Winning enviro-conscious customers part 2

About the green market place, marketing guru Seth Godin wrote:

“The richest and best-educated people in our economy are shifting, and pretty quickly. They're just as willing to spend money as they always were, but now it's not focused on fancy organic stuff at the Whole Foods Market or giant bulletproof cars from Germany or private jet travel. Instead, the market is trying as hard as it can to spend time and money without leaving much of a trace.”

Because I want to encourage companies to adopt the mission of sustainability, I want to show them how doing so can win them enviro-conscious customers. The other day I posted about winning enviro-conscious customer loyalty, and I asked readers to weigh in with their own ideas. Thank you readers for the overwhelming response (92 comments as of this writing).

In this post, for you busy executives who are thinking of “going green,” I’ve distilled my ideas about how to win enviro-customers along with my readers' ideas into a series of bullet points. You can seem them all fleshed out on the original post. Now go make millions saving the planet (and remember to reinvest your millions in green jobs for the poor).

My ideas:

• Demonstrated commitment to sustainability
• Transparency so customers can decide for themselves
• Quit bending the truth in marketing
• Responsiveness since staying green is just as important as going green

 No Impact Man readers added:

• “Green” and “enviro” are now meaningless marketing buzz words
• Buying second-hand avoids the dilemma of ethical purchasing entirely
• A great a store would supply most everything people need but only from businesses that have a triple bottom line
• Companies should be willing to engage in two-way communication and answer customer questions
• An equivalent of Consumer Reports could evaluate products and companies for “greenness”
• Sell me a service not a product—stuff is not sustainable
• Let consumer send back spent products for reuse
• Kill the packaging
• Better than stores are buying co-ops with friends and neighbors whose values you trust
• Keep operations, suppliers and reinvestment local
• People will pay more to buy from an ethical company
• People will only buy green stuff if it is cheaper, works better and looks better (just thought I'd throw in the one contrary comment that points to one of the realities of trying to operate a business)
• Undergo an environmental audit
• Make your products to last, not to be disposed of and bought again
• Have clear, informative labeling
• Give back to the community
• Treat employees and people in the supply chain ethically

Image courtesy of Armand Rousso.

PS Sorry for the typos in the original of this post. My solar panel ran out of juice while I was still writing the post!