green energy marketing for

Green Energy Marketing Basics - The main components of marketing your Green Energy Business include:

1. Brand Strategy
2. Asset Creation
3. Marketing Plan

BRAND STRATEGY  Where do I begin with branding? Design a logo? You have a green technology, and are looking for funding, or ready to launch your product to other business or consumers. This primer will discuss how to build the basic foundation for communicating your brand with your key stakeholders. A carefully considered and designed brand strategy will create value for all stakeholders.

• Customers - Full bodied experiences that inspire brand loyalty
• Employees - Motivational force that defines corporate culture
• Suppliers and Partners -  Establish trust and a symbiotic relationship
• Investors -  A smart investment with lasting impact

At a very simple level, “branding” is about finding THE RIGHT IDEA, and then GETTING THE IDEA RIGHT. To get the strategic positioning of a brand just right, a thorough discovery is required. A good brand consultant will strive to understand your company: its vision, products, personality and vibe — the intangibles are just as useful to us as the logistics of the business plan when it comes to developing a brand. The main components of brand strategy include: 

• Research - Since a brand is about your relationships with all of your key stakeholders, it makes sense to talk to them. The research phase of branding is an in-depth study of how your stakeholders’ define their relationship with you. Through this research, a message can be crafted that speaks directly to the concerns of your stakeholders.
• Message Development - Finding the right language to express the unique qualities of your brand helps to create compelling and meaningful consumer experiences. The process of developing architecture around language creates a guiding document that helps keep all brand stakeholders, and especially your customers, “on-message.”
• Strategic Planning  - A plan for integrating your brand is sometimes referred to as a “Brand Map.” This document identifies all points of contact your business has with it’s stakeholders and defines the best way to reach out to them with your messaging.
• Brand Integration - Integration of your brand into every aspect of your business helps all key stakeholders learn to speak about your business the same way you understand it.

ASSET CREATION  Today consumers have more choices than ever before: more choices of products and services, more choice of media and media messaging. It’s hard to get noticed, let alone be remembered. A brand helps consumers make a decision. If they connect to your brand, if they like who you are, what you do and what you stand for, then it’s an easy decision to say yes. And that’s important when your brand can help improve our environment and will really make a difference in the world. To begin broadcasting your message, the following assets are what make up your marketing toolkit:

• Bulleted “sales” presentation (see diagram) for investor audience
• Technology Illustration & simple explanation of benefits
• Marketing Copy targeted towards investors & partners
• Further explanation of benefits of product
• Campaigns & promotions for resellers
• Paper system and Business cards
• Identity Development
• Trade show assets
• PR campaign 
• Website
• Naming
• White papers
• Enhanced website
• E-mail newsletters
• Customer & vendor surveys
• Print brochure (on recycled paper)
• Interactive technology demonstrations
• Marketing metrics system for tracking results
• Secondary “sales” presentation for round B investment
• Direct mail campaign to insert into energy provider’s collateral

 MARKETING PLAN A marketing plan takes all of the research, messaging, and assets, and lays it out as a series of campaigns over a period of time and media type. For Green Energy companies, especially in start up mode, it is important to leverage the marketing tactics that provide the greatest broadcast of the message with the lowest investment. For this reason, much of traditional advertising and print collateral becomes less practical, and the web marketing tactics take the front burner. When planned and executed properly, an internet based campaign is a low-investment, high-return approach to reaching your target audience and giving them the structure to provide you with valuable word of mouth advertising. Spoonbend has been offering these services to companies for over 15 years. www.spoonbend.com, or fillout the contact us form and check marketing as an area of interest.