Navigating the Journey:
Sustainability for Marketing and Sales
In our last blog, we examined the role of the Adoption Curve in evaluating where the best clients and prospects can be found for a sustainable product or service (see the blog link at the bottom of this page).
Develop a Target Prospect List Using the Adoption Curve
In our previous discussion, we explored how any supplier’s offer will have greater appeal to certain segments than others.
Simply put, innovative products are likely to appeal most to early adopters, while proven categories of solutions that compete on price and performance may be more attractive to the laggard segment.
Let’s suppose you’re a supplier who has used this adoption framework to identify a group of businesses potentially interested in your sustainability-related offer. The question then becomes: How do you determine the best persona or role to target for a marketing campaign?”
Where is your Customer on their Sustainability Journey?
For marketers, this involves looking at the typical activities in a business’s Sustainability Journey and assessing – where is my client or prospect on this journey?
For most businesses, the sustainability journey begins with evaluating their current standing in relation to sustainable business best practices. This step is often initiated by the need to comply with external compliance pressures, such as new regulatory requirements or standards demanded by customers or investors. To meet these external demands, a business typically starts by measuring its baseline and then setting sustainable business goals aimed at enhancing its sustainability practices.
Over time, as the early benefits of such initiatives start to come through—like more efficient resource use, resulting in lower energy bills and reduced emissions—these sustainability-related actions gain broader recognition among a wider group of executives.
Initially, compliance-driven projects foster an understanding of the business value of sustainability. They begin to raise awareness of what the business must do to become even more sustainable. The scale of the transition and the strategic approach required for further progress start to be widely recognised. These early achievements are further developed by champions of sustainable business within the organisation. Over time, these internal advocates highlight the benefits not only of resource efficiencies but also of the strategic business value of these projects. Eventually, the importance of sustainability becomes more widely acknowledged at the board level. At this stage, sustainable business principles are integrated into the corporate strategy, supported by internal metrics for departments and managers.
Implications of the Sustainability Journey for Marketing and Sales
The duration of this journey varies between businesses and can often take many years to reach this level of commitment. For suppliers, understanding where a particular client is on their sustainability journey is crucial for both marketing and sales. Mapping individual businesses to their respective positions on the sustainability journey greatly enhances marketing effectiveness. This means that the design of marketing campaigns and messages are aligned to meet your prospects precisely where they stand on their sustainability journey.
But what does this mean for sales?
For salespeople pursuing an opportunity, it’s crucial to identify which roles and functions are likely to influence the decision-making process regarding the adoption of goods or services that facilitate sustainable business practices.
The answer to this question will be the focus of our next blog.
Boost Your Sustainability for Marketing and Sales
If enhancing your sales and marketing effectiveness in the B2B sustainability sector is your goal, Cambium can help you to transform from effective to exceptional.
We specialise in helping suppliers by refining marketing messages and sharpening sales effectiveness, specifically tailored to those committed to sustainability. With our expert guidance, your business can achieve significant growth by engaging more successfully with the rapidly expanding market for sustainable business solutions and services.
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