hoc calls with multiple people. If you struggle to support the notion of environmentally-friendly in your business because it just seems to be another unnecessary imposition in your struggle to survive, then consider that it can make financial sense: A telephone survey of 420 UK business decision makers was carried out by Millward Brown on behalf of Envirowise during May 2009. Key findings include: 61% did not know how much their business spends on water each year More than half felt that there was no cost saving potential in taking action on water efficiency Only 2% guessed correctly that bills could be reduced by up to a third Money and knowledge were identified as the biggest barriers to taking action, despite free advice being available through programmes such as Envirowise As it becomes increasingly difficult to not have green thinking embedded in how you run your business, its critical to have a plan on how you could move your business to be greener. You may not have it all worked out. Most companies don't. It can be perfectly acceptable to demonstrate that you are trying. 'Not yet recyclable' means you are looking for a solution. Whatever you do - don't ignore it. If consumers are exploring new ideas like 'swapping is the new shopping', then you need to understand their current green perspectives, and make it work for you. Make and save money and be as green as you can be. Apply it to your business: Being sincerely greener: - Gives you something else to say about your business to win over customers to whom this matters. - Creates an opportunity to engage your customers in dialogue - ask them what their expectations are. - Generates potential cost savings. You could focus on the things that save you money (its better than nothing). - Can be a source of competitive advantage, or keep you in the game if your competitors are already. - Can add to your business' unique personality, the brand, and what the consumer thinks of you. - May create internal marketing opportunities. Employees can be a goldmine of environmental common sense, and more often than not they already have an opinion on what you should be doing. Ask them, get their support and work together. - Helping your customer to use your products/services in greener ways will give you opportunities to talk to them in a different way than you might normally. Educate your customers so that they get benefits from your products too - think Arial's turn to 30 degrees campaign (and now 15 degrees). Bronwyn Durand founded JupiterJasper, the Marketing Mentor for small businesses. Bronwyn is also The Brand Whisperer, with a special interest in building commercial identities for businesses. Do you get my free weekly email? Sign up to ’1 Thing to Improve Your Marketing this week’ here.