Here are some of the most common marketing mistakes made by eco-entrepreneurs and what you can do to fix them.
One of the most common marketing mistakes made by eco friendly businesses, is that they make good choices every single day, but don't communicate those choices with their audience. This is most common for those at the beginning of their journey when feelings of not feeling worthy or imposter syndrome are typically more frequent.
Instead of hiding behind the things you are yet to accomplish, stand up and be proud of the good business decisions you have made already. Write down all the business choices you made that went against the grain or different from the norm because they rested better with your morals and your business values. Then share them in your marketing communications.
Talking about your decisions allows your customers to connect with you because they can see you have the same values as they do.
Every decision counts. Think choices of packaging and reduced plastics, return and replace policies, greener website hosting or responsible banking, the people in your team, your choice in deliveries by bike only…. Whatever they are, they all add up!
I’m going to let off a truth bomb - your target audience isn’t everyone. Yes you have a system where anyone may be able to buy from you but there is not a product on this planet that is bought by everyone! The longer you hold onto the idea that everyone should want your stuff, the harder your communications are because you don’t know who or how to speak to the people that really matter.
I want you to think about just one person. This one person is your dream customer. They just love everything you stand for, they understand why they buy from you, they are switched on to eco-purchases and greenwashing alike and they buy from you time and time again.
This person your marketing speaks to. Whether it be on your website, in your marketing, on your socials, in emails, on the phone… whatever your touch points are with prospective consumers or even your current customer database, this is the person on your mind.
Think of 3 descriptive words of how your ideal customer would describe you - is it friendly, eco-conscious, thought leader, happy, fun, intriguing, heart-led? The list is endless but I encourage you to narrow it down to 3. These three descriptive words then set the tone of voice for your business. It is so much easier to talk to consumers when you know exactly who they are and how to speak to them.
Newsflash - If you don’t enjoy sales, you need to become friends with it. Without sales, we do not have a business and without a business, we cannot make our positive change in the world.
Before a customer buys, there is a pattern of questioning you need to answer if you want a sale. These questions can often be value for money, time, quality, quantity, competition and so on. The trick is to know what your potential customer's questions and potential resistance points are and integrate them into your customer journey.
Get comfortable with sales by investing time in understanding the process, whether it is online or in person. The more you understand about the sales process, what you need to say and when to help people along the way, is potentially the difference between the consumer buying your product or an inferior product.
Start with understanding your unique selling point and how you are truly helping with your product or service. When you understand the kinds of questions your customers want answered, you can start putting things into place on your website, emails, calls or however your customer journey flows… to make the process easy and effective for both of you.
Preparation and practise (and loads of mistakes) really go a long way!
Sound familiar? Now, this one is definitely not exclusive to marketing. As business owners our list is never-ending and prioritising what we need to do next can be difficult, overwhelming in fact!
The places where I do see this in marketing is often Social Media. You can almost feel obliged to be on every single social media platform. Unless you are prepared to pay a business or have a staff member to help with marketing, I recommend not running yourself thin over too many platforms.
Firstly, choose to put the majority of your focus on just one or two platforms. Deciding the platforms is easy:
Secondly, prepare a schedule and automate where you can. Allow yourself to lean on systems to help get more done in your business and marketing alike.
It's easy to get scared by your competitors because you admire their brand, their characteristics, their impact or their business decisions - and they always seem to be outselling you. If you spend too much time comparing your business to your immediate competitors, then you can find yourself mimicking what they are doing in their marketing and losing sight of what you stand for yourself.
Comparing yourself to quality larger companies is also a minefield. They have big marketing and brand budgets and staff. They invest all those resources to understand their target market, do extensive market research and work their analytics. What you are seeing in their marketing is the result of all that work.
Know what makes you different and dare to be different. Knowing what you stand for will help you to decide how you are going to do things differently and shake things up. Know that as an eco entrepreneur, you already think outside the norm and that's what you are to your customers. So why not step forward to be the leader of your field?
Bigger businesses are really useful to analyse. Don't get caught up in the marketing they are doing, but instead look behind 'what' they are doing to understand' why' they are doing it. This is where the secrets are. If you understand the 'why', then you can apply that logic to your own brand.
If I had a dollar for the amount of times I heard “I wish I had set this up sooner”, I’d probably be in a different industry! The better the systems you can set up at the beginning, the more you will be thanking yourself later.
It's pretty simple really. Don’t let it go another day! If you haven’t already, schedule in time to set up Google Analytics into the back end of your website. It is SO valuable and absolutely free. Once set up, go through and take a look at the world of marketing data unique to your business that you now have access to. Knowing what is happening with your marketing from a numbers perspective is incredibly important for your growth.
Next, schedule in time to set up the connections to your social media platforms (like your Facebook pixel) or digital marketing platforms like Google Ads.
You can then look at the activities you are repetitively doing and create automations to reduce your time spent on menial tasks and streamline your marketing efforts at the same time! This could be with social media scheduling or email automations.
We can sometimes be so hard on ourselves but the reality is, nobody is perfect - nor is their business.
If you want to create a really genuine connection with your customers, one of the best things you can do is own imperfection.
In a world full of greenwashing, everyone is looking for authenticity and transparency if high value. The kinds of people who are going to buy from you will be empathetic to your goals even when you are falling short, so tell them what's good and not so perfect and use it to create a beautiful bond that buyers are drawn to.
Dependent upon the subject, you can communicate on a transparency report or a timeline, in an email, website or socials.Tell people what your considerations are and what your next steps will be. It’s an incredibly refreshing and unique way to communicate whilst educating your client at the same time.
One major buying group is going to be your sceptic buyers. Sceptics and imperfection are often related. There are more and more conscious consumers who really research every single purchase they make. To know and understand that some people buy as if “guilty until proven innocent” means you need to gain trust over time.
Data, research, stats and graphs are a great way to show people you’ve done your research too! From the problem you are solving, to the impact you’ve had is incredibly valuable to draw people in and over the line. Don’t just say it once. Sceptics are not often likely to buy overnight, they need to see and hear your values, get to know you and build trust slowly. You are never communicating your values, good practise and the reason for being in business, too often.
Now, I will put my hands up and say that I too, was very guilty of this for a long time. The moment that I started showing up and particularly doing video on social media, everything changed for my business and I encourage every client to do the same. You see, when you feel confident enough to show up for your brand, this is one of the fastest ways for prospective buyers to get to know, like and trust your brand. This goes for product and service based businesses alike.
First you need to start lifting your confidence. If you are struggling with this too, check out our free Social Media Confidence Challenge and follow the exact steps I took to lift my confidence. If you’re already feeling great then go for it! Find an item in this article that you are not currently communicating and share your amazing business with the world!
Holding back is very common - driven by the fear of failure, rejection or simply not understanding how to work with a specific problem - a platform, a hire, a agency.
The power of just giving it a go is always going to be better than holding back and doing nothing. Both success and failure are good teachers as you are learning from each experience.
The key to gaining confidence however is having a plan. If you are holding back because you are worried about losing money, then break down the activity into pieces that make up a plan that takes you from your current position to full competence. If you don't understand something, like setting up automated mailers, then assign time to both learn and set it up. Work slowly and thoroughly, getting every piece right as you go. This will minimise the money you waste and set you up for that one day, when you are up and going strong, and you hand the activity to someone else, that they will be fully briefed.
Head over to the gold mine on YouTube and watch how other people set up their campaigns or projects, fix problems and give advice on those things that have been holding you back.
To sum it up, if you implement the items above, it means you can connect to your prospective customers easily and authentically. When you can connect to your audience by values and allow them to join you on your journey, then it creates a lasting bond and that’s exactly what an amazing eco-biz needs!
Image: Unsplash | Ian Schneider