1. If you distribute, or plan on distributing a newsletter or catalogue, consider electronic distribution only. It saves money too. If you work with distributors, encourage them to convert their catalogues to electronic format only. I think everybody would secretly love to deal with less paper.
2. If you do print marketing material, then order only what you need and resist the temptation to bulk buy just so you can get the volume discount. Work with smaller digital printing companies that can turn your jobs around fast allowing you to order brochures as you need them. If you distribute marketing material over a large geographical area, find a franchise printing company that has locations in most of your major markets and coordinate with them to get material printed and delivered locally.
3. If your once 1-page folded brochure is bulging at the seams and rapidly turning into a 4-page mini-book, or even worse, a presentation folder packed with singles, considering putting some of the information on your website. A brochure should be a teaser on your product, not a manual.Your website has the added advantage of allowing you to communicate directly with your customers.
4. Ask your printers about recycled paper and vegetable based inks.
5. Strive for less packaging. Question the purpose of every piece of packaging and, if it’s really just for marketing, consider ditching it and then advertising the fact that you have used less packaging. Go for minimal, it will become the trend.
6. If you market packaged goods, use packaging made from recycled material and if you use plastic, make sure it has a plastic symbol on it indentifying the type of plastic used. Consider packaging made from flax or hemp fibre and avoid first-use wood fibre.
7. Ok, this one is a bit of a repeat of number 2, but it’s worth repeating. When it comes to buying your labels or jars or whatever, resist the temptation to over-buy just to get the discount. I have spent many years in the food manufacturing industry and have seen so much packaging thrown away without ever fulfilling its purpose. Not only does the excess packaging harm the environment, it harms your bottom-line and ties up valuable cash in useless inventory. For most small to medium size companies, it is better to pay a little more for each unit and keep your cash free than it is to try and constantly drive your margins down.
8. If you specifically market some sort of consumable (even motor oil would apply), consider bulk or refillable containers geared towards your loyal customers who won’t care as much about all the labelling and packaging. It could even end up increasing your sales because you get to pass on a discount to them which customers always love.
9. Give yourself an honest environmental rating and put it on the package. A popular term is carbon rating (or carbon footprint) and ecological footprint. This might seem like a daunting task but take baby steps; start by calculating the footprint of your office environment and move inward.
10. And last but not least, if you do something that is responsible, flaunt it – but be sure you can back it up. Document everything you do (electronically of course – PDF format is best).
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