New Ecopreneurial Business and Marketing Planning Includes Sustainability Initiatives

Ecopreneurship is an innovative approach to long-term business success that considers future sources of income and sustainability together. The goal in any new ecopreneurial business startup is to achieve environmentally friendly outcomes and competitive market positioning leading to improved sales and market share. Building a successful green business and marketing plan helps establish your company as an ecopreneurial business leader. This article outlines some of the major green business and marketing planning issues you need to consider to succeed in today's growing green economy.

Ecopreneurs, Consumers, and Producers

In the past decade, ecopreneurial businesses have been on the rise in response to consumer and producer trends that favor more sustainable practices. Many business leaders see green innovation as a way to manage a fast-moving and potentially disruptive consumer environment.

From a marketing point of view, green business just makes good business sense. Producers have seen additional pressure to document and certify green practices in response to increasing consumer knowledge and awareness. Ecopreneurial business and marketing plans take these trends into account in an overall strategic approach that builds on innovation and sustainability.

Green Business Plans

A solid green business plan begins with your company's vision, an analysis of the market environment, and an assessment of the expected or potential carbon footprint. Next, the plan outlines the goals, strategies, milestones, and relevant performance measures for the short and long term. Sustainability is infused throughout every section. This is a departure from many traditional business plans.

Sustainability initiatives are expressed as process, organizational, and product innovations that highlight budget and personnel issues, including how employees will interact with customers and with each other. Increasingly, employees are working remotely. While this approach is more environmentally friendly than using office environments, remote work requires you to consider different ways of communicating and sharing tasks. For example, it can be difficult to share and work together on large PDF files by email without diminishing the quality of images, fonts, and other file content, so finding the right document-sharing, editing, and be sure to compress a PDF online to make it easier to share.

Marketing Your Green Business

A green business marketing plan highlights the ways in which your company respects the principles and practices of sustainability yet serves the need to reach out to customers. All marketing materials and methods should complement your company's commitment to recycling and use of sustainable products. Green marketing plans prioritize digital media with green visuals rather than paper copy. If traditional flyers or other similar marketing tools are used, ensure they're printed with biodegradable ink on recycled paper.

Employing alternate means of transportation to bring your products to market may be another way to establish and showcase your sustainability bona fides. The green marketing plan also touches on the ways in which your employees and your company participate in environmental organizations and local community green initiatives. A commitment to the ecopreneurial approach in all sectors of living helps secure the benefits of a more sustainable business community.  

Plan for Success

Green business and marketing plans ensure that sustainability influences every aspect of your new ecopreneurial business.

To learn more, join your local chamber of commerce today!