Green marketing involves developing and advertising products which have environmental sustainability. 

In essence, green marketing seeks to reduce carbon emissions generated by businesses, both in terms of the products they produce, as well as the effort involved in marketing them. 

Here at GoSquared, we’ve recently developed a new tool called EcoSend. One of the ways in which we’re embracing green marketing is by reinvesting some of our profits into climate benefiting causes. This is alongside tree planting and running our services on renewable energies. It’s all part of our commitment to being a purpose-driven company. 

So how can your company embrace green marketing? Or as a consumer, why should you care about environmental sustainability within the products and services you buy?

Let’s take a look at what green marketing is and why it counts to explain further. 

Definition Of Green Marketing

In its simplest form, green marketing can be defined as taking every effort within the promotion of a business to reduce carbon emissions. 

So for instance, the carbon emissions generated by websites, social media platforms and video marketing, right through to the physical printing of paper, business cards, flyers and similar materials. Each of these aspects has a carbon footprint, which must be reduced if not eliminated as part of any green marketing strategy. 

Green marketing follows a holistic approach based on the pillars of sustainability. The four pillars of sustainability include economy, ecology, society and culture. 

You may also be interested in: What Is Sustainable Marketing?

Misconceptions Of What Constitutes As Green Marketing

You may have heard of terms such as ‘greenwashing’, which is when a company insinuates it is doing its bit for the environment, when really it’s not. Instead, it’s all just a marketing ploy to get more sales. 

Only if a company is truly looking to reduce its carbon emissions, including through its marketing can its efforts be classed as green marketing. 

Therefore, it’s not enough just to state words such as recycle, climate-conscious, eco-friendly, reduced carbon emissions or sustainable – instead, the company has to demonstrate actionable evidence of what it claims. 

For instance, here at GoSquared we recently joined the Good Business Charter due to our responsible business practices. Though becoming a B-Corp is another admirable feat to aim for too.

It’s these types of accredited schemes to look out for as a consumer. Crucially, such accreditations separate those who simply claim to have green marketing credentials, versus those who actually have them, among many other positive business associations. 

Importance Of Green Marketing

Climate change is the responsibility of everyone to solve.

A major issue is that not enough people know that marketing in itself has an impact on the climate. For example, using a carbon footprint calculator can reveal your personal carbon emissions. But carbon calculators also exist for websites and other forms of marketing too. 

It is only when you begin to understand that large, data-heavy websites, and even send to all email campaigns (rather than segmented campaigns) all take their toll on the planet, will the importance of green marketing become clear. 

The reason as to why green marketing is important is simple. That is, we can’t ignore any source of carbon emissions generated by running our businesses, and our marketing is no exception. 

The good news is that tools such as EcoSend mean you can still send amazing campaigns, but with a reduced impact on the environment. But more about that in a second.

Green Marketing Examples

• Adopting a sustainable business model

• Ditching paper and plastic wherever possible

• Using recycled materials instead of new materials

• Investing profits back into climate causes

• Reducing the data size of your website, video marketing and social media campaigns

• Switching to a green email marketing provider

• Sending fewer emails through techniques such as segmentation

• Understanding your business’s full impact on the environment, so that you can tackle any emissions generated, including within your marketing campaigns

Create Green Marketing Campaigns With EcoSend By GoSquared

Want to reduce the carbon emissions associated with your marketing campaigns? It’s not always easy to know where to start, even if you have the best intentions. But one easy switch you can make today is to sign up for our new email marketing tool EcoSend. 

Research has shown every email we send generates between 4g and 50g of carbon – with some 300 billion emails sent per day, that soon adds up.

EcoSend runs on renewable energies and helps you send more effective email campaigns with less effort. All of which helps to reduce the amount of carbon your campaigns generate. 

In addition, we’ll also plant trees on your behalf to offset any carbon which cannot be fully eliminated. Our aim is to reduce more carbon that we emit, helping your business to become greener in the process.

We have extremely competitive price packages available too, with paid plans starting at just $49 per month. 

Sign up to EcoSend today, and we’ll plant a tree just for doing so. Green marketing has never been easier with EcoSend, and we can’t wait to welcome you aboard.