Why Going Green Can Be Profitable (part 3 of 3)

As a tribute to Earth Day, which is tomorrow, we decided to share some of the things we’ve done at Fruition Interactive that’s not only good for the environment, but profitable.

In part two, we discussed the benefits of telecommuting as a way to not only reduce pollution and costs, but to increase employee productivity.  Here’s our final suggestion on what you can do to help your business go green while boosting your bottom line.

Green Marketing

Obviously, I had to sneak in marketing somehow.

According to Wikipedia, green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe.  Using this definition, green marketing could mean a lot of things.  To keep things simple, I’ve decided to take another route.  By recycling offline marketing online in order to be more cost effective and environmentally friendly.

Where to begin

Do you really need a brochure for customers to take home and throw out, or would a business card be enough to lead customers to your web site?  Again, try eliminating first then recycle what’s left.

With online marketing, content creation is important., however, many businesses struggle to create good original content on a regular basis.  Recycling content from one format to another or for different distribution channels solves this problem.

Here are just three ways you can recycle content for marketing purposes that are not only cost-effective and good for the environment, but can help build a loyal audience.

1. Press releases. Rewrite using a conversational tone for a blog post, without the hype or PR speak.

2. PowerPoint presentations. If you do a lot of public speaking using PowerPoint try recycling the content.  Presentations can be converted into a series of blog posts.  However, it can also be easily extended to Facebook, Twitter or even YouTube.

3. Interviews.  If you give interviews, the responses given can be aggregated into blog content.  Important: do not post content from an interview before the journalist or blogger who interviewed you has published their piece first.

Now it’s your turn

Whether you recycle offline content for online use, mine CRM conversations to develop an online FAQ or even turn your print newsletter into e-mail, there’s plenty of room for creativity when it comes to green marketing.  I’ve only given you a starting point.

My thesis is simple: switching to technology-based solutions not only reduces your carbon footprint and overhead, it can boost productivity and profits.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

BTW, if you want more ideas on how you can re-purpose your content you might be interested in our free guide, 9 Ways to Turbo Charge Your Online Marketing. It’s full of tips to help you make the most of the Web, search and social media marketing.

If you haven’t already, you can sign up here.

About the Author

Mitch Fanning is VP of Fruition Interactive.  He’s spent 11 years working with businesses of all sizes, from global brands to Canada’s fastest growing web start-ups ranked in the PROFIT 100.