Beth Zonis of Eco Marketing LLC (http://www.eco-mktg.com) hosted this session.

She wrote the following on the white board - an approach to evaluating your marketing position. This applies to all companies, regardless of whether they're in a "green" industry or not.

Differentiation in a sea of green
1) Customer profile
2) Pain points (what makes customers takes out their money)
3) Strengths
4) Competition
5) Opportunities
6) Reaching customers where and how they learn and buy (e.g., social media is hot, but are your customers online?)

Discussion points
How do you make your choices?

• How do you choose the products you use?
• At larger level - people buy based on a perceived value from a product or service.

Defining green

• There isn't a standard scale of 'green-ness' right now - many different ones for different sectors (GreenSeal, EnergyStar, etc).
  
• Good Housekeeping has come out with a labeling scheme in the last year.
• Challenge of labeling - understanding their strengths and weaknesses.
  
• It matters what the label is, as well as how it compares to others.

Where does "green" fit in your clients' priorities?

• In B2B marketing - used to be first if you could save or make a customer money, and green was the differentiation.
  
• Recurring theme - very few products where the primary pain point is the environment
• Sneakers aren't bought with a need for being green
• Organic food might be b/c perceived to be healthier
• Prius - example of answering pain points perceived with straight electric cars (distance that can be traveled/reliability) but became more about the green image than anything else.
• What are the priorities of my customers that I can match back to my products and services?
  
• In terms of green-ness, do they care more about local, more about organic, more about recyling/recylability?

Where does "green" fit in terms of your offering?

• Either you're selling to a specific segment (e.g. people who are already buying birkenstocks) or you're selling the same product and green is the differentiation.
  
• Do either or both of these require consumer education?

What about the overall market?

• How can you get the green segment to be more than just niche?

Examples from the group

• One group member: launching a climate solutions collaboration website [the climate collaboratorium] (collaborations between citizens and experts): trying to choose/target audience - those already on board? those needing the basic information?
  
• Solutions: Having examples of collaborations already there would help. Youtube videos are great start sometimes.
• Chicago mayor's website where citizens can suggest climate solution ideas.
• BBC has great site for homeowners with ideas based on questionnaire responses for how to improve efficiency, etc.
  

Another model to overlay on top of this related to brand building:

• Deep relationship with your customer from repeated interactions is ultimately the best guarantee of continued relationship
• Also... knowing when/choosing when not to market "green"
• Need to adapt messages for specific audiences to address those audiences concerns

Recap: from customer's perspective:

• Prioritize (where does green fit?)
• Demonstrate greenness (endorsement, certificiation, rating/stamp of approval, esp. from external body), as appropriate
  
• Provide examples (testimonials)
• Communicate (get the message back out to people to make sure potential customers know about the testimonials and the product, etc)