Green

Marketing

Green Building Program

Marc Richmond, Austin Energy Green Building Program512-505-3701, marc.richmond@austinenergy.com

Marketing Pathway

A. Get Your Customer’s Attention!

B. Provide the Education!

C.Tell Them How to Use It!

What Does Your Customer Value?

• Comfort• Aesthetics• Dollar savings (utilities and maintenance)• Health/Productivity• Environmental protection

and• Sense of Community, being like and with others• Sense of Uniqueness, making individual choices• Solutions to their pains of owning a building• Things that are, fashionable, sexy, new, high-tech• What their neighbors or competitors are doing

Get Your Name and Concept Out!

• Sell the concept constantly (every time you talk about your business)

• Advertise in local papers, magazines, large employer newsletters, newcomers magazines, radio, web sites

• Use a green logo or terms on all of your marketing materials

• Get free/lost cost advertising in newsletters, flyers, web sites. Use co-op advertising to share costs

Open Up!Get on Home ToursHave an open houseWrite an article

Informal classes at the local CollegeSeminars at Home Shows, Fairs, Professional Organization meetings

Teach a Class!

Make a Newsletter

E-mail and Web Sites are essentialInclude information, software, etc. Customer and Associate testimonialsGet links to you and link to associatesTell your green story

Minimum, web hosting (20 MB = $20/mo.) A domain costs about $25 per month

Set up about $120Pay a kid $15-40/hr to build a website

Get Wired!

It’s more than a telephoneGet the most out of your message!

Think of your phone message as an ad. (“You have reached ABC Builders, creators of high quality, green homes”).Ask them for a name and address and send them a brochure and card.Offer them the opportunity to e-mail you or visit web site.Return calls promptly!!!!

But don’t forget low tech

Business Cards (Affiliated Businesses, Bulletin Boards, Drawings)Postcard Mailers, Door hangers, Brochures, FlyersPens, key chains, magnetsPhone Book (make ad work for you)Word of Mouth (talk to everyone, because your potential customers are everywhere)Referrals from clients and associates

Green Building Professionals

are in the Austin Yellow Pages

Make sure your signs are visible!

Get Your Customer’s Attention!Follow the pain in your marketing! • Paying too much for utility bills? Uncomfortable

in your building? Does it feel stuffy?• Do you get allergies from being inside?• Spending time/money fixing up your building?• Don’t you hate that window condensation

dripping onto the drywall sill, making it swell up and grow mold?

• Does that new paint smell give you a headache?• Doesn’t it get hot in the west side in the

afternoon?• Are you ready to pay for a major indoor air

quality lawsuit settlement?

Communicate the Problem!To tell them the value of Green Building• Energy, water, and resource efficiency,

durability, health, community• Improved product quality• Improved worker productivity / occupant health

Tell them the environmental realities• Air & water pollution• Use of non-renewable resources• Loss of community

Communicate the Problem!Frame issue so it’s understood and internalized

• “If you add up all the leaks in your home, it would equal a 4x4 foot hole in your living room wall.”

• “Having a lot of insulation and also having a single pane window is like wearing a down jacket in the winter without closing up the zipper.”

• “Why don’t you wear a black T-shirt in the hot sun? So, why do you have a black roof?”

• “Air and water move in exactly the same fashion. HVAC duct systems typically leak 25%. Do you let your plumber give you 25% leakage? Why do you let your HVAC contractor get away with it?”

Communicate the Problem!Show real world examples & demonstrations

• Give them statistics, case studies, & fact sheets

• Offer them a home tour, and physical samples.

• Let them smell it, touch it and see it in action.

• Offer testimonials: “Your neighbors, the Smiths, used to pay $400/mo. in their old home and were uncomfortable. Their new home costs them only $150/mo. and they are soooocomfortable now. They even have extra money to buy that big hot tub you wished you had.”

Communicate the Problem!Sell a solution to the pain! Sell benefits, not features.Sell what they need, NOT what you think they need

• They are in pain from discomfort and high utility bills. Show them how to save money and how to achieve comfort. They have an air conditioner in the first place, because it’s hot and humid and they are in pain, not because its a nifty new technology.

• Don’t sell them on lowering their humidity in their home. Sell a way to avoid that aggravating window condensation and a reduction in mold growth opportunities.

Communicate the Problem!

• Don’t sell them on lowering their bills. Sell them on the concept of not giving money to the utility company.

• Don’t sell them on saving the environment. This is way down the list of priorities for most people and the exact reason we are in an environmental mess. This is a very secondary, “feel good” type of attribute that you can throw in at the end, but it is not a mobilizing concept unless that is your type of customer.

Spend Time Educating Your Client!

• Use green building resources: GBP staff, sourcebooks, brochures, checklists, fact sheets, web site, library, videos, seminars, case studies, samples, checklists

• Frame the problem and the solution. Give your customer easy answers, when appropriate, and be prepared to give longer, knowledgeable and clear answers, when appropriate.

• Give them an easy yardstick for analyzing costs. When selling buildings, tell buyers what the estimated utility dollars per square foot will be for their building. Utility dollars per square foot is like miles per gallon for cars.

Get customers to take action!

Let it be trendy or fashionable for the moment.• People will pay a lot of money for trendy, but how

much will they pay to save $20 per month on their utility bill? Utility bills are boring!!! Exposure in all the magazines makes it popular.

Create a sense of urgency!• “Everybody’s doing it, so don’t get left behind.”• “Everybody’s saving money. Why aren’t you?”• “Your neighbors have a comfortable, low

maintenance home. Too bad you don’t.”• “Your competition has a really productive

worksplace. Too bad you don’t.”

Overall Strategies for Success

Make a commitment:• To getting more educated about green building.

This means coming to seminars, reading about it, and incorporating this in your business. Send your staff to classes, and attend conferences.

• Make many of the green building concepts part of your way of doing business. Don’t ask your clients if you can use no-VOC paint, just specify it and tell them if you want why you use it. People need to be educated and you’re supposed to be the professional on this subject.

Overall Strategies for Success

• Be a leader and not a follower. Work only with fellow leaders, because the middle is slow and the followers will always stay there.

• Piggyback on what others are doing (USGBC, HBA, NARI, AIA, SES, Habitat for Humanity)

• Sell better building, not green building. Keep it simple. Look for the 80% solution and for cost-effective, long-term solutions.

Overall Strategies for Success

• Use professional sales tactics: Listen and let the customer tell you what is important to them. Sell what the customer wants not what you want. When you’re done selling, stop and move on to the next customer or item to sell.

• Americans like to have more! We are far from a frugal society. We like to feel a sense of abundance. Sell the concept that you will get more with green building; more comfort and more money in your pocket. More free time with reduced maintenance. Better health in your life.

Overall Strategies for Success

• Educate yourself. Always look for a new angle or tactic. Look at others and learn from their mistakes. Go to conferences, learn, network, read, and then incorporate your learning into your business.

• Talk about green building all day long.Always push, persevere, and use whatever you can.

Green

MarketingYou Have the Power!