Click on the picture below to see the slideshow. I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts. Anything I missed?

You can see my presentation on Slideshare by clicking on the picture above.

Follow me on Twitter for more green marketing tips

The idea for this story actually came to me from our writer, Jennifer Kaplan, but since I’ve written on this topic before, she asked if I might want to tackle it – Sure.  A few months back, Darren Rowse challenged his readers to create a top ten to follow list to Twitip. As you can see, 192 of us responded with out top ten list folks who Twitter on a wide variety of topics. My list was green.

But, I’ve had a chance to think about it some more.

Trying to determine how to best build your list of followers can be a challenge and a raging argument is going on right now with the Twitterati on quality versus quantity. Is it better to follow lots of people and have lots of followers or does the quality of the follower matter?

As a marketing guru, I lean toward quality. I tweet almost everyday and I’ve set up Twitter accounts for several clients and have carefully managed which people we follow; at what rate we gain followers and how closely they match the target market we are attempting to reach.

Why?

The reason quality matters is your ability to reach out to your target audience is limited by how many of their tweets you see. If you follow random people, those tweets to which you might want to respond get lost in the masses of tweets you receive. (In some ways the 2000 followers limit on Twitter is a good thing.)

So, if you’re looking for green folks to follow on Twitter, take a minute and consider, what sort of green people should I be following?

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But, then I thought I might add a few insights of my own.

A few of her recommendations struck me as really right on target, and seem worth expanding on as they speak to a need that every entrepreneurial company needs to consider sooner or later to continue to grow.

That is, what to do once the explosive growth generated by your hot idea starts to wane. This can be because others jump into the field and it starts to get crowded or because of a slowdown in the economy or because consumers experience fatigue as the hot idea seems to be just about everywhere. Of course, now we are experiencing all three!

As I’ve written about before, now is the time to get back to basic marketing principles. I speak from experience, incidentally.

Fifteen years ago I was working at a very hot start-up that grew into a fast growing mid sized company then imploded due to, primarily, entrepreneurial arrogance in the face of increased competition and a sour economy. Rather than step back and consider a new way of doing business, they continued with the same old marketing programs that worked for them to date – bad idea!

As companies grow and markets mature, new strategies are required. Any marketing student who ever learned about product lifecyles knows that. What’s tough is convincing upper level management, particularly entrepreneurs who consider a product their baby…who will always stay a baby, of that fact.

So, here are just a few tips from me, on keeping your sustainable business growing over the next few years.

1. Step back and re-evaluate your target market. With budgets tighter, your current consumer just might not be able to afford your product anymore.

2. Take a hard look at your competition. Who is selling similar products might now? Keep on top of their marketing efforts.

3. What products might consumers be buying now instead of your product? How can you lure them back?

4. Re-evaluate your positioning. Just being green may not be enough right now – consider quality and/or cost savings a possible positioning.

5. Be creative in your marketing programs- during a recession, well thought out promotions can keep consumers happy and loyal.

6. Find ways to connect with your consumers online. I am a big proponent of social media. I use my Twitter account to not only connect with clients but to provide them with valuable advice.

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You can hear more from Sean Daily at GreenLivingIdeas.com and also hear my interview with him here.

Recent headlines may give eco entrepreneurs a reason to worry!… In fact some of the bigger independent players in the natural and organic arena are doing just that according to a recent NY Times article.

“The whole landscape is shifting, and I think everyone is struggling to redefine their strategy in the midst of huge change that ain’t finished,” said Jeffrey Hollender, the president of Seventh Generation…

My concern, when I saw that Clorox entered the market, was that they would pose a threat and a big one, to smaller manufacturers.

The core of the issue is usually the distribution deals that large, established companies are able to make with large well known retailers. For example, it’s much easier for Clorox to sell one more line of products into Wal-Mart than it is for a small eco-cleaner company. Conversely, as Wal-Mart begins to look for green brands smaller companies which once only sold their products to natural stores suddenly have the opportunity to enter the big chains.

It turns out, I was right. As often happens, it didn’t take long for Clorox to flex its marketing muscle and dominate the category.

Clorox’s green gamble appears to be paying off: A year after the company launched its Green Works line of natural cleaning products, the brand has established itself as a leader in the category, capturing 42% market share.

Clorox’s move was only smart business. As they saw smaller natural manufacturers steal market share points, albeit only a few, from their core line product, they sought a way to reverse the flow. Grenworks was the answer, a timely one as the trend toward green was and is moving to a tipping point.

As I write this a year later, I wonder about ecopreneurs impacted by the Clorox decision to enter the green space. Larger, well know natural branded products, like Seventh Generation, may have the ability to compete. Retailers rarely like to have only one brand name in a category – it’s so much more fun to have them compete for shelf space (that is cough up the dough for placement and promotions).

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I’ve been spending a lot of my time these days checking out the wide variety of social networking tools available for growing green business. In particular tools for the B2B market have been springing up and taking hold across the web.

I found this interesting slide show about greenwashing and was struck by the slide above. This says it all in my mind. As green becomes the new “normal” ecopreneurs need to work to position their products beyond just being green.

Check it out.
The Six Sins Of Green Washing

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: terrachoice grant)

Related Posts:

How To Make A Green Pitch Without Greenwashing

Green Consumers Pull Back – Now What? Recession Strategies For Eco Businesses

Greenwashing is Lack of Self-Esteem

Old School Green Meets Greenwashing at PCBC

So, I like to highlight some of the greater market trends in this blog. One of those of particular interest, one might say overwhelming interest, to green entrepreneurs is the looming scare of “eco fatigue”.

Is it real?

Will it impact green businesses?

Are you seeing it impact your business?

Here’s some tips from AdAge designed for large established companies but equally relevant for ecopreneurs. What do you think?

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Check out my interview here and here:

I’ll be appearing on the show again on June 11th so stay tuned.

New filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2007 topped 300,00 beating the previous record of 289000 in 2000, driven in part by new marks for eco-friendly products. The word GREEN was the most popular vehicle for communicating environmental friendliness. Applications more than doubled in 2007, increasing from 1100 to over 2400.

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