green energy marketing for

 “Can I Borrow Your Megaphone?”

The start-up company has needs related to funding their business and getting the human resources needed to promote, lead and raise money for the business in the early stages of life. From a technology perspective they need an Ad Hoc “Web CIO” who can correctly set-up their digital strategy for the internet relating to the following areas:

Promotion of their technology and management team to the extent that it builds a compelling case for investment. A website of this nature is relatively small and does not have much content that changes nor does it have many pages. There are a few baseline items, which are must haves for the site.

1.  An overall blueprint for growth to be able to support all the other applications a typical company will have and the interoperability of these applications with the main site or micro-sites related to the business.

2.  Search Engine Optimization in the “DNA” of the website. DNA is a correct word picture for this point because it is the building block of life. In the case of a website it is the essence of the site and how it is “tagged” for search. It is essential that the person who designs the website not only be a proficient web programmer, but they must also be part business analyst and knowledgeable in Search Engine DNA. This means they must be able to assist the management team of the company in determining what their target audience is related to the phase of growth they are in and what they are trying to accomplish, be it raising money or attracting partners.

3.  Basic connectivity to simple communications platforms such as email, calendaring and collaborative work groups. This can be in the form of an intranet on the backend of a website which allows “need to know” users access to these types of collaborative tools or it can be in the form of a micro-site which could be a stand alone or linked site complimentary to the main site. The reason for these being web based is based on cost and usability. With the advent of open source code and web based email and collaboration applications from Google, MSN and Yahoo a startup company can have fairly robust collaboration tools for a fraction of the cost of what they were 5 years ago with none of the hardware or support costs needed to run proprietary applications.

4.  The start-up green energy website should have a place for web-based videos. This is not a must but a ‘nice-to-have”. We have already seen the jump to web-based videos on websites. In 2005 there were very few, but now on every large site we expect to see a 15-30 sec video on something. Fortunately the costs of getting a web video done is much less expensive than it was in 2005.

There are a cacophony of audiences a green energy company must address when it comes to marketing themselves in the start-up phase. The audiences are:

• Investors
• Suppliers and Partners 
• Customers 
• Employees (most focus on officers and management) 
• The Press
• Academia 
• The Public 
• Corporations 
• Government

Each audience wants to hear a different story, each of them exist in their own worlds, they will not find you if you do not “meet them where they are”. This is called “The Attention Economy . The vast majority of us that surf the web today only go to 10-20 different urls for all the things we need. So how does the green energy company reach all these audiences with the right communications, which is in the right context, at the right time to the right person?

A marketing plan needs to be crafted that directs communications at each different audience. 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. At a very simple level, “branding” is about finding THE RIGHT IDEA, and then GETTING THE IDEA RIGHT.

A good start-up toolkit includes: • Messaging (Brand Message Architecture) • Surveys of staff, vendors, and potential customers to find key selling points • Name • Logo • Color palette • Marketing Copy targeted towards investors & partners • Technology Illustration & simple explanation of benefits • Website • White papers • Bulleted “sales” presentation • Business cards

Lets have virtual coffee and we will share how the having a digital landscape map and unified marketing plan can solve this dilemma.