If you’ve heard it once, then you’ve heard it a thousand times. “Go green!” everyone says at work. But, what does that really mean? Sure, you opt to print fewer funny pictures to hang on your office billboard, buy reusable cups for the water cooler and encourage everyone to ride their bicycles to the office, but does that go far enough?
Green integrated marketing offers new avenues for sustainability, efficiency and cost savings on a macro level. Cut down on energy-wasting and pollution-generating products like newspapers, magazines, brochures, business cards, flyers or even coupons and think more along the lines of internet-based marketing and advertising. This is not to say you can’t ever use those media, but rather to remind you that there are plenty of other possibilities out there to integrate into your marketing strategies. Heck, here at xiik we still use business cards and do quite a bit of print design and advertising, but the majority of our work is centered around interactive marketing, which tracks important data and offers more measurable results. The difference lies in how intelligently you proportion each marketing tactic. Use all media — but focus your use of natural resources to the most targeted audience possible. The result is a more finely tuned strategy, a more effective use of budget, and a quantifiable improvement in your company’s sustainability efforts.
So what are some ways to cut back on costs and efficiently run your business? There are plenty, but I’d like to highlight one that breaks into creativity I thought I’d never see — and it’s so simple! A firm from the Netherlands called SPRANQ developed the Ecofont, an eco-friendly font! Choosing this font when printing uses 20% less ink because the design employs the genius idea of cutting tiny holes out of each letter — thus reducing the printable area of each letter and also your ink costs. At the same time, there is no loss in readability since the letter outlines remain intact! Did I mention it’s free to download?!
Like the Ecofont, there are plenty of resources and creative techniques you can integrate into your current marketing and business processes. Turn a mailing campaign into an email blast or email your memos instead of printing them. Turn your standard brochure into an interactive online experience with video, slideshows, games, or other participatory activities — you’ll better engage your clients and reduce printing costs. Or send a well-designed print piece to a select audience and include a call-to-action in it that drives them to your website. At the pace the internet and online marketing is going, paper materials will continue to decline. Take the Amazon Kindle for instance — an electronic device that consumes a very low amount of energy to power downloadable books that you read right off the screen. The screen’s luminance has been designed to reduce usual eye strain and mimic paper. Apple is working on a similar tablet concept, rumored to be released in early 2010. So, join the bandwagon and start leveraging technology to cut back and be more efficient. Save mother earth. All the cool kids are doing it!
