Sustainability is at the forefront of everyone’s minds right now. We’re all trying to learn new ways to decrease our carbon footprint and make a positive impact on the planet when we buy. New digital marketing strategies could be the answer to a greener, more sustainable way of selling and buying.
The ‘Triple P’ evaluation model
The ‘Triple P’ method is an evaluation model that stands for People, Planet and Profit.
The People aspect considers all stakeholders involved in the process, including the employees, those involved in the supply chain, and customers who purchase the products. Essentially, this part is everyone involved with the entire process.
Ensuring that all these people are working to the best ability and are happy with the products is paramount for success. This can be improved through things like a good HR team to support the people working for your business, opportunity for customer feedback, and reliable, trustworthy suppliers to work with.
The Planet aspect is how your business and its operations affect the planet and our surroundings. Are you working in an eco-friendly manner? It’s important to work efficiently to drive the results that you want as a company, but it’s also important to consider the impact this might have on the environment and your surrounding areas.
Some businesses have aimed to tackle this with their bid to cut out emissions and become a carbon-neutral business, such as Patagonia, who have also pledged to put 1% of every sale towards the preservation and restoration of our environment.
It doesn’t have to be on such a large scale though. If you’re a smaller business that isn’t able to commit as much money and time, there are other ways to help. Some companies have also helped their local environment by allowing their staff a volunteer day or afternoon to help with clearing up local parks and educating their community about the importance of sustainability. Small changes such as these can have a large impact on your immediate area.
The Profit side of things is ensuring that you are ethically producing profit and can sustain your business in a way that doesn’t harm others. It’s important that staff and suppliers have a good work/life balance and can enjoy prosperous, fulfilling lives.
Labour shouldn’t be forced and working conditions should be up to standard. There should be no human trafficking or modern slavery through the production of your products. Your business should also generate jobs in your local environment and increase the prosperity of the area, rather than cutting corners to source cheaper, sometimes unethical labour elsewhere.
Ways digitalisation can help you as a business
Going digital isn’t only a great help to the environment but also a good way to market your products to a wider audience. Through things like ecommerce platforms and social media, you are able to target customers on a global scale if you want to.
By forgetting about paper flyers, postal marketing, and other means that require you to waste a lot of physical resources, you can instead target your audience with email marketing. Email marketing automation is better for the environment, can be set up easily, and allows you to connect with your customers via their devices rather than with paper copies that often end up in the bin before they are read.
Creating a wide online presence, particularly within social media platforms, will help you to target younger audiences, showcasing your products in new and exciting ways that will catch the eyes of potential new clients and customers.
If your business is in the ecommerce space then increasing your digital focus will reduce the need for retail space and associated power costs. You can also commit to more environmentally friendly packaging, for example using plant-based inks, reducing freight space by using pouches instead of cartons, and by using fully recyclable, or better still reusable, materials.
By making the most of the digital marketing tools that you have, you can do several tasks at once through the same platform or supplier. This kind of software can also help your team to work both autonomously and in a coordinated fashion, to task rather than by supervision. It enables your team to work from a location that suits them and cut down on wasteful commuting.
Used correctly digitisation can provide you with a faster and more efficient way of marketing and running your business, while reducing the impact on people and planet.