photo credit: robertnelson
As any experienced marketer knows, differentiating your business from your competitors is a primary key to attracting new prospects and customers and retaining them once they decide to become your customers. But will the same “hook” that attracted them to become your customer be enough to maintain their loyalty? Let’s examine a few strategies:
Low Price: As people are always price conscience, especially in this slow economy, this can be an excellent method to attract new customers. However, unless your company plans on being a “discount house” operation, you will need to evolve a different strategy to retain those customers, otherwise they will simply seek out the next big discount elsewhere.
photo credit: The Blue Shoe Project
There is a new workforce brewing as we move into the green business movement with many challenges between employees and employers.
The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) set out to gauge earlier this year, in 2008 “how leading companies approach internal employee education and engagement.” As part of a larger study on corporate environmental and sustainability education it surveyed more than 1,300 people.
Now the numbers may be skewed because the respondents came from a largely environmentally minded audience.
photo credit: stephentrepreneur
During the past year, news outlets have been littered (forgive the pun) with stories highlighting Fortune 1000 companies investing in new green initiatives. Throughout 2008, numerous surveys released by Harris Interactive, Intellitrends, Bentley, and Mintel indicate an increasing consumer awareness in going green. Similarly, a growing consumer segment now assesses a company’s environmental policies before making the decision to purchase a good or service. This trend has not gone unnoticed by professional marketers. “Grey” companies, those publicly displaying a cursory interest in environmental sustainability, are surely receiving briefs involving these surveys. In response, many are scrambling to repaint their products and corporate images to match the expectations of a Green business. World-renowned names including CitiBank, Bank of America, Wal-Mart, and Clorox each have allotted billions of dollars into various ecocentric technologies and strategies. Industry experts see this transition of capital funds not as a simple fad, rather, a long-term trend in the way business will be conducted beginning now and stretching far into the future.
![Reduce Packaging [DSC01366]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2386/2291353914_a311a3a7fb.jpg)
photo credit: Melissa Goldstein
We hear a lot about “green marketing” these days. Small businesses to major corporations are trying to appeal to the greater environmental consciousness of consumers. Why? There’s money to be made. Research suggests that eco-minded consumers are willing to pay more money for green products, services, or even to deal with companies that demonstrate having an environmental conscience.
It’s Not Easy Being “Green”
Being a green business can mean much more than making a quick buck because of clever marketing playing on the current social climate. Creating environmentally friendly products or running an overall eco-friendly business can involve higher overhead costs (which may or may not be fully accounted for in increased prices – either way, it takes a bite out of those profits).
