Green marketing campaigns are becoming increasingly popular with brands looking to reach new consumers who are more aware of all subjects related to the environment. In fact, avoiding green marketing may translate into losing customers who will move on to other brands that have decided to show the world what they are doing to become more sustainable. But how do you measure the success of a green marketing campaign and how can you be sure that you have reached your target? Here is what you need to know.
Preparation of a Green Marketing Campaign
The most important element in a green marketing campaign is to set specific goals. Only in this way will you be able to measure its success later on, by analyzing the results according to the original objectives. Therefore, it is of outmost importance to determine what you want to achieve with your green marketing campaign. Like in any other campaign, the goals that you set should be attainable in a given amount of time.
This is the moment when you have to choose between the various green marketing strategies that are available. They include sustainable product design, carbon offset programs, sustainable packaging, green advertising and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to name only a few. Just make sure that you choose the one that is right for you. In other words, the strategy that will bring more consumers to buy your products or services.
Once you have chosen your strategy, you have to find the relevant metrics that will tell you if you have reached your goals. It will be different in every case, so let’s explain by providing a few examples. If you select a reduction in your carbon footprint, you will need to measure your greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis. According to the timeframe that you gave yourself to complete the project, you should be able to tell changes easily. If you would rather focus on the sales of new eco-friendly products, you will then have to track the number of units sold from the moment that the campaign is launched till a few months after it ended. Choosing the right metrics before launching the green marketing campaign is a must, so that you have the right tools in place to calculate the results.
During the Green Marketing Campaign
A successful green marketing campaign should change consumer behavior towards your products and services. Most of the time, green marketing is an added tool to the company’s marketing strategies, but in specific cases it is simply a must. Although all industries can benefit from it to some degree, ones with significant environmental impacts, such as energy, transportation and agriculture, may need to implement one if they want to survive. Environmentalists follow their track record closely and don’t hesitate to mention companies by name on social media and other outlets when they feel like they don’t respect the environment. It can really destroy a company’s reputation rapidly. Therefore, companies in these industries need to reach out to consumers to let them know what they are doing to become sustainable. In such a case, it should be easy to monitor the difference in customer behaviour after a green marketing campaign.
For companies in industry sectors that are less involved in matters that affect the environment, they will need to monitor how consumers perceive their brand and products, before, during and after the campaign. It is the only way for them to understand how/if their behavior changed, as a result of green marketing. They can get a better view of the situation by asking questions such as “Do customers show more interest in their product?” Or: “Are they more likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family?” The answers will clearly indicate the success or failure of the green marketing campaign.
After the Green Marketing Campaign
After all marketing campaigns, the person in charge needs to calculate return on investment (ROI). This is the part that determines if the campaign was efficient in terms of the revenues that it brought in. The ROI of your green marketing campaign will be obtained by comparing the costs associated with the campaign to the benefits derived from it. Any time a company spends money on a marketing campaign, it should expect to increase revenues. If it does not happen, in the case of green marketing, there is a great chance that the message the company was trying to send out never got through to customers.
To clarify the situation, you should ask customers, employees and other stakeholders for their feedback. You will need to ask them what they thought of the campaign in general, but also what they understood from it. There are many ways to receive the answers you are looking for, the most common ones being through surveys, focus groups or analysing the response on social media. Any information that you gather at this point in time will serve to make your next green marketing campaign more efficient and to increase its ROI.
It wouldn’t be fair not to mention that there are added benefits to green marketing, others than the ones we have already mentioned. Those indirect benefits can translate into an improvement of the company’s reputation or an increase in employee’s engagement. More importantly, it can also attract new investors to the firm, which is always welcomed to secure cashflow and to invest in the Research and Development Department.
In conclusion, let’s remind readers that in order to measure the success of a green marketing campaign, you must first establish specific goals. This is the only way for you to choose relevant metrics in order to monitor consumers behavior related to the campaign. In the end, calculating ROI will help you determine the financial results of your marketing action. Don’t forget to install tools that will provide you with some feedback, so that you can increase the efficiency of your next green marketing campaign. If you track your progress and make adjustments along the way, you will be able to ensure that the green marketing campaign is successful and that it will bring direct and indirect benefits to the company.
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