Five-Step Guide to Marketing a Business As Green

In the world of marketing, green is the new black.

Have a recycling program? That's green. Use LED light bulbs? That's green, too. Heck, if you go so far as to encourage employees to carpool to work, you might as well be able to say your business
is green.

And yet, green marketing--that is, successful green marketing--isn't nearly as easy as it seems.

It turns out there's more to eco-consciousness than simply being conscious of the environment. We asked a number of entrepreneurs and experts for insights on the components of green marketing that works. The gist: Green only yields green when messaging blends transparency, practicality and savvy.

Marketing your business as green is a great idea--provided your customers are into that sort of thing. Executives at Bardessono, a luxury hotel and spa in Yountville, Calif., learned this the hard way.

When the 62-room property opened in 2009, executives trumpeted the hotel's Platinum status from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program--the resort was one of only two such honored hotels in the U.S. While the facility was a hit among environmentalists and green-obsessed journalists, it struggled with perhaps its most important group of constituents: customers.

The problem? Travelers accustomed to the luxury hotel experience perceived "green" to mean "sparse" and "uncomfortable" and booked elsewhere.

"Our messaging was great for occupancy but not so good for the average daily rate," says Jim Treadway, the hotel's general manager. "We had lost sight of the fact that our core customers value a luxury experience above all else."

Naturally, in 2010 Bardessono changed its tune, tweaking marketing messages to emphasize luxury first and green second. Almost overnight, bookings--at full price, mind you--soared.

"It took us a while to realize the best message for our customers was, 'We're a world-class hotel and, oh yeah, we're green,'" Treadway says. "That might not be intuitive, but when you consider that your customers are the top priority, targeting your messages to their lifestyle certainly makes sense."

Describing something as "green" can be dicey, since the word often means different things to different people.

In one instance, it could summarize an off-the-grid production facility powered by solar energy. In other cases, it could signify the existence of a telecommuting program that helps reduce a carbon footprint.

Jenny Grayson, a Los Angeles-based consultant who helps companies go green, says it behooves companies to be totally honest and to define exactly what "green" means to them.

"Everyone right now, from Clorox to Huggies, is marketing themselves as 'natural,' but what does that really mean?" she asks. "Environmentally savvy consumers can become quickly disillusioned with a company when it doesn't live up to its eco-friendly claims," or when it doesn't explain how it's eco-friendly in the first place.