Green Advertising; How to profit from it.

I recently saw an internet Forum (for vacuum cleaner retailers) that had a thread talking about the growing tendency to use “Green” in advertising. By that I mean, making product claims that are Eco-Friendly.

A few questions were raised about whether this is good, bad, profitable, or a waste of time.

Here’s the problem with including claims of “Environmentally Friendly” into your advertising.; Now you’re selling “prevention”. You’re trying to sell them on the idea of giving you money individually to help stop a Global problem. A very hard sell.

It’s easy to get people all lathered up about saving the environment. But getting them to give you money to help the cause is something else.

“But Claude, people SHOULD be concerned about the environment!”

Sure, they should. (remember the part about SHOULD earlier?)

But getting money out of them for something they should be concerned about is tough.

If you want to introduce “Green” aspects into your ads, here’s how to do it.

You have to tie the Green part into an immediate personal benefit for it to be effective.

For example, many of my subscribers sell vacuum cleaners.

You may think because a vacuum cleaner’s purpose is to get rid of dirt and filth in the home, that it’s Green already…right? Maybe, but we are concerned with how the customer sees it, aren’t we?

How about “Uses a THIRD the electricity of other brands”.

“Doubles the life of your carpet. In five years you still be getting compliments on your “New” carpet. You get saved the hassle of replacing your carpet, and help reduce landfills too”

“Our wind chamber bags Compact the dirt. Hold 5 times the hair, dirt, and filth of bagless vacuums. Save on filters, bags, and help reduce the landfills. You can do your part.’

See?

“Yeah, I’m doing my part to save landfills, electricity, and the environment” your customer will say. But what makes them buy is the savings in carpet, bags, money, and hassles.

If you want to donate your ad money to help “raise awareness”, my hat’s off to you. You have my respect. I watch the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, and donate money too.

But if you want effective, profitable advertising…appeal to a selfish personal itch that needs scratched.

For example.

There are diet ads galore in every media. Do they say “Lose weight and you’ll live longer”? , “You’ll stop wasting food, and the energy it takes to produce it”? “Stop spending money of so much food, and save it for retirement”? No.

“Lose weight and you’ll be more attractive, you’ll be happier, and your husband will pay more attention to you.” Those are the appeals made…because they work.