When one conceives of a green content strategy, this can take one of three directions—or even all three at once. Sound like a Princess Bride remash in the making? Let’s streamline and focus then, less we turn into a not-to-be-sought-after DVD in the five-buck-Chuck bin. When creating an eco-friendly content strategy, focus on the three Rs—recycle, reuse, and refuse.
Connection to Green Marketing
If you are in the market for eco-friendly content strategy, it helps to start with the concept of green marketing. The Balance states, “Green marketing refers to the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits.” According to Forbes some of the top brands in the eco-world to source inspiration from include:
- TOMS
- EcoTools
- Recyclebank
- Loomstate
These brands make eco-friendly their main mission, and you can clearly see this in their marketing campaigns. Why do you want to start here? Because to be an eco-conscious content strategist, you have to understand what being eco-conscious actually is. The best way to do this is with the online marketing resources available to you from the companies doing their eco-best online.
Supplement Your Content Strategy Research
But you are not just copy-catting their content strategies. Look for different sources of inspiration. For example, with Recyclebank the site provides a financial incentive for web visitors to return day after day, which is why the site has been around for more than a decade.
You can earn free magazine subscriptions, and other items, by answering trivia and reading content on the green world. Learn more about the actual eco-friendly processes used in the environment and get your green terminology down pat.
Added bonuses with Recyclebank:
- As a content strategist, you are also getting free resources to use for content inspiration.
- If you are also a writer, you can save hundreds of dollars each year on subscriptions to magazines for you to pitch.
When researching a brand, you get insight into the meta-language of going green, which can be translated into your content strategy. Things like the latest keywords and phrases in the green universe will certainly help your strategy.
Find out what the current topics, such as going green by investing in pressure cookers or properly disposing of chipped dishware. Translate these concepts into your green concept for some serious meta-level strategy that takes eco to the next level.
Eco-Friendly Content Strategy Example
The ideas of a pressure cooker and chipped dishware as relative to the eco-friendly strategy could look like this for a client in the green restaurant/grocery industry:
- Create demand with a brand by focusing on the eco-benefits of a pressure cooker, i.e., save money and time on cooking at home, which also reduces dependence on fossil fuels from transportation
- Follow that the content strategy needs to revolve around the “pressure cooker concept.”
- Create content that gets the reader boiling hot and ready to explode with action, while increasing traffic to the site by using the least amount of resources, i.e., content in the form of blog posts and social media
- Gain traffic also from the eco-friendly concept of using pressure cookers, i.e., include recipes for pressure cookers and InstaPots specifically to increase food-related traffic from green web users
Consider other ways to draw inspiration from a brand that does eco well, and assimilate that information into your own content strategizing processes.
Other Ways to Go Green
We all know that regurgitating the same ole content strategy site after site is no good for anybody. Try these methods instead for a more eco-conscious content strategy.
Grassroots and Organic Strategy
Go organic and grassroots by starting from a blank slate with each client. If you are working off of a template or existing style, such as your own strategy-style, back away from this. For a truly natural strategy that best flows and grows with the needs of the client, you have to start off that way. No cookie-cutter content strategies.
Limited Influence in a Strategy
If you are trying to get a content strategy put together, the last thing anyone needs is to tack on more. Streamline your strategy. Avoid packing in stuff simply for the sake of stuff when creating a strategy. Also, focus more on the client’s goals with their content strategy—rather than the framework of the strategy itself. This goes back to the organic reach and the ability to make a strategy work for each individual client. After all, every brand wants to stand out—content strategy must, too.
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