It is Earth Day this Saturday (April 22nd), so I wanted to give you some unique Earth Day marketing ideas for the day. But, unlike many who use this day to greenwash their marketing efforts, I want to focus on green promotion that doesn’t damage the planet.
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes events across the globe; organised by EarthDay.org, 1 billion people in more than 193 countries participate.
Earth Day Marketing Ideas
Greenwashing is a common ethical issue in marketing. Greenwashing is where companies claim to be environmentally friendly or sustainable without implementing such procedures. They obscure the truth about the green credentials of their company, services or products, or at worst, outright lie to cover up a terrible green rap sheet. If you do care about the environment and want to hold your company to a higher standard, here are some Earth Day marketing ideas to follow.
Shout About Your Credentials
Hopefully, you don’t need to do greenwashing because your company is doing its best to reduce its impact. So, instead of hiding the truth, you can use this day to promote it. Here are some ideas about what you might want to tell your audience.
- How are your products and services better for the environment? Do you use recycled or natural materials that have a lower impact on the planet? Do you use renewable energy and quality tech to reduce energy usage?
- Talk about what green initiatives you are doing. Have you recently switched to a green hosting company? Do you plant trees for every sale? Are you working with environmental charities? Don’t be shy; share your green news.
- Lastly, don’t forget the dull stuff. Just because it seems a bit dull doesn’t mean you can’t use it for marketing. Are you a completely paperless office? Do you have recycling bins for plastic and metal? Have you installed a low-flow on your office toilets? These little things are all about adding up to big things.
If you want some more ideas, check out my article, What is eco-friendly marketing?. Or read How to Market Boring Products for an interesting insight into talking about the dull stuff.
Give some helpful tips
Simply use Earth Day as the opportunity to share your wisdom and experience around green issues. You can share tips and tricks on your social media, emails or blog. These could be general green tips, but I think it’s also nice to talk about green issues relevant to your niche or industry.
- General tip sharing – Sometimes, it’s good to leave little reminders about green things. My go-to reminder for people around this time is to clear out their phones. From blurry photos, videos of you accidentally filming the ground, or countless downloaded restaurant menus (Guilty as charged), it’s a good time to delete the unwanted and unneeded.
- Tips relating to your business – You can share green activities which are helpful for your customers. Some ideas include; how to properly dispose of your packaging, how to recycle your goods, can a product be upcycled at the end of it’s current use.
- Lastly, you can also share tips relating to your niche. For example, I might share tips on how to greenify your website or your marketing ( A bit like this article).
Read more about Green Marketing and ethical & sustainable marketing tips.
Don’t Post at all
The Internet uses a hell of a lot of energy; if the Internet were a country, it would be the 4th largest polluter. So, the most environmentally friendly thing you can do this Earth Day, is possibly not post anything at all. From the energy used to create imagery to the time spent Googling, through to every time someone views your creation, and it’s storage in the cloud, a single post on social will always have an impact on resources. So, it’s a bit of an odd ethical marketing tactic, a bit like Patagonia’s Don’t buy this jacket campaign, but it could be the best thing you do this Earth Day.