Communicating your message in a sustainable way has never been easier. IABC/Toronto has just released their Green Guide for Communicators.  Written by Frances Roberts, SR Consultant and Writer with Push Communications, this FREE downloadable PDF is an impressive and comprehensive new resource for those looking for advice about how to 'go green'.

Within its 32 pages, you will find green communication strategies, a complete directory listing of environmentally friendly resources, and a how-to guide for greening your marketing communication materials, as well as green trends, PR and social media resources. For more information about greening your communications, visit Push Communications.

Now that the panic is over, what’s the next stage?

As business and marketing communications writers we must steer away from catastrophic and apocalyptic thinking – the spectre of doom and gloom is counter-intuitive.

Companies that engage our services are now looking at the turnaround.  Now that the sky isn’t falling, where do we firmly plant our feet? I think it behooves us to provide counsel where it’s needed.  One of my mediation friends gave me some good advice about dealing with chaotic and uncertain situations:  Stay resolutely constructive!

When things get better it tends to be a maturing process.  Our illusions get a reality check, but our courage and determination to survive no matter what the cause, give us the stamina and resilience to change and adapt.

Look for ways your clients have strengthened their brand and positioning, how they’ve let go of what doesn’t work anymore, and become aware of strengthened belief in their product or service.  Faith isn’t about omnipresence, it’s simpler than that. No, faith is about what’s left after we go through a harrowing experience and everything has been stripped away.  It’s the key to a true identity and for that reason, it’s golden. 

Tackling a client's first foray into B2C marketing has been an uphill climb.  Whereas this client's B2B marketing is highly focused on reaching the decision-maker and defining the problems that can be analyzed and presented with options, by contrast to B2B, B2C marketing has seemed overly emotional, cheap and garish.

While demand for my client's services has never been better, striking the right emotional tone and validating the customer's situation is new and there's not a little anxiety about entering this new territory. 

So my strategy in leading this client into the B2C arena is ensuring that the brand's attributes are well defined and positioned.  After that, it's a matter of looking for ways to tease out a more client-facing positioning and finding that elusive emotional hook without resorting to hype and sizzle.

Part of a consultant’s role involves a little hand holding and emotional insight to get the client into a comfort zone and excited about going for the new direction.  Being solely a technical SME on branding can miss the point because relationships are built incrementally and trust is one of the key issues in any partnership. 

I find that the money can often take a back seat when working with new areas of business development.  Like any start-up, it's an up front investment.  The results that count are the conversion rates that become the new business. Nothing pleases me more than to see the satisfaction a client gets when new directions transform from anxiety and chaos into confidence and measurable ROI. 

By all accounts when communicating about green practices, it must be done well. More and more, as customers want to buy brands that demonstrate a responsibility towards the environment. The communicator’s role is becoming pivotal in communicating how our companies/clients inform the public about green efforts, products, and services. Although these are early days and more work needs to be done, some leading edge best practices are already emerging.

It’s a relatively new field. Because of this fact, experienced communicators remark that leadership has often come from within the corporate communications team. Their collective advice:

• Resist getting trendy. Stay on a message that’s tangible and real, backed-up with facts
• Work with and keep NGO’s onside by including them in the information loop
• Harness everything you’ve got and leverage different media and channels, different styles to find the right mix for your audiences
• For the best PR results, work locally and keep your environmental messaging honest and meaningful
• Get your executives out to media events
• Align with sector benchmarking that goes beyond industry regulation
• Do involve others in your sector who don’t have an environmental track record
• Internally, use impact and influence. Make your S.W.O.T. count with an environmental argument that’s relevant to improving the bottom line
• Listen to employee’s ideas, specially when they call you on wasteful practices towards the environment

When communicating, keep in mind that environmental values embedded within your company’s culture count more than any aspirational messaging with customers and employees.

There’s some important work yet to do on greening our communications practices. We need to influence the mainstream media on running more stories about environmental responsible action. We must find effective ways to open up channels and harness the power of social media to talk to customers about our environmental report card. And we must ensure that the environment isn’t the wonder child of any particular department, that there’s consistency throughout a company. Finally, we have to find ways to reward employees who bring their passion for environmental sustainability to their place of work, as well create an awards system, validating companies that are making a difference to sustaining our earth’s environment.