How to Market Your Green E-Commerce Business
Green is all the rage right now, and offering green and ethically sourced products is in itself a great way to market your business. Unfortunately, the web can sometimes be a very price sensitive place and it is often hard to be a green business and compete effectively with heavy discounters.
How then can you effectively market your green e-commerce business online?
Be green and proud!
By far your biggest selling point is that your products are ethical, so shout about it! It sounds silly, but it’s amazing how many businesses sell green products and don’t really make an effort to tell people about it.
Sometimes online, the difference between two competing businesses or products can be very small, and for many customers, remembering to point out that your products are more ethical can make the difference between a sale or not.
Be social!
Green products are absolutely ideal for social media. People love to talk about green issues, and most of your more social customers would probably be proud to tell their online peers that they buy green products.
You can also spend time blogging, tweeting and generally talking about the latest green trends and what you are doing about it. It makes great news and is good for your image.
Do PR!
You can take social media a step further and venture into PR – basically you need to position yourself as an expert and pioneer in green and ethical goods. A great way to start is by doing a survey on green products and find out some interesting stats about the greener side of your niche.
News sites, magazines and bloggers love to report on research – especially if you can include some interesting stats. It is easy to do if you already have a list of customers who you can ask for input from and can look great for your image.
Do PPC!
Because green products are generally more expensive than their mass produced alternatives, they can often be higher margin too – which means you might be able to make a profit from PPC where cheaper competitors cannot.
A great place to start is with Facebook ads, because you can target people with specific interests, so that your Ads are only displayed to green minded and socially conscious people.
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Summary:
Of course, marketing a green business isn’t all that different to marketing any e-commerce website, but the important thing to remember is that you are probably competing with cheaper alternatives, and you need to leverage your more ethical products wherever you can.
My name is Muzammil Bashir. I’m working with the Senior Editor of Net Effekt – A leading email marketing reseller.
A really informative and helpful blog, highlighted so many ways of promoting an ethical business.
Thanks