Sparx’s Circular Economy Marketing Advice Masterpost

If we want to make the world better, we need to transition to the circular economy.

Sparx is determined to help amplify the good being done by purpose-driven organizations like yours — we even have our own 3Ps of Sustainability Practices (Philosophy, Possibility, and Profitability) which we use to approach marketing in the circular economy space. As such, we’ve written articles over the years to help changemakers share their sustainability stories, educate individuals about the circular economy, and expand their reach to a wider audience. 

We’ve compiled this masterpost to share advice and highlights from several of our circular economy articles and to provide quick and easy access to each blog post. Keep scrolling for tips you can start using right away! 

Table of Contents

1. Overcome Challenges Unique to Sustainable Marketing
2. Avoid the Appearance of Greenwashing Your Brand
3. Reframe Consumers as Investors
4. Help Your Audience Rethink Waste
5. Use Storytelling

Overcome Challenges Unique to Sustainable Marketing

When it comes to convincing people to choose your company, you may face specialized marketing challenges as a purpose-driven organization. 

Here are some ways to overcome these challenges:

• Communicate Your Value to Customers: Include an “About” page on your website that showcases your backstory, goals, and impacts. Periodically share this page and related content on your social media platforms, emails, and advertisements to educate new customers and remind existing customers of the impact of your good work.

• Rise to the Challenge of Meeting Higher Customer Expectations: Ensure your marketing-adjacent user experiences, such as your website and your customer service channels, are solid and easy to use, so customer satisfaction is not only met, but exceeded. 

• Stand Out From the Competition: Focus on what makes your company unique – and get specific. Communicate these differences, and their impacts, through your marketing efforts. Make sure you have a distinct visual identity (i.e. logo, fonts, imagery, and colour palette), and tone of voice that fits with your values and resonates with customers. Keeping up with trends can also ensure that you’re also keeping up with (or getting ahead of) the competition. 

Read more: Challenges That Are Unique to Sustainable Marketing and How to Overcome Them 

Avoid the Appearance of Greenwashing Your Brand 

There is a growing trend of brands making unsubstantiated green marketing claims, which leads them to be under scrutiny for false or misleading information, known as greenwashing. This can lead businesses to lose money and customers, receive negative reviews, and even be the target for class-action lawsuits.  

To avoid being misconstrued as greenwashing, you can: 

• Get Your Business Tested and Certified: Before you go to market with your green product, it’s advised to get your product certified. CSA Group is a Canadian standards organization “dedicated to safety, social good and sustainability” that can evaluate your product and give you a sustainability mark. 

• Communicate Your Sustainable Efforts to Customers: Communicate your sustainable efforts in an accessible, honest, and repetitive way for your customers and stakeholders. 

Read more: How to Avoid Greenwashing Your Brand 

Reframe Consumers as Investors

In order to empower consumers and businesses to choose purpose-driven products and services over the “default option,” brands need to provide resources that will educate consumers about true cost. Once made aware of this information, perceived value will begin to shift and purchasers will be equipped to decide if a brand’s impact is really worth their investment.

• Explain Return on Investment: Consider treating customers more like investors. Investors want to feel that the reward is greater than the risk, they want to see tangible impact, and they want to know they can trust your brand. Also, by reframing customers as investors, the end game for companies and brands shifts to ensure they’ve considered how their customers can feel invested in seeing the brand they support thrive. 

• Draw Lessons from Luxury Brands: Consumers of luxury goods spend their money because it allows them to make a statement about the vision they want to project. If purpose-driven brands follow this example and clearly communicate why their products or services are worth the premium price, it will encourage customers to invest. 

• Report Your Impact: Whether you use social media, press releases, e-mail newsletters or other documentation, your steps to live out your vision can’t be taken in secret. They have to be a part of your communications flow, ingrained into your online presence, and something your audience can easily access through your website. Seventh Generation, for example, publicly presents their Climate Impact Report. 

• Build Trust with Third-Party Recognition: Certifications such as 1% for the Planet, along with other recognitions such as third-party partnerships, programs, initiatives, and event participation all indicate to your customers that they can trust they will have a real impact when they invest in your brand’s goods and services.

Read more: Mind the Value-Action Gap: How Reframing Consumers as Investors Can Improve Marketing Results for Purpose-Driven Brands  

Help Your Audience Rethink Waste

Sparx attended the Zero Waste Conference 2022, which got us inspired about building a waste-free future.

One of the most inspiring moments of the conference was when Katie Treggiden presented her closing remarks on rethinking and recategorizing waste. By redrawing our mental model of the idea of “waste” from something that should be discarded into something that has value, we can rethink all points along a production sequence to move towards circularity. 

By starting with the end in mind and recognizing that what we view as disruption is actually going back to the way we used to do things (i.e before mass production methods became the norm), we can start making tangible progress. Somewhat poetically, we have to go back to where we came from in order to truly move forward. 

Another important piece of advice given by Treggiden was that we are all capable of sustainably effecting change, and the best way to do that is to find the intersection of what we’re good at, what the world needs, and what we love doing – a piece of wisdom that is very close to the Japanese concept of ikigai. 

• Marketing the Circular Economy: We heard it in the words of Shane Koyczan that “stories burn lessons into our memories, they become how we remember.” These words resonate with our view that storytelling and marketing will be essential to moving hearts and minds to get on board with embracing the circular economy.  

Read more: Zero Waste Conference 2022 Recap: Inspiring a Flood of Change 

Use Storytelling

Storytelling will help you better engage, inspire, and lead your audience on the long journey to the day when the circular economy just becomes “the economy.” 

• Know Your Target Market Audience(s): Break down your audiences into primary and secondary groups through segmentation. It’s important that you get specific with your various audiences to understand who will have the most impact, and, therefore, who you should be reaching and creating resonance with. Depending on what sector you’re in within the circular economy space there may be unique audiences you’ll want to target.

• Determine Your Current Challenges: What are the current challenges/problems your organization is facing that marketing/communications could help overcome? Knowing these challenges can help you focus on a story that would appeal to your target audience and cause them to perform a desired action. 

• Use Storytelling to Reach Your Impact Goals: Storytelling allows you to activate the imagination of your audience, which can help you stand out from the noise, establish a deep connection, and ultimately get their buy-in.

Here are some tips for effective storytelling:

• Establish a brand voice if you don’t have one
• Choose a clear, concise message
• Include personal anecdotes when appropriate
• Look to others for inspiration. For example, check out Warby Parker’s Our Story page 

Read more: Why and How Circular Economy Companies in Canada Should Use Storytelling

Communicate Your Circular Economy Impact

Looking for marketing services to share your circular economy story or give a specific project a boost? The experts at Sparx would love to help amplify your efforts. Contact us for a free consultation.